Jay Westover: Leading Sustainable School Improvement with Collaborative Inquiry and Coherence

<p>Dr. Bob Maxfield and Dr. Suzanne Klein welcome Jay Westover, Chief Learning Officer at Innovate Ed and author of <i>Districts on the Move</i>, the subject of a multi-session book study conducted with educational leaders in southeast Michigan, sponsored by the Galileo Institute at Oakland University.   </p><p>Jay Westover’s educational background followed a similar pattern to most administrators: classroom teacher, assistant principal, and principal. “I was lucky enough in my first principalship to meet Rick DuFour with whom I became good friends.  My career continued at the district office and then in California, the County Office focusing on leadership development; keeping that idea of how we improve schools from Rick's DuFour’s vantage point. In about 2000, I noticed that most of the school improvement work wasn't sustainable, so I left my job and started InnovateEd, and was lucky enough to find another mentor, Michael Fullan, about 2013. The book, <i>Districts on the Move</i>, was something that emanated from working in partnership with Michael, and what we found was how to make coherence happen in action.” </p><p>“The idea of coherence or systems thinking is really using collaborative inquiry, which is how you seek out solutions in a way in which you really don't know an answer, to shape that coherent path of improvement. The key has to be district leaders with principals and teachers working together to find solutions, not only for their schools but for their district.”</p><p>“We found there are four key drivers that connect Fullan's work on coherence. The first key driver is clarity of focus. Using the analogy of a pendulum scale to determine the weight of a rock using pebbles, you need to work together to calculate it, work together to figure out how to move it, and keep working at it. So how do we work collaboratively to create movement or have an impact? The second driver, shared leadership, requires a very strong communication and collaboration model in order to share the vision and priorities to tak