Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Wisconsin educators will soon be able to access an online tool to assess leadership in their buildings and work collaboratively to build distributed leadership practices.
Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL) is a validated formative assessment to measure leadership tasks from the perspectives of all school staff.
CALL surveys a school’s leadership practices, using a distributed leadership framework. Its questions align with Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards and support the Wisconsin Educator Effectiveness System for principals. After the survey is complete, CALL provides targeted data and specific feedback that informs school needs assessments and action planning.
Six schools recently test-drove CALL in a DPI program, the Leadership for Learning Pilot Project.
The six participating Title I Schools include:
- Augusta Elementary School,
- Bruce Middle School,
- Clintonville Middle School,
- Lakeshore Elementary School (Eau Claire),
- Merrill Elementary School (Beloit), and
- Washington Elementary School (Oshkosh).
The principals in the pilot say it was easy to incorporate CALL results into their school improvement plans and use them as a catalyst to build teacher leaders.
“The survey gave us data to focus on and a way to reach out to staff about the methods of leadership within our building,” one principal stated.
Another reported, “The CALL survey and subsequent activities helped us to focus our leadership team’s attention and actions.”
One school found that its new Educator Effectiveness system could be the means with which to address one of the improvement areas identified by the CALL survey (staff feedback on classroom visits).
The CALL team recently launched a partnership with the CESA Statewide Network to help schools access and benefit from the CALL system. Districts and schools will be able to work with CESAs to use CALL to support school improvement planning.
The pilot project’s monthly webinars and facilitated, problem-solving conversations were supported by DPI staff and Mark Blitz at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Developed at the UW-Madison, CALL is marketed and supported by the Wisconsin Center for Education Products and Services.
Find more information at www.leadershipforlearning.org, or contact Mary Jo Ziegler, (608) 267-1281, or Kathy Lyngaas, (608) 267-7462, on the DPI’s Title I and School Support team; or Mark Blitz.