SCENE FIVE CONTINUED
PLAINTIFF LAWYER
So you are stating that the group lacked the skills to interpret data.
PARENT PAT
Yes. I wasn’t even sure if some of the teachers on the team had the skills to do it too, but you’d have to ask them.
PLAINTIFF LAWYER
In your opinion, is this an example of the principal obstructing the operation of the shared planning/improvement team?
DEFENSE LAWYER
Your honor, I object. Ms. Parent’s opinion certainly isn’t evidence.
JUDGE
I’ll give you every opportunity to refute Ms. Parent’s opinion on cross.
PLAINTIFF LAWYER
Ms. Parent, your opinion?
PARENT PAT
I am not sure. We are all bombarded with so-called facts and statistics all day long. How people interpret those facts is what really matters. Maybe Dr. Lipservice had other data that led him to the optimistic conclusions he offered us. But those trend graphs, taken together with being cited by the State Education Agency gave us cause to want to review that more closely. And doing what we decided to do was probably a good sign of the team getting better at what it was charged to do– improve student achievement.
PLAINTIFF LAWYER
By that you mean?
PARENT PAT
That the group knew it needed to examine all the data it could to help understand what it needed to do.
PLAINTIFF LAWYER
Tell the court more about the group. How well did they work together?
PARENT PAT
The group was made up of the Principal, his assistant principal, three teachers, three parents, a staff member, and a community representative. As I said earlier, we got some central office training about what our task was, to help raise student achievement, and how to get to consensus on matters and plans we hoped to put in place. Everyone knew each other pretty well. Everyone understood what consensus meant but I know I was surprised by how hard it was to reach consensus!
PLAINTIFF LAWYER
Meaning?
PARENT PAT
Well it means that we all have to agree on the choice we propose. It wasn’t like, let’s say, a PTA meeting or the government when usually you just need a majority vote. That is a lot easier than consensus.
PLAINTIFF LAWYER
Meaning?
PARENT PAT
Meaning that everyone had to agree on what was proposed. That usually means compromise and listening to others’ points of views very carefully. Some of us were better at that than others.
PLAINTIFF LAWYER
What about Dr. Lipservice’s ability to compromise?
PARENT PAT
It wouldn’t be fair to say that he would not compromise. I guess a good example of that was that he agreed to the idea that we form a sub-committee to review the data.
PLAINTIFF LAWYER
Then the group was cohesive?
PARENT PAT
I didn’t say that. Here is an example. When the sub-committee came back to us with their analyses of the student performance data, one of the teachers said ‘I’m nervous to share what I am thinking’. I asked why. She said ‘I am thinking that what I am going to say will be misunderstood by the parents on the team and that they will spread a misleading message around the school community.’
PLAINTIFF LAWYER
Did she share it?
PARENT PAT
Yes, but only when one of the other members, the community member actually, said that he was troubled by the teacher’s remark and that we should all be comfortable enough with each other and trusting of each other to offer their opinions in a safe environment.
PLAINTIFF LAWYER
What happened then?
PARENT PAT
The teacher drew in her breath and said ‘I don’t think our special education program is very effective.’
(PRINCIPAL LIPSERVICE VISIBLY SQUIRMS, WHISPERS INTO DEFENSE LAWYER’S EAR)
DEFENSE LAWYER
Your honor, another objection, one teacher’s mistaken opinion cannot tarnish the school’s record or the principal’s supervision of that school.
JUDGE
I will rule on that objection tomorrow.
….
Again, many high-involvement variables twine together in this testimony. An easy and new one to point out is that of LEADERSHIP. Do not misunderstand the term. In this case we equate leadership with delegated authority to carry out tasks. PARENT POLLY showed this when she led the team to form a sub-group charged with analyzing data. This sub-group could easily have added other, non-team members, perhaps with particular expertise to contribute to the analysis. Doing so distributes high- involvement away from the one team out to those who choose to be involved in school planning on a more limited basis.
Clearly POWER issues continue to pervade the testimony.
Clearly KNOWLEDGE issues, in this case, data analysis pervade the testimony and threaten to doom the team’s success.
Yet another aspect of KNOWLEDGE emerges too. That would be the ability of the group to be cohesive on a relationships basis. When the teacher is reluctant to point out her opinion out of mistrust of the parents’ reaction, we encounter a pretty common factor best described by Thomas Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. In this book he points out that the number one dysfunction of a team is that of trust and that all other dysfunctions tumble out from that.
Can you identify examples of this in your own experiences? What did you or the leader do to build trust?
~Richard Bernato, Ed.D.