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CHAPTER 1

BUILDING TRUST AND HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS TO LEVERAGE ASSESSMENT

What we talk about is less important than how we talkabout it and why we talk about it.

—Angela Freese

It is the beginning of the first quarter at Kennedy Elementary School, and Emily is the veteran on her grade-level team, starting her third year of teaching second grade but her fifth year at Kennedy. Emily is well loved by her students and their families, and she has a true passion for teaching and learning. Her principal has begun to elevate her into leadership roles in the building, and she has recently been appointed chair of the building leadership team. Her energy is infectious, and she is a workhorse. She has the kind of stamina that a marathoner would envy.

Because of some retirements and transfers over the summer, Emily gets a brand-new set of teammates to begin this school year. Her three new colleagues are not new to teaching and bring a variety of experiences. Scott has moved from a neighboring district and has taught for seven years. Jordan has spent the last several years at home raising her children and is eager to get back into a school setting. Susan has just completed her master’s degree and transferred from a fifth-grade teaching position at another school in the district to a second-grade position at Kennedy. Everyone clicks from the beginning, and the team takes opportunities to get to know each other personally as well. The team members agree that this is shaping up to be one of their best years of teaching—simply because they have each other!

At the end of the first quarter, Emily feels as though she and her teammates are cruising along in their first year together. However, as the team prepares for its weekly collaborative team meeting one morning, there is an unfamiliar emotional dynamic in the room. The team has just given an end-of-quarter common assessment in mathematics. The team members worked together to design the assessment—choosing standards, writing the questions, setting the scoring criteria, and agreeing on what mastery would look like. They created a Google sheet to organize all their student data in one place so that they can discuss the data together. They looked forward to celebrating their work and seeing where they can improve as a team. The meeting agenda is set to review the data, highlight patterns and trends, and plan next steps for corrective instruction and enrichment.

Up to this point, the team’s meeting agendas helped lay the foundation for the team to function well together. The team members spent time developing their team norms and commitments, studied their state standards and reviewed the skills and concepts needed for students to show proficiency, developed lessons to teach those standards, and discussed instructional strategies they enjoy using with their students. They have not yet had an opportunity to review student work samples or analyze any collective data.

As the first-quarter team leader, Emily begins the meeting by reviewing the team’s collective commitments and then dives into the agenda. “Thanks to everyone for entering your data into our shared spreadsheet,” Emily begins. “Now we can see how all our students performed by class and as a whole grade level. We can really start to make meaning of how our teaching is impacting student learning!”

Jordan feels anxious about the meeting. She is skeptical of the process, and her data do not show the proficiency levels she hoped for. “I’m not so sure about this, Emily. I mean, why do we have to look at all our students together? Why can’t we just examine our own class data and make adjustments based on what our individual results show?”

“I know it feels strange the first time, Jordan,” says Scott. “We did something similar in my former district. Talking about our students as a whole helps us see our areas of strength as well as think about our next steps. Remember, one of our team norms is that we accept collective responsibility for each of our students. Working together as a team will make each of us stronger in our practice so that each of our students can become stronger.”

Jordan still isn’t convinced that this is the right plan for the team. With her data exposed, she feels as though people will pass judgment on her skill set as a teacher.

Susan, who has stayed quiet thus far, speaks up and echoes Jordan’s concerns. “I agree with Jordan. I just don’t understand why we have to put all our data out for everyone to see. Some of us did better than others. Emily, this whole data review thing was your idea, and your students got the best scores of any of us. Why did you really want us to share our data and compare us to each other?”

Emily sits in silence. She can’t figure out what has gone wrong. Here she is, with her teammates who have become both colleagues and friends, and they are divided. Emily realizes that, although they have strong congenial relationships, they have not prepared themselves for the collaborative opportunity that this data conversation presents. In the face of this dissonance, Emily wonders, “Where do we go from here?”

Ponder Box

Have you ever felt like Emily in this team’s story—you’ve designed great structures and been intentional in your planning, but all of a sudden, everything derails? Or have you felt like Jordan—vulnerable and exposed and fearful of what people might think about you and your teaching? How did you respond in these situations? What impact did your response have on your team? What next step should this team take?

This chapter will examine the importance of connecting all members of a school community so they produce the kind of effort that is needed to help all students succeed. As Fisher and Frey (2015) point out, “None of the relationships in the classroom is wholly separate from another” (p. 3). In this chapter, we examine relationships and the following aspects of building a collaborative culture: building the foundation of trust, defining collaboration, establishing norms and guidelines, valuing collective analysis, moving from positional hierarchy to collective commitment, and fostering healthy professional relationships.

• Zoom in: How do my behaviors and words show others that I am worthy of their trust?

• Zoom out: What strategies can we utilize to build trust among our colleagues? How will we intentionally plan opportunities within our organization to grow connections and develop relationships among members of teams?

• Panoramic: How might we seek, gather, discuss, and respond to evidence from our stakeholders that we are building trust and that positive adult relationships are strengthening the intended outcomes of our work as an organization?

Building the Foundation of Trust

Trust is the key when we ask educators to take risks, alter longstanding practices, and respond to assessment data in ways previously unseen. In cases where trust is lost, we see educators resort to doing their best in their own classrooms, and we get pockets of excellence instead of schools or districts of excellence. Educators spend their energy on self-protection and overcompliance—especially with those who have the power to discipline them—and this takes energy away from the collective purpose of the school.

Stephen Covey (2006) addresses the myths about trust in The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything. Table 1.1 provides a summary of these myths and the corresponding realities.

Table 1.1: Myths About Trust Versus Corresponding Realities

Myth	Reality
Trust is soft.	Trust is hard, real, and quantifiable.
Trust is slow.	Nothing is as fast as the speed of trust.
Trust is built solely on integrity.	Trust is a function of character (which includes integrity) and competence.
Either you have trust or you don’t.	Trust can be both created and destroyed.
Once lost, trust cannot be restored.	Though difficult, in most cases lost trust can be restored.
You can’t teach trust.	Trust can be effectively taught and learned.
Trusting people is too risky.	Not trusting people is a greater risk.
Trust is established one person at a time.	Establishing trust with one establishes trust with many.

Source: Covey, 2006, p. 25.

Ponder Box

Reflect on table 1.1 by answering the following questions.

• How do we build trust among our colleagues?

• How do my behaviors and words show others that I am worthy of their trust?

Trust influences student achievement. It is one of the factors that researchers Megan Tschannen-Moran and Wayne Hoy (2000) have found has greater impact than socioeconomic status as a predictor of future student achievement. Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2000) state, “Trust is one party’s willingness to be vulnerable to another party based on the confidence that the latter party is benevolent, reliable, competent, honest, and open” (p. 556). Let’s look at each of these five facets: (1) benevolence, (2) reliability, (3) competency, (4) honesty, and (5) openness.

Benevolence

Hoy and Tschannen-Moran (2003) describe benevolence as the “confidence that one’s well-being will be protected by the trusted party” (p. 186). In other words, as educators look to add to their successful practice while addressing the needs of a current group of students, does the leader exhibit the caring and compassion required when a difference of opinion on a staff occurs? When schools operate on the notion of presuming positive intention, team members embrace every struggle as an opportunity to provide more information and to bring colleagues along. Rather than condemning a person for asking a question or assuming he or she opposes the work, the team directs its effort at embracing another perspective on the challenges it collectively faces.

Reliability

Reliability is “the extent to which one can count on another person or group” (Hoy & Tschannen-Moran, 2003, p. 186). If colleagues feel they can work with each other through the highs and lows of their profession, and if individuals feel support when at their lowest ebb, then a team has established trust. If, instead, individuals feel as if everyone wants to vote them off the island, they become more reticent about engaging in a trusted relationship and pull back on any authentic engagement. They might simply defer to the team leader and become compliant.

Competency

Faith in the work ahead begins with faith in the person asking educators to embrace the work. If an individual does not possess the requisite skill to adopt a new practice, whom can he or she turn to? It could be the team or school leader, and it depends on his or her competency, or “the extent to which the trusted party has knowledge and skill” (Hoy & Tschannen-Moran, 2003, p. 186). If the work is also born of the collective commitment a team establishes, it feels much less as if it’s being done to educators and more as if it’s being done by educators and for educators. When leaders view their role as enabling educators, everyone owns the work collectively, leading to greater competency for all involved. This is in stark contrast to models that expect blind faith and compliance from educators.

Honesty

Nothing can replace honesty. Honesty does not mean always agreeing and being a ray of sunshine in every situation. It does mean having a willingness to confront realities and to share those openly and honestly with all team members—not just those among whom a strong connection might exist. Hoy and Tschannen-Moran (2003) describe honesty as “the character, integrity, and authenticity of the trusted party” (p. 186). In order to be trusted, the leader must be trustworthy.

Openness

Following honesty, openness implies equal treatment of all members of the team. We stress to teachers that they must build positive, caring relationships with every one of their students, even those who challenge them the most. We equally stress to leaders they must build positive, caring relationships with all teachers, even those who challenge them the most. Honesty is a complementary component to openness, which is driven by “the extent to which there is no withholding of information from others” (Hoy & Tschannen-Moran, 2003, p. 186).

The absence of any of these facets has the ability to derail progress and take away from building the trust necessary for great teams to function. If the only commonality a group of educators share is the school parking lot, the chances of true progress on the issue of assessment occurring will remain fleeting. This is hard work; it is messy work. It requires letting go of some things and embracing other things. All of this is possible with a collaborative team.

Defining Collaboration

The power of collaboration will not be a foreign concept to readers of this book. It simply makes sense that the power of we is superior to the power of me. As DuFour et al. (2016) write, “It is difficult to overstate the importance of collaborative teams in the improvement process” (p. 12). Despite that notion, collaboration is not always evident in every school or district. Ken Williams and Tom Hierck (2015) note this struggle when describing the dialogue that has occurred in some faculty meetings:

Heated debates arose on whether collaboration really was possible and a desirable way to achieve the stated goals of a school. Detractors vehemently defended the practice of teaching in isolation—not because of any research that supports it, but because it is easier than collaboration. It’s true: working together is a lot more challenging than working alone. Focusing on what we as teachers can do instead of on what we don’t have requires a collective commitment. (p. 1)

Collaborative teams use data to reflect on teaching practices, monitor progress, and celebrate successes. They share the progress and the pitfalls and lean on each other to manage both. In a deeply intentional collaborative approach, everything is up for discussion as educators work to find ways to ensure all students attain the desired proficiency—not through lowering the bar but through elevating their teaching. This is not always easy and requires a high level of trust. As Fisher and Frey (2015) note, “The conversations in collaborative team meetings can scrape up against one’s sense of self-efficacy, especially when presenting evidence about a lesson that failed to result in student learning” (p. 164). The absence of collaboration simply means educators don’t have to confront such challenges with anyone but themselves, which often leads them to believe that the solution to these challenges lies in their students (or their students’ parents or the system) needing to change.

Although collaboration is difficult, educators need to have collaborative conversations regarding assessment as they shift to what Tom Schimmer (2016) describes as “realigning the teaching and reporting processes to create a natural flow between assessments used to advance learning and assessments used to report it” (p. 18). They need to focus on collaborating to add to the teaching toolbox rather than to replace one tool with another. In order to manage these conversations, teams must establish norms and structures that drive how educators communicate.

Establishing Norms and Guidelines

A school team that functions effectively and supports high levels of learning for all students traces its success to the norms established through collective accountability. Effective teams must hold each other accountable to their norms in order to find success. Team norms are worthless if a team only writes them on paper and the entire team does not adhere to them. On teams composed of systems thinking educators, if someone arrives late to a meeting, doesn’t honor the focus on student growth and success, or breaks any team norm, the rest of the team is willing to address that action by referring back to the agreed-on norms and ensuring that they are still desirable and will be followed. This responsibility can’t fall to an external person (for example, the principal); it is something the group must manage. This action reflects the necessary collective accountability. Healthy teams effectively employ both gentleness and respect in their approach in order to promote the change in behavior they seek. Norms help the team define its levels of tolerance and how it will approach moments when those levels may be compromised. The end results for such teams are higher levels of learning, healthier team interactions, and strengthened relationships.

The purpose behind having a set of norms for a group to follow is to encourage behaviors that help the group do its work and discourage behaviors that interfere with a group’s productivity. We can think of norms as the unwritten rules for how educators will act and what they will do. These rules govern how educators interact with each other, how they conduct the business of meetings, how they make decisions, and how they communicate these decisions. Here’s the reality—whether or not educators take the time to establish norms, they are a part of every school’s culture. These norms exist whether or not you acknowledge them or formalize them, and they may run contrary to any desired outcomes, as we will illustrate in the scenario later in this section.

It is also critical that each group of educators (based on department, grade level, role, and so on) creates its own set of guidelines. The guidelines are practical applications of the norms (behaviors), and the group must also discuss and develop these. If team members do not generate such guidelines, the behaviors described in the imposed norms may not align with what actually occurs. For example, a set of norms imposed on a team may include a guideline such as, “Electronic devices may be present during the meeting but only for the purposes of note taking.” This guideline may quickly deflate the team’s ability to most effectively and efficiently collaborate, as the team has much of its collective work shared among the team members via Google Docs (https://docs.google.com) and Google Sheets (www.google.com/sheets).

As such, each team member must take part in the norm development process to ensure that the norms align with the team’s ability to do its best work. Furthermore, if team members feel unhappy with the norms they have received, violations may result in members feeling disgruntled with the idea of team norms rather than simply the display of unproductive adult behaviors. When healthy teams create their own norms, they can more swiftly and readily name violations. If a team does not create its own norms, however, then it will establish a de facto second (or third) set of norms. For example, a common norm is expecting everyone to arrive on time. If the team does not address violations, or only addresses them for some members, the message is clear—arriving on time is just a hope, not a norm. The team passively develops a second set of unspoken norms implying that they do not actually enforce the norms equally for everyone: we say one thing, but we all know we actually do another.