Leading School Teams
Building Trust to Promote Student Learning
The busy administrator’s guide to creating strong teams, changing culture, and improving performance
How effective is your team? Research shows that “teacher collective efficacy”—when all teachers are collectively engaged and focused on improvement—can do more to increase student learning than any other strategy. In fact, using powerhouse teams can achieve four years of student growth in a single calendar year. Horton’s practical guide will help you form your own dream team through:
- Short activities that require little to no preparation that you can use to deepen conversation at your very next meeting
- Step-by-step tools that will help your team move from identifying its biggest challenges to choosing and implementing successful reforms
- Strategies to enhance teamwork, trust, and collaboration so that your team becomes as effective as possible
Horton will help you connect people, build trust, discover strengths, and clear barriers to reach greater teacher and program effectiveness—and ultimately raise student achievement.
This book provides leaders and teams with a blueprint of how to work through a problem to find possible solutions while valuing each member of the team. This is not an easy task at any level and to have a resource to provide guidance for those tough situations is always welcomed.
Nicky Kemp, Assistant Superintendent
North Callaway R-1 School District
Leading School Teams allowed our team to address the lack of processes and the finger pointing and tension that went along with it. It was surprising how quickly the activities and discussion brought out the meat of the issues within our team. Because of the natural manner in which the issues were approached, team members felt respected and accomplished after each session.
Eric Dahlstrom
Principal, Dartmouth Middle School
"This book provides leaders and teams with a blueprint of how to work through a problem to find possible solutions while valuing each member of the team. This is not an easy task at any level and to have a resource to provide guidance for those tough situations is always welcomed."
“If you are a school or district administrator with the time, energy, and courage to take on the major concerns of your school/district and are willing to implement a plan with possible systemic change then this book is for you.”
"Chapter 4 of Leading School Teams allowed our team to address the lack of processes and the finger pointing and tension that went along with it. It was surprising how quickly the activities and discussion brought out the meat of the issues within our team. It happened in a natural way that it snuck up on the team and we were in the middle of addressing the real issues before we realized what was happening. Additionally, because of the natural manner in which the issues were approached, team members felt respected and accomplished after each session."
"Building effective teams at all levels of an organization is critical for long-term success. Nowhere is this more evidenced than in the principal coaching I do where building vital relationships and high-performing teams transcends traditional content and data and get to the heart of what we value in one another and our collective work. Dr. Horton has laid out a comprehensive–and palatable–approach to teaming that values the individual strengths of each stakeholder and lays the foundation for teacher enthusiasm and learner engagement."
"This year I was faced with the challenge of starting a brand new community day school, changing the paradigm of how we educate expelled and at risk youth, and implementing curriculum and procedures that are truly new and innovative choices for our teachers. As I read through Leading School Teams I saw a few specific topics that I felt were key discussions to have as a fledgling staff, but sometimes folks can be hesitant in truly being honest about difficult topics. One of the best discussions we were able to have was in regard to the following prompt from Chapter 7 of Leading School Teams: 'Do we have a system to collect data on the program or initiative? Is it simple to use and simple to understand? Have results targets been determined before the program launch?' This prompt was able to facilitate a powerful discussion on how we are evaluating our progress, and how effectively we are meeting targets that we set at the outset of the year. As a staff we are looking forward to continuing these discussions using the same format and seeing the growth that will come from vibrant and honest discussions."
"The strategies within Leading School Teams allowed our leadership team to develop a deeper understanding between our members. This enabled our team to create more effective connections with each other, improved our levels of communication, and strengthened our team's bond."
"Whether you are a new leader of a team, an established team in need of trust or a culture shift, a team where not everyone’s voice is heard, or a team without established systems, Leading School Teams provides the tools needed to create a highly effective team. This book provides powerful insight to practical activities that can be easily implemented with any team, at any stage, with an end result of productive change. Diagnose your team, engage in the activities and dialogue and watch your team transform."
"In order for any team or change effort to be successful, relational trust is key. In Leading School Teams, Dave Horton offers practical strategies to enhance relational trust in order to transform adult-centered systems into systems that put students at the center!"
