Services: Field advisors

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Introduction

Who are the field advisors?

Teaching pottery

  • Professional educators with arts training
  • Professional artists with education training
  • Professionals with an understanding of arts infusion and the Whole School Initiative concept

How can field advisors help schools?

  • Facilitate the Change Journey Map preparation (required)
  • Provide grant-writing assistance
  • Help plan new teacher orientation to Whole Schools Initiative
  • Assist in problem solving
  • Serve as resource person
  • Act as an outside set of eyes and ears to help schools see progress on stated goals and time lines
  • Monitor evidence of arts infusion and record how it is accomplished
  • Help schools stay on track
  • Support…suggest…recommend…answer….
  • Act as an ongoing reminder that each school is important to the statewide model

How can schools help field advisors?

  • Communicate! Include! Share information!
  • Share copies of grant applications, mid-year reports, and final reports
  • Invite to special events
  • Provide schedule of staff development and other events
  • Send internal WSI communications to field advisor
  • One meeting per semester with field advisor / principal / project director
  • Provide list of arts advisory committee members with contact information
  • Introduce to faculty at every visit

What are the purposes of the site visits?

Site visits to the school will serve a variety of purposes, including the following:

  • Facilitating planning and keeping the implementation process on target
  • Assisting in development appropriate timelines
  • Encouraging appropriate staff to be selected to attend the Institute and Retreats
  • Encouraging staff to find new ideas to “raise” the vision
  • Assisting in identifying and securing professional development needs and resources
  • Building the staff’s capacity to solve their own problems
  • Assisting in determining how other school/district initiatives fit into the Whole Schools Initiative
  • Encouraging documentation

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Define the dream

Introduction

At the corner of Dream and Dream

In order to establish a vision for what they want their school to be, WSI schools are encouraged to continually define and re-define their dream. Field Advisors and other WSI staff are available to facilitate this process.

Questions

Dream List:

  • What if there were no limitations?
  • What would you like for your school?
  • Describe your ideal picture in words, images, or a combination of both.

[FACILITATOR: Remind group members that this is dreaming, creating a vision, thinking outside the box. Avoid letting them get bogged down in possible barriers.]
What’s Possible?:

  • Starting with the dream list, what is possible in your situation?
  • What’s possible in five years?

[FACILITATOR: Create a five-year timeline on flip chart. Start with 5th year, then do 1st. Assign or have a volunteer scribe – You remain the facilitator. Keep moving along — don’t get bogged down. Use the “Make it Real” questions to help focus the details on the 5 year charts.]
Figure it out!:

  • What will need to happen in year one?
  • Year two?
  • Year three?
  • Year four?

Making it Real:

  • To move from “what’s possible” to reality, how will you make it real?
  • What steps will need to happen along the way?
  • What techniques will you use to move things along?
  • What resources and support will you need?
  • What sequence will you follow?

Team Building:

Based on your “Zoom” experience, what characteristics and skills will your team need to move forward together?

[Do “ Zoom,” then process. Discuss and outline the process. Apply to the school situation — Explicitly draw out the lessons to be learned. Note: “Zoom” is not only team building. Critical pieces of the process include:

  • lack of talking
  • reflection
  • application of what they learned from the process to working as a team

Peaks, valleys, and changes — middle of the week is when you see people on overwhelm, so draw on different strengths and weaknesses. There is a parallel to the process of change.]

Building the Plan, Phase One, Fleshing out the Steps:

  • Our school will be successful if the following things happen….
  • What is your timeline? Set dates for each step.
  • What support and in-service will you need?
  • Who will do what?
  • What other resources will it take?

[FACILITATOR: As you get to days 4 and 5, teams will be building a plan for sharing with their own schools. Use the questions to help focus the discussions. Develop a presentation to take back to the school for taking the school through the same process you have been guiding. What will their goal be? How will they communicate it? Come up with a plan and a way to share it. Keep revising your image as you have new discoveries or visions. Use the visual to help explain your focus. Major need for leadership — keep groups focused and moving along. Key questions: What is going to happen? What do you need? Why are you stuck? How do we get unstuck?

Building the Plan, Phase Two: Site Planning for Year One:

What will you plan for the beginning of the year?

[FACILITATOR: Use strategies from the Change Game and Team Building as you plan.]

Finalize an Action Plan:

Provide a sequential action plan for year one.

Closure:

[Reminder: Closure is important at the end of each session. Closure should include individual and group reflection on the process, as well as summary and review of accomplishments.]

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Change journey map

Change journey process

The Change Journey Process is one component of a continual planning/evaluation process. WSI schools are asked to commit to an organized session of reflection and discussion led by the Field Advisor or his/her designee. The session results in a visual representation of the school’s involvement in WSI that is shared at the Whole Schools Institute.

The process usually begins as the school prepares to submit a grant application for future funding and continues through the preparation of the final report. The school leadership and the Field Advisor determine when the initial planning session is held and how it is organized. The guiding questions for the process are on the following page.

Questions

Opening

  • Where did it begin?
  • Events — milestones — good and bad
  • Obstacles
  • Support
  • Influences — positive and negative
  • Accomplishments and setbacks

Concluding

  • What have we learned?
  • What does that mean for the future?
  • What is different for students?
  • What is different for staff?
  • What is different in the structure of the organization?
  • What connections have we made with community and other organizations?
  • What questions are we asking now?
  • Where are we going in the future?
  • How can we present our work to the entire staff, parents, and community?

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