Joe Ashby was a a multi-classroom leader (MCL) at Buena Vista Enhanced Option Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee before finishing his doctorate and moving on to be a principal in California. He recently wrote an article about that experience for Real Clear Education, and he focused on the flexibility and growth that was present in his position because it was part of the Opportunity Culture model which gives teachers more leadership and continual professional development opportunities.
The following excerpt from his article provides a good sense of the role of a multi-classroom leader, a role that many schools are now exploring:
Throughout the year, I felt my teachers’ high expectations for me — for expertise and assistance, coupled with trust, honesty, commitment, perseverance and humility.
Consistency became key, in a setting of high transiency and high-stakes expectations. My teachers needed consistent, reliable support during their toughest moments. They needed the consistent line of communication that MCLs create between teachers and administrators. And they needed the norms we could create in how we teach and treat our students, consistently.
But that doesn’t mean it all came together smoothly, everyone marching in unison. Being innovative and optimistic was crucial. For example, it took a year for me to help a teacher implement whole-group mini reading lessons before the small-group, individualized learning time. When things turned around, she expressed how much she developed professionally from my persevering.
The team also felt overwhelmed by the sudden news of overwhelming preparation for a state pilot online writing test. We had two months for our students to trust that they could read complex, nonfiction texts and type organized essays about them. We worked as a team to connect the instruction for the test with our already-planned lessons, and turned it into a satisfying and celebratory experience. What’s more, it amped up the quality of writing instruction for the rest of the year, ending with students publishing individual and class multi-genre magazines.
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