LEADERSHIP

PRINCIPAL
LEADERSHIP
A Publication of the National
Association of Secondary
School Principals
DECEMBER 2015
Navigating
LGBT Issues
Continuing Harassment and
Legal Settlements Spur Action
32
Documentary Drama
Student Filmmakers Learn Life
Lessons While Combating Controversy
26
Co-principalships Can Work
An Ignite ’16 Presentation Preview
46
Panic Buttons
How Technology Has Transformed
Emergency Responses
50
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Creating a Culture of Excellence: One Principal’s Recipe for Success
BY TIM DILG
Interested in really
improving your school?
Then focus on cultivating
a culture of excellence.
While a positive
culture is intangible, it is
Tim Dilg
also essential and tied
to significant impacts
on academic, behavioral, and social-​
emotional outcomes for students. My
experience as a high school principal
has shown me that when attention
is given to creating and sustaining
a positive school culture, a school
can yield dramatic results in all other
reform initiatives.
Specifically, I have seen faculty and
staff thrive when immersed in a positive
school climate. Teachers are more
willing to implement new curricula and
interventions when they perceive that
they work in a positive school culture.
Schools with positive cultures value
diversity; encourage shared experiences
and purpose; promote transparent
and unbiased norms and expectations;
and provide opportunities for growth
and achievement.
These practical strategies have
proven successful in raising the
academic performance of our
students and increasing the morale
of our faculty and staff, resulting in
a highly collaborative and positive
school community.
Celebrate “Purple Cows”
Let’s be clear: School cultures don’t
happen by accident.
The best approach to developing a
culture is to recruit, attract, and retain
the highest-quality educators possible
who meet the profile of the school
you envision. While no recruiting and
employment process is perfect, there
are some key qualities that I look for
when hiring a new teacher. These
characteristics are not the only factors
influencing the hiring of a candidate,
but in my experience, these traits
are commonly found in the best and
brightest teachers:
A Positive Attitude: An educator
with a positive attitude inspires students
to look at the world in the same way.
Positivity and enthusiasm are two of the
most desirable traits I seek in educators.
Good Communication Skills: A
teacher’s job is to discuss key concepts
and explain them in more than one way
so that visual, hands-on, and sensory
learners all understand the idea and
know how to apply it to future problems.
To achieve this goal, the teacher
must be able to communicate clearly
and effectively.
A Forgiving Heart: Students make
mistakes, in both behavior and schoolwork.
A teacher must be able to move
forward and allow a student to grow.
Brilliance in Their Subject Area: A
highly qualified teacher is one who
understands his or her subject area
inside and out and who has educational
and real-world experience. The teacher
should be able to apply concepts in
their certification area, offer students
real-life examples, and demonstrate
how students can apply what they learn
to the everyday world.
An Engaging Personality: Engagement
increases comprehension and
retention. I seek educators who can
present content in a variety of engaging,
creative, and entertaining ways. If they
are responsible for holding students’
attention and igniting their enthusiasm
for learning, then a candidate should do
the same for me in an interview.
When excellence is spotted in my
school, we shout it from the rooftops
and share it with as many stakeholders
as possible. We want the witnessed
behavior or actions to become replicated
so frequently that they eventually
become the new norm and raise the
expectations for others.
One way we nurture this excellence
is through The Purple Cow Program,
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“Creating an excellent school culture is always
active in everything I do.” — Tim Dilg (@tdilg)
inspired by Seth Godin’s book Purple
Cow: Transform Your Business by Being
Remarkable. It was developed to reward
those teachers who inspire students of
all backgrounds and abilities and who
possess high energy and enthusiasm for
their work.
To earn a Purple Cow award, the
teacher must be nominated by his or
her colleagues. If chosen as a winner,
the educator receives outrageous and
humorous prizes. This peer-to-peer
recognition program helps us celebrate
and cultivate the success of our teachers.
And because it is validation coming
from a colleague, the reward is much
greater than the small trinkets that
accompany the monthly Purple Cow
prize. The Purple Cow Program helps
to recognize and honor the remarkable
contributions of our employees. It also
serves to inspire and motivate future
and current teachers and staff, while
giving our school an avenue to share the
exemplary practices of our teachers.
Celebrating the success of our
teachers also includes leveraging social
media tools like Twitter, Facebook,
YouTube, Instagram, Vine, and online
blogs to highlight innovative instructional
practices our teachers use to
motivate and engage our students.
These digital resources are a powerful
way to promote and sustain excellence.
Faculty members are frequently
reminded of what is expected and
modeled in our classrooms. The
objective of The Purple Cow Program
and our social media tools is for
effective and exemplary practices and
behaviors to eventually become an
expectation for everyone.
There is a saying: “What gets
monitored gets done.” Perhaps more
relevant in our technology-rich world is,
“What gets shared and celebrated gets
replicated.”
Model Change, Take Risks,
Dance Periodically
The merit of risk-taking has been
acknowledged for years by educational
leaders and researchers alike. When
risk-taking is discussed in educational
circles, it often centers on the students’
risks. Discussion centers on their risky,
adolescent behavior and temptations,
or it develops into discussions about
getting students to take academic risks
in the classroom. If we, as principals, feel
that failure is an important component
of innovation, we must foster a culture of
risk-taking among our faculty and staff
and model it ourselves.
So how can principals foster a culture
of risk-taking? Here are a few ideas that
When excellence is spotted
at my school, we shout
it from the rooftops and
share it with as many
stakeholders as possible.
have facilitated a risk-taking culture at
St. John Vianney High School:
School leaders should model
risk-taking. How willing are you to go
outside your own comfort zone? In
the past four years, I’ve dressed as
Rudolph and the Gingerbread Man
for our Cocoa and Cram Final Exam
session. I’ve brought eye blackener and
bandanas for my faculty (and saw to
it that they wore them) for our “Teach
Like a Pirate” day. I’ve taught educators
in my school the Cupid Shuffle and
the Wobble, and danced with them on
stage in front of our student body. I’ve
even shaved my head when students
exceeded my expectations! Leaders
who value risk-taking must be willing
to risk themselves in order to make it
comfortable for others to step outside
their comfort zone.
Explicitly carve out time for discussions
about innovation, learning,
and powerful practices. We created
an Academy System that affords
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Leaders who value
risk-taking must be willing
to risk themselves in order
to make it comfortable for
others to step outside their
comfort zone.
our teachers protected time to
have dialogue about student- and
school-centered issues. It also provides
an avenue to learn new ideas and
practices in a safe environment. Several
late-start Wednesdays—20 of them, in
fact—are carved out as protected time
for peer-to-peer learning each school
year. Our protected time affords the
faculty opportunities to view webinars
on learning management systems
or how to “flip their classroom.” It
produced a mini Edcamp where
teachers could attend multiple learning
sessions where peers shared powerful
instructional practices.
Protected professional development
time also provided a unique opportunity
for us to develop and roll-out our
nationally recognized Vianney Learning
2.0 program. Vianney 2.0 is an in-house
professional development approach
based on the ideas of Helene Blower
that center on discovery, investigation,
and play. Believing that professional
development is most powerful when it
draws upon the strengths and collaboration
of our teaching community, we
created the program around conversations.
Participants were given a series of
investigations that asked them to learn,
do, and reflect on cultural materials they
found online.
Ask people specifically what they
are afraid of, and work through the
fear with them. Different people have
different fears that make them risk
averse. By knowing their fears, you can
help your teachers work through the
issues to accomplish bigger and better
things! Conversations centered on fears
and risk do not happen haphazardly.
In order to make people feel
comfortable, a leader must take the
time (often a lot of time) to develop
relationships that help people grow
and improve. I take the time to meet
with my teachers in informal capacities
as much as I do in formal capacities.
Morning workroom chats about pop
culture or sporting events, lunchroom
laughter about everyday happenings,
hallway conversations about my staff’s
own children’s progress in school or
family outings, even mounting a bicycle
for a long road ride or running a half
marathon provides opportunities to
build rapport with faculty. Those efforts
ultimately make my open-door policy
not just a management technique, but
an active, powerful practice that helps
eliminate the invisible barrier that often
unintentionally exists between administration
and faculty.
A transformed school culture is
not won through good intentions
and inspiring speakers. It is gained
through diligent work in the trenches—
expecting excellence daily and
designing experiences that challenge,
encourage, and uplift good people to
recognize the greatness within them. If
you’re a school principal serious about
tackling important school reform
initiatives such as improving academic
curriculum, instruction, supervision, and
governance, begin by examining your
school culture.
Tim Dilg is principal of St. John Vianney High
School in St. Louis, MO. He was named the
2015 Principal of the Year by the St. Louis
Association of Principals and was one of
seven educators in the country to receive the
National Catholic Educational Association
(NCEA) Educational Excellence Award.
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NASSP