Part 5: Leading in a Time of Crisis – a Conversation with Superintendent Dr. Ken Wallace and Director of Adult Learning Jill Geocaris
“Certainly we have a strong sense of responsibility to our students. We owe this to our communities to do the very best we can to provide rich learning opportunities. But at the end of the day, this is a human endeavor where connecting between people is really job one.”
Today on Getting Unstuck
Most of us are living in an unprecedented time. Not since World War II, have we experienced something that can literally impact every person on the planet. Getting through the COVID-19 pandemic is taking incredible resources and resourcefulness. It is also forcing us to look at one another and work with one another differently. And one place of work where that is extremely evident is in U.S. schools
What follows is one conversation in a series of conversations we’re having with educators across the country on how they are leading their schools in this time of crisis. Because these educators are extremely busy helping their schools and communities to pivot, we’ve intentionally limited these conversations to approximately 15 minutes.
It’s our hope that these conversations will provide nuggets of solid advice and emotional support to other educators on the front lines of change.
Dr. Ken Wallace
In this episode we hear from:
Dr. Ken Wallace, Superintendent and Jill Geocaris, Director of Innovative Adult Learning for
District 207, Park Ridge, IL
Jill Geocaris
Listen for: The current work is all about
Going slow and small with online learning to find places where people can have success.
Focusing on students’ social and emotional well-being.
Supporting the faculty by being flexible while maintaining some routine, and offering them places where they can connect.
Respecting and leveraging teacher leadership.
Nourishing a culture of learning; innovate and don’t be afraid of failure.
“Our state guidance has been that our kids academic standing can’t be harmed by e-learning or remote learning. So it’s a great opportunity for us to have our teachers thinking about how we get to a place where we’re doing teaching and learning not for a grade, not for a carrot or a stick. And so teachers are really thinking about ‘How can I design some engaging learning that’s either synchronous or asynchronous and have kids engage in that?’”
To Connect with Ken and Jill
Referenced
Could a book on effectively leading change in schools be more timely?
We’re pleased to announce …
…that our book Shifting: How School Leaders Can Create a Culture of Change is now available from Corwin Press or Amazon. If you purchase from Amazon, please consider leaving us a rating and review. Thank you!
From our publisher:
In Shifting, educators and leadership experts Kirsten Richert, Jeff Ikler and Margaret Zacchei empower educational change leaders to proactively and coherently navigate complex change in schools to achieve the desired outcomes. Using a three-part framework—Assess, Ready, Change—this book leads educators to examine a school’s imperatives and readiness for change, identity the tools and abilities required to manifest change, and take action by defining the roles and processes necessary to effectively implement both sweeping change and smaller day-to-day adjustments.