Team Building, Not Group Building

Team is a word that gets thrown around a lot, all too often with very little meaning behind it. The single quality that strikes me the most about my new school is an inherent sense of trust between team members. The school leaders were able to establish trust amongst the staff within a matter of days, maybe even hours. Even in this short amount of time, this trust has allowed us to provide candid feedback to one another without fear of offending our teammates, and conversely has led us to expose ourselves to a surprising level of vulnerability. (Picture practicing a new taxonomy strategy in front of a group of people you have known for a matter of days, who also happen to be some of the smartest people you have ever met. Also, imagine role-playing a difficult conversation about a personal matter with your new principal in front of the entire staff.) A room full of highly educated people of this caliber jointly pushing their egos aside for the good of a common goal? Impressive, if not shocking.

Obviously, this is a bit of an anomaly. Even so, I wondered if this would be replicable in a traditional community school setting. My best guess is probably not. Even with the right leader, I do not think that this would be possible in a large, bureaucratic school district unless school leaders are given full control over the hiring and firing of staff, a luxury that my Dallas principal was never afforded. By finding teachers and support staff who were not only competent and highly qualified, but also aligned to the values of the school, my new principal was able to ensure “teacher buy-in” before day one.

I think back on my experience in Dallas with mix of pride and disappointment. We made amazing gains and improved the school by leaps and bounds, but we were never a team. It would have been virtually impossible to get everyone on the same page. In fact, I was told time and time again the attempts at consensus building were useless. There was always an assumption that certain teachers would fight against the vision of the school leader. So much wasted energy. What would we have accomplished with those kids if we had all been on the same page?

The blame in this case does not rest in the hands of individual campus leaders, but rather an overgrown urban school district spewing red tape in all directions. Dallas ISD is notorious for shifting teachers around, relocating them between schools with little consultation with the school leaders. Perhaps even worse, is the seemingly random placement of administrators. How would it ever be possible to accomplish anything with a random collection of individuals who may not even believe in the vision of the organization?

The autonomy granted to charter schools begins to solve this problem. Of course, this is a great responsibility for the charter school principals. Though I recognize that not all charter school teachers have such a positive experience with their principals, I am indescribably grateful for the leadership of mine. It seems that principals at traditional schools are not empowered to make these important decisions because of a fundamental lack of trust. Perhaps the next step would be to ensure that all school leaders, not just those in charters, are held to the same standard. But for now, score one point for the charters.