One District’s Path: Turnaround or Takeover

Five lessons shared by the superintendent who led the effort to resuscitate a failing system
BY PIA M. DURKIN/School Administrator, August 2021



Pia Durkin (right), a leadership consultant for Research for Better Teaching in Acton, Mass., generated a playbook of five lessons of leadership during her time as a superintendent in New Bedford, Mass. PHOTO COURTESY OF PIA DURKIN
Principals commonly share stories about their efforts turning around teaching and learning in their schools. School district stories reflecting big-picture turnaround ideas are more difficult to capture and summarize.

District scope, complexity and an ever-changing context reduces the “how” of turnaround work to dense plans that cause superintendents to get lost in myriad details that can mitigate their leadership skills. In 2013, I learned the extent of that challenge when I became superintendent for the New Bedford Public Schools, a struggling urban district on Massachusetts’ south coast. With 13,000 students, it is the state’s sixth-largest district.

Upon my entry, eight of the 25 schools had no principal and those in place had not been evaluated in years. The state-mandated teacher evaluation system had been adopted, but with weak supervisory feedback, instructional improvement in the district was minimal. Teaching materials were either hopelessly outdated, as in a decade-old reading program, or unavailable for math and science, leaving teachers on their own. Technology and the arts were limited in most schools and nonexistent in others.

In addition, elementary students lost 90 minutes of weekly instruction due to a long-standing agreement with the teachers’ union that dismissed students early on Fridays so teachers could have planning time. The burgeoning population of English learners was woefully under-reported due to limited testing, which resulted in the employment of only two English as a second language teachers in a district where about 23 percent of the students’ first language at the time was not English.

Affecting every aspect of the district was the operating budget’s $3 million shortfall, discovered in the middle of the 2013-14 school year, leading to the elimination of 150 staff positions and no plan for how that work would get done in the coming year.

The then-commissioner of education, Mitchell Chester, was publicly considering a state takeover of New Bedford, while a newly elected mayor was calling for major reform. With the clock ticking, I struggled how to begin. I had to focus energy and effort on the right work to directly change how schools worked.

My Playbook

From that experience over a five-year period in New Bedford, I generated five professional lessons as a “playbook” for new and experienced superintendents to consider when entering a district, supporting leadership in making major change or re-energizing a current agenda for an upward trajectory.

»Find the believers and look for the helpers.

Public television’s Mister Rogers was known for the way he calmed anxious children and their parents. His mother’s advice, when he was scared as a youngster, was to “look for the helpers.” That rings true for superintendents.

Go into the schools and find those staff members whose work is impacting kids and families. When individuals are reticent or complain, engage them for ideas. Be open even though some may be eager to tell you whom to “watch out for.” Form your own judgments and find the helpers with and without titles.

Over the years, self-proclaimed adversaries became my biggest supporters along with a cadre of “go-to” teachers and parents who were honest and told me what I needed to hear, not only what I wanted to hear.

»Invest in principals to strengthen leadership capacity.

Knowing I could not personally touch 13,000 students or 1,500 staff members, I worked with 25 principals so they could lead dozens of educators to become better at what they did for the kids in front of them. If classroom instruction did not change, student outcomes would remain flat.
We heeded the findings of Wallace Foundation research reports that placed principal leadership as the second most important factor in raising achievement (with teacher effectiveness ranking first). Principals were my “arms and legs” to achievement gains. I sought candidates in and outside the district who had the will and the skills to look hard at their practice.

Showing both fortitude and humility, these building leaders were willing to change themselves to help others do the same. Those most effective exuded a sense of efficacy and non-negotiables as simple as helping staff agree to find the entry learning point for every student and, when stuck, to ask for help. These principals stated their commitment in no uncertain terms. They said they were in it “for the long haul,” would not leave and encouraged bystanders, showing repeatedly they would not give up on them.

»Help leaders manage conflict that comes with change.

Though the thought of a state takeover evoked disdain, accepting change across the district was not equally embraced. Despite the dysfunction of the status quo, staff tensions rose. The less-than-obvious reasons for conflicts were intense staff anxiety at feeling inadequate, fear of accepting responsibility for higher expectations and a general distrust that the promised support would materialize.

A clear professional development rollout formalized ways for the administration to hear what was working (and what was not) to keep us moving. Again, principals were key messengers. With central-office administrators working to learn and adapt as a team to support the needs of schools, principals met the moment. Every leader, including me, had to model how to shift between leading from the front and the back while building trust, resolving problems and devising repair strategies to sustain relationships. Finding the means to stay resilient and goal-focused became the strategy in building a cohesive leadership team.

»Take on the barriers that hold back schools from improving.

Every district has practices that hinder achievement gains. Some are byproducts of contractual clauses with unintended consequences. Others relate to resources that are left unfunded year after year. Ineffective or unsupported leaders, poor implementation and the tendency to shy away from conflict all throw up barriers to improvement.

In New Bedford, we came together on five areas that we identified as the biggest barriers: (1) financial resources, (2) staffing, (3) coaching and supervision, (4) time on learning and (5) recruitment and hiring. 
 
Former superintendent Pia Durkin (right) believes district leaders can “make the right work happen” by building the capacity of principals and other staff. PHOTO COURTESY OF PIA DURKIN


Additional staffing, new curriculum resources and training were needed so people and programs would be used with fidelity. Without effective coaching and supervision, neither more staff nor new materials would produce results. Increased time on learning required changes in bargaining agreements. Making New Bedford marketable, where eager and committed educators wanted to work, would take time to root.

»Resources. In relatively short time, a new evidence-based reading program was in the hands of teachers, followed by math and science programs. User-friendly public budget reports linked resources to increased efficiencies and student progress.

»Staffing. Consistent assessment processes for English learners, yielding real data on their needs, led to hiring English as a second language teachers. With ESL teachers in high demand, we partnered with the state for an in-district academy to certify ESL teachers. In five years, the ESL staff grew from two to more than 80 professionals.

»Coaching and supervision. Support and coaching were stressed more than evaluation. With intensive training, principals became instructional leaders and a frequent presence in classrooms. To use supervisory tools for improvement purposes, they became better at both content and process.

»Time on learning. A two-year labor/management discussion increased learning time with collaborative teacher planning scheduled within the school day. Subsequent hiring of elective-subject teachers began to level the playing field between New Bedford and neighboring communities.

»Recruitment and hiring. Devising a recruitment and hiring strategy to position New Bedford as a district of choice remains a work in progress. Schools are led by principals who promote a culture of high standards for the adults and students they lead, garner strong applicants for staffing and serve as key marketers for the district.

»Balance pressure and support. Superintendents deal with a range of tensions between pressure and support. Turning around a school district is a long and arduous process. It requires optimism alongside a relentless focus on data so people stay engaged in hard work. Too much pressure causes people to shut down and merely comply on the surface level, not really changing practice. Support without clear expectations and timelines leads to ambiguity, sometimes a failure to launch, and lack of urgency.

In turnaround work, balance becomes critical. External validation can help, as when the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released New Bedford from state monitoring in 2017, stating that “(it was) not the same school district it was five years ago.”

In 2018, elementary English language arts achievement increased with over 50 percent of the schools making double-digit gains. New Bedford High School’s graduation rate rose to 76 percent, the highest in a decade, and its dropout rate plummeted to an all-time low of 1.4 percent. This marked a clear victory for a needy urban district, and the progress continued beyond my tenure, with the 2020 graduation rate of 90 percent reflecting a significant milestone.

Capacity Building

By understanding how to lead through influence, these five lessons can cement the “how” of turning around a school district’s culture and daily work. By taking on deeply rooted conditions while continually adapting, superintendents can make the right work happen.

In turnaround work, the right work is less about a single leader and more about building the capacity of principals and others to help them become better at what they do. In stretching and influencing others, community trust takes hold and the probability of sustaining a bright future for students and families looms within reach.

PIA DURKIN, a former superintendent in Massachusetts for 12 years, works as a leadership consultant with Research for Better Teaching in Acton, Mass. Twitter: @piamdurkin