Running head: IMPLEMENTING BLANKSTEINS PRINCIPLES

Implementation of Blanksteins Principles at Wolfe Middle School

Klaressa L. Howery
Oakland University

Author Note
This paper was prepared for EA 740: School as a Formal Organization, Section 901,
taught by Dr. C. Suzanne Klein

IMPLEMENTING BLANKSTEINS PRINCIPLES

Implementation of Blanksteins Principles at Wolfe Middle School

Alan Blanksteins book, Failure is NOT an Option (FNO) provides a structure for schools
to utilize when restructuring their schools so that success is the only option. Blankstein provides
six guiding principles for the creation and sustainability of student achievement in high
performing schools. The FNO framework helps staff develop a common mission, vision, and
goals using data which in turn, guides operations and decision making. This reflective summary
of this book will compare Blanksteins six principles with current practices at Wolfe Middle
School in Center Line, Michigan.
The school that is within my circle of influence is Wolfe Middle School. There are
approximately 30 teachers when counting full and part-time teachers. We have one principal and
one assistant principal, as well as two counselors. Our school social worker is shared with three
other schools in our district and our school psychologist supports our middle school twice
weekly. We have two secretaries, one attendance clerk, an ISS paraprofessional, and one hall
monitor.
Wolfe Middle School has been labeled as a state focus school this year. My school has a
history of success, so this sudden change in status has been stressful. We are a title one school
and our Michigan School Accountability Scorecard status is yellow. The Michigan School Data
website indicates our student population totals 559 students (277 female, 322 male) with
race/diversity percentages at 62% white/Caucasian, 22.99% African American, 6.88% Asian,
6.54% two or more races, and just under 2% Hispanic. Wolfes population of economically
disadvantaged students fall within the 72% range. Students with disabilities comprise 14% of our
student body, 5% are English Language Learners, which leaves 81% of our students in the

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regular education program. State MEAP score results reflect a 56% proficiency in reading,
42.8% in writing, 30.3% in math, 19.8% in social studies, and 12.7% in science. Our four year
high school graduation rate has dropped in the past year to 73.3%.
The first quote in chapter five of Failure is Not an Option is priceless. For all
stakeholders to know the business of their business is certainly vital. According to Judith
Bardwick (1996), the answer to this question allows an organization to set priorities for their
establishment. Schools begin answering these guiding principles by developing mission, vision,
values, and goals. A schools mission is to define what a school expects students to learn, how
they will know if they are learning, and what to do if we are not headed in the right direction.
Wolfe Middle Schools mission is as follows: The Mission of Wolfe Middle School is to
provide academic experiences and extracurricular opportunities to ensure the development of
self-motivated learners. After reading our mission, it is vague when it is held to Blanksteins
outlined standards. Wolfe needs to develop an effective mission that is clear, specific,
measureable, and provides support in the event of failure. Currently, students with academic
challenges are no longer receiving the extracurricular opportunities due to placement in
intervention classes, hence the need for this mission change.
Vision is the next item of business that a professional learning community must create.
Two years ago, during one of our staff meetings, our current vision was created: At Wolfe Middle
School, it is our VISION to create an educational environment that continually SUPPORTS our
STUDENTS in their PERSONAL and ACADEMIC lives. We will strive toward this outcome by
providing EXCELLENT SAFETY standards, POSITIVE SCHOOL-COMMUNITY
collaboration, and INDIVIDUALIZED academic and extra-curricular EXPERIENCES for our
students. Our vision talks about individualized academic experiences, however we have some

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academic classes with nearly 40 students. Extra-curricular experiences have been cut due to
budget choices. If our school is not able to meet the expectations of our vision, then we need to
make changes so it is realistic and not contradictory. A schools mission and vision is designed to
unify a staff, not point out our short-comings. Even though there have been concentrated efforts
and many hours of professional development, it is surprising that our mission and vision are not
in line with Blanksteins suggestions. As a member of the school improvement team, it is my
suggestion that our core team reviews this chapter and follows Blanksteins Appendix E:
Development process for mission, vision, values, and goals. It is anticipated that there will be
question and complaints about extra time spent on this process. However, Blanksteins four
pillars guide our behaviors and decision-making. Therefore it is imperative that this structure be
built on a solid foundation, which will be worth the additional time.
Wolfe Middle Schools mission and vision can be easily found because they are posted in
every classroom and every office throughout the school. However, the values statements for our
school are not as public. WMSs values are, 1) We believe it is our professional responsibility to
meet the individual needs of our students, 2) We respect and value the diversity of our school
community, 3) We believe that fostering a healthy, safe school is a prerequisite for academic
success, and 4) We believe a positive school culture is necessary for academic success. Values
statements guide behavior. Therefore, should describe what one would observe staff activity to
be like at Wolfe. Values two and four do not focus on behavior, but rather on ideas. Our values
were not updated or revisited during our last staff input for the AdvancED QAR. This year
effort has been a theme after being introduced to Carol Dwecks mindset research (2006) and it
is my recommendation that our PLC adds this belief in our values statements when they are
revisited.

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I was asked to join the school improvement team for our middle school in September of
2012. The primary members of this team consist of my principal, the sixth grade counselor, and
me. This summer our school improvement team met multiple times to put the finishing touches
on this state and district document. We updated our academic goals with annual measurable
objectives (AMOs) in terms of proficiency percentages in the areas of reading (66%), math
(51%), science (38%), writing (55%) and social studies (39%) as measured by the spring 2015
state assessment. We also included further professional development training in strategies such as
Close & Critical Reading, Classroom Instruction That Works, and Kagan & Kagan Cooperative
Learning. Our school also is continuing implementation of PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention
Support) school-wide which will give teachers a common language and system for monitoring
and addressing challenging behaviors.
But something was missing. It is my recommendation that we need more of our
professional learning community involved in this foundational work. We must involve more
stakeholders and allocate more time to work through these processes with fidelity. Each
Wednesday we meet as a PLC so that can be precious time to continue these collaborations.
Content experts input is needed when writing our goals and listing effective strategies. The SIP
trio discussed these missing links during our summer meetings. One of our actions to address
these were to have monthly before school meetings for school improvement input. At Octobers
meeting, we had seven additional members who joined us. It is inspiring to listen to my Principal
and other school staff who are working toward common goals. My fear is that we are all working
hard, but according to Blankstein we havent put some of the first things first such as the mission
and vision revisiting.

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Two years ago we had an AdvancED Quality Review. Our report card was glowing. So
how can our scores be plummeting? The focus of Dr. Blanksteins second principle is to ensure
that all students will make achievement gains by using the systems and procedures that a school
has in place for both prevention and intervention. We know schools must maintain high standards
for all students while having systems in place to prevent failures. This system needs to be
developed by multi-tiered processes with the schools stakeholders, which in turn are based on
Blanksteins first principle. Schools need comprehensive systems for assuring student success.
Components of these plans include improvement plans for all students, a systematic approach for
quickly identifying students with academic or behavioral needs, and targeted strategies for low
achievers with a continuum of support.
I have worked at the secondary education level for the last 15 years and have worked
closely with building administrators as a counselor for the last ten years. This quasiadministrative position has given me a front line look at systems development and
implementation for both intervention and prevention initiatives. Within chapter six, two schools
were highlighted as case studies that discussed systems in place for ensuring student success. As
I read through the Adlai Stevenson High School case study, it reminded me of my visit to this
exemplar school seven years ago when I was a counselor at Center Line High School.
My high school principal must have just read Failure is not an Option and was able to
convince our central office staff to allow him to take a team of teachers to this Chicago area
school. This road trip was intended to invigorate a small group of staff members so they would
return to inspire others to improve out school by creating a Pyramid of Intervention for our
school. Our principal also desired that a 9th grade transition program be developed as well. Our
task was to look for low cost or no cost interventions that could be started at Center Line High

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School to address the question of what to do when students dont learn. During the wellorchestrated tour of the school, I was astounded by the fact that there were systems of support
everywhere. Trained parent volunteers staffed successful learning labs and there were also
multiple bell schedules to fit the daily framework needed for various school activities. The
conversations on the drive home were filled with excitement as I debriefed with our school
psychologist and special education teacher consultant who were both experienced educators.
When our team of ten returned from our April fact finding trip, we were assigned to
present these student success systems to our staff. The staff was initially very excited to hear
about the multi-tiered layers of support when it was presented at the May staff meeting. The
what was being done for all learners and the why it was being done was received very well.
When we got to how could we do this at CLPS, it became more of a challenge. It was just as
Blankstein (2004) stated, The challenge is getting all staff members to believe in the schools
ability to intervene positively in a students life and to act on this information in a sustained,
concerted, systematic manner (p. 99).
Our high school principal believed that if he brought ideas to the staff, then teachers
would not buy into the idea because it was a top down leadership model. The creation of a
Pyramid of Intervention was something that he really wanted to have in place for the upcoming
year. Unfortunately, he did not follow Blanksteins implementation guidelines detailed over three
pages in chapter six.
On the last day of school, our Principal asked to meet with me and four other teachers,
one from each of the four core academic areas. It was at this initial meeting that he assigned us to
develop Center Line High Schools pyramid of intervention over the summer. He wanted one

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pyramid to address behavioral interventions and one pyramid to incorporate academic

interventions. Three out of five of these team members had been laid off a few weeks prior and
didnt know if they would even be back next year. The language arts teacher, who was on this
intervention team, was getting married over the summer. The Principal told us he had materials
we could use and if we werent able to meet frequently then we could simply set up an email
group to communicate our findings. He asked that he was ccd on these email groups so that he
could monitor our progress.
The team of five quickly became a team of three. We were able to develop a pyramid
using other schools ideas and a Reinventing 9th Grade-Academics Through Personalization
series that I drove to get at my principals house. Many of the tier two interventions needed extra
programs, which cost money. The elements that we ended up adopting were the no cost
interventions, such as 3 week progress reports, and counselor watch lists which we used in
conjunction with the SOS program which stood for Save One Student. It didnt take us long
to figure out that tier-two interventions that required a commitment in terms of cost to the district
were not supported.
It was like the movie Field of Dreams where they built a baseball field in a rural Iowa
cornfield and said If we build a pyramid of intervention, then our students will succeed. Our
staff needed more than just an artifact in a binder that was handed out at the first staff meeting.
We needed more staff and school administrator involvement, as well as central office
commitment for the development of this unifying philosophy designed to be a framework to
follow when students didnt learn.

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After six years of working at the high school, I had an opportunity to change levels and
gain experience as a middle school counselor. I was excited to take what I learned from being a
high school counselor and become a part of a new team. My new principal wanted to put systems
in place to follow when students did not progress. I remember going to my Adali Stevensons
ideas folder and sharing it with my new principal and counselor who had just begun the Galileo
program. I also shared the high schools pyramid of intervention and told them of the challenges
of the process and having tier two interventions that were no cost programs.
Blankstein wrote about an urban school with a staff motto You Can Make a Difference
which gave teachers yearly focuses starting with attendance, behavior, and academics. That is
exactly what my colleague and I did first when developing the counseling program. We decided
that any issues that dealt with attendance, achievement, or behavior would be our focus. Since
these topics can be very broad, over the next few years we began developing systems for
prevention and intervention within these realms. The first year we began by updating our Child
Study Team Process for our middle school. Our goal was for teachers to have a nonthreatening
avenue discuss students who were not achieving and/or had behavioral issues in their classes.
The next step was to bring in other members of the students learning community in order to
obtain as much information as possible that was presented and used at the scheduled meeting.
Creating a system for attendance was another focus during our first year. We worked with our
principal, teaching staff, and the attendance secretary to develop a systematic approach to
address multiple tardiness or absences.
We struggle to find tier two interventions. We began a program called Working Lunch
at the middle school that I co-authored with the high school assistant principal when I was the
freshmen counselor. This program was designed for a student who is not completing homework,

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failing tests, and whose academic progress was suffering as a result. An academic lab class was
also a successful tier two intervention that was created based on student needs and creative
scheduling. Unfortunately, these programs were not sustained from year to year. Central office
asked that we present both of these interventions at our school board meeting, but it was
determined that they were too costly regardless of positive quantitative and qualitative data. It
was disheartening for our staff to have these successful tools for one year only, and then have
them disappear the next.
Three years ago, our district started the Read 180 program for our middle school. This
was an intervention for students with reading comprehension deficits. The spring before the
program began, teachers submitted names to counselors of possible students who could benefit
from this new intervention. From that list, our building principal and both counselors looked at
MEAP data and current grades in core classes heavily dependent on reading to select potential
students for fall placement. The Read 180 teacher, who would be implementing this tier two
intervention, cautioned that students with behavioral issues were not necessarily good
candidates. I recall this being difficult because so many of our students who had behavioral
issues also had reading skills in need of enhancement. Nevertheless, we were able to find 21
students for each of the five classes to place into year one of Read 180.
Unfortunately, the first year results of the Read 180 program indicated that the majority
of the students were placed incorrectly. After the fact, we learned that there was a program
through Read 180 called Systems 44. Systems 44 was designed for students who had lower
lexiles which indicates decoding issues that must be addressed before students begin the
comprehension focus of R180. However, our district was not able to purchase Systems 44. For

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the future, my recommendation is to have more than just the practicing teacher responsible
trained. Counselors and administrators needed to have some training as well.
When results are less than expected outcomes, we need to be able to contact the company
so a support person can provide training and/or further support to our school. The building team
needs to ask questions and be able to communicate the needs of our students to central office. If
we had used our data to guide decision making, as Blanksteins principle four suggests, our
students would have made more progress.
Teachers expect students to work together and focus on common problem to solve within
their classes each and every day. Teachers know this collaborative culture within the classroom is
beneficial for their students. So why can it be such a challenging task in so many of our schools?
Blanksteins third principle of highly effective schools encompasses collaborative
teaming focused on teaching and learning. These teams take place at the district, building, and
departmental levels and within student learning communities. All collaborative teams have a
common problem or group and/or grade level they are generating solutions and action plans
around. Another key feature of collaborative teaming is the group members are committed to
constant improvement and share responsibility for student learning. Just as a student cooperative
group, these educator groupings have a clear goal where the staff has authority to make decisions
about teaching and learning. Sharing of ideas ensues because this collaborative culture is built on
trust and respect for multiple teaching styles.
Within certain departments there are the beginnings of true collaboration. Our science
and language arts departmental teams are showing many elements of collaboration as outlined in
chapter seven. This year each teacher has been asked to join one of six collaborative teams all

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with a different focus. Unfortunately this was a rushed process with all of the beginning of the
year tasks and the ground work for meeting times. After reading this chapter, I see a need to
organize these collaborative groups using the chapter seven implementation guidelines. This is
something that I will speak with my administrator about so time is set aside at one of our
upcoming staff meetings to outline and discuss the meeting protocols that are detailed within
FNO. This will also impact school culture because accountability for these extra duties can be
documented and shared with our staff.
The morning school improvement sessions that were mentioned earlier in this paper, will
be beneficial in cultivating teacher leaders within our school. This will be a perfect group to
model collaboration principles while working on school improvement issues. This will also help
to foster sustainability due to increased staff involvement and efficacy.
It is MEAP time again for our Michigan schools. As one of our school MEAP
coordinators, many thoughts have crossed my mind while inventorying, sorting, and counting
all things MEAP, MEAP-Access, and MI-Access. Will the time spent on collaborative
discussions, using protocols, centered on spring MEAP data done last May make a difference?
During the spring, MEAP reports turn up everywhere. They are in the newspapers,
online, parent letters, in boxes in our front office, and on real estate sites such as Zillow. We
dedicate time with at least two staff meetings to this topic, in an effort to make instructional
changes based on data that shows areas of deficiency. The tone of these spring staff meetings is
typically somber. But usually by the second meeting teachers have either justified these results in
some way or decided to roll up their sleeves and make next year better. There are teachers from
the same department who look more closely at the MEAP data, but it is before or after school

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hours. It is my recommendation that our district allows teachers department time to dig deeper
into this data using an appropriate protocol. The conversations that ensue during these
expeditions are where changes are formulated that will guide our decisions for continuous
improvement.
What is fascinating to me is that when the MEAP testing window closes, so does the
MEAP item analysis discussions. We typically dont hear a peep about MEAP until the following
spring. With the uncertainty of MEAP replacement testing, our focus needs to be on instructional
strategies that work for all students based on formative assessments. Wolfe has common
assessments for the four core areas and uses NWEA and AIMS Web data. Unfortunately, the
main use of this data has been for teacher evaluation.
Our newest data collection tool is The Power Walkthrough. Central office introduced this
initiative a couple weeks ago by emailing the teaching staff a copy of the template and informing
them that the Superintendent, Human Resources Director, and Curriculum Director would be
conducting these observations as a group. Some of our building principals are concerned and are
trying to modify this practice to avoid a climate of fear, which in turn can have a negative effect
on our school culture.
This fall, our principal scheduled NWEA testing in the first week of school. Just as
Blankstein suggests, she made it a priority to get the results in the teachers hands within the first
3 weeks of school. In addition, our school improvement team decided to write student data
conferences into our plan. New this year, Wolfe began individual student conferences with
homeroom teachers regarding student NWEA scores. Teachers were trained to help students
interpret these data points so students can monitor growth and set goals for the next test session.

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The teachers have commented positively about this new initiative. I just reread the last few
sentences, and realized that the way that this student data conferencing is set up, seems to be
focused on teacher evaluation scores instead of student learning. NWEA has the capacity for
offering instructional guidance for individual students through the DesCartes reports. It is my
recommendation that we invite the NWEA support team back to our PLCs now that we have
real data so we can make informed instructional decisions needed to change instructional
practices.
One of our challenges at our middle school is getting all the data points in one place in
order to make decisions about student intervention placement. Last spring we found ourselves
wanting to combine all of these scores on one sheet with the student name. We gather extensive
reading scores through the use of two AIMES WEB tests (RCB and MAZE) which we
administer to students three times a year. We also test using the NWEA for reading, language
usage and math. MEAP scores are also gathered. When we learned that our district was adding a
corrective reading teacher to our school the last quarter of 2012-2013 school year. We decided to
use at least three different standardized tests scores, along with teacher recommendations, when
making decisions about student placement into our new corrective reading intervention class.
We knew that we needed to make good decisions and to do this we needed accurate data.
Shortly after we learned that we were getting an intervention class, our school
improvement team attended a meeting. We learned that another districts power school liaison
found a way to merge all scores for more efficient use. Our principal was so excited to find out
and emailed our superintendent and school liaison immediately. Unfortunately, this merging of
data still has not been accomplished in our district to date. Our principal continued to be
persistent, but we just ran out of time last spring. We needed to get these scores merged so three

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of us started to create a spreadsheet. Many hours were dedicated to this endeavor and we were
able to have the data in one place to make appropriate decisions for scheduling students in the
2013-2014 school year. This was also a valuable tool when we spoke with parents in the fall
about their childs placement in a reading intervention class.
When a child knows that his parent(s) and teachers are communicating it enhances
accountability. Blankstein defined six standards that guide a school in gaining active engagement
from their student families and their community.
Blankstein suggested that communication needs to be between schools and home on a
regular basis. Most examples of communication follow the one-way model in our school. Our
school uses the standard variety of communication methods such as email, robo calls, and school
newsletters publications that are sent home with the student. Our school district suffers from a
lack of technology. Most teachers still rely on overheads, whiteboards, and a few chalkboards.
There are many new ways to communicate with parents and students, however our staff is in
need of training and support in this engagement standard. My daughter attends school in the
Rochester district, and one of her teachers sends us texts using Remind 101.When my husband,
who is a special education teacher at Wolfe, learned about this tool at my daughters open house,
he too began using this tool. I plan on presenting this strategy at one of our upcoming PLCs.
One of the ideas that Blankstein presented was the need for communication with our
English Language learners. Our school should begin translating school mailings for our English
Learner population. Even though it would be nice to do at a district level, it is not within our
control of influence. Our middle school has a new EL teacher who would like to have this
important information in usable form for her students parents.

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Our school is building a new secure entry on the front of our building. When the plans
were being drawn up, our principal included other front office staff in the decision making
process as well. The other counselor and I asked that space be included for a parent resource
center. This would allow parents to be surrounded by resources while they waited to see school
personnel or while they stopped in to drop off an item for their child. Our superintendent loved
the idea, and the other counselor and I are anxious to stock it. The building was supposed to be
done in September, but it looks more like December at this point. But either way we hope that
this can be a support for our parents.
Parents were once students and therefore, bring their own ideas and feelings of what it is
like to attend school. Some of our parents had great school experiences and some have had
experiences that were less than desirable. On either end of the spectrum, a school has the
challenge of addressing both paradigms. Reaching out to our parents by increased
communication and supportive parenting endeavors are places we need to start.
When reading the pages detailing how to gain active engagement from family and
community, I couldnt help but think of one of our parents. This father walked the halls of Wolfe
Middle School in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Unfortunately, in eighth grade he was
suspended for physically assaulting another student. When he retold the story of this event, it was
like it just happened yesterday. This dad went on to say that he was bullied, and because there
was no action from the school, his life has been altered. The reason this dad came to our school
was to report that his son was being bullied. This father needed to know that his son would be
supported. Dad still has issues that he needs to resolve, but the fear that his child following in his
footsteps seemed to open his mind to listen to alternatives. His son went through a successful
mediation with the other boy, which was helpful for dad and his son. Administration and

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counseling took the time needed to support this father with resources and open communication to
alleviate his fears so his son can focus on academics.
Student learning can be enhanced when the childs parent is involved in some capacity. It
is the role of the school to help build that bridge. Wolfe has invited parents in for math
workshops for parents. Weve scheduled evening guest speakers for topics such as parenting,
bullying, and cyber safety. Another powerful communication tool is WMSs parent portal. This is
a grade reporting system that aids parents in monitoring work completion and attendance.
Parents can get up-to-date information on their child progress and arrange for them to attend
teacher help sessions.
Teachers have the greatest influence on our learners, but many times they dont realize
that power. It is the human resources of the school community that can be easily underestimated.
Building a sustainable leadership capacity within the staff should be every principals desire.
Curriculum changes or new programs can get so much attention, but it is the person who brings
this curriculum to life that is most important.
Principals wear many different hats. Blankstein reported that, according to Schiff, in a 62
hour average work week, only 23 hours are spent on priority activities such establishing
climate, dealing with personnel issues like hiring and evaluations, and providing curricular
leadership. Parent issues, discipline, community relations and school management monopolizes
over 60% of their work week (as cited in Blankstein, 2004, p. 191). Now with the new teacher
evaluation mandates, even more of a principals time is unavailable for the primary focus of an
educational leader. There are some benefits of this new evaluation system, however the
additional documentation will mean less time for personal interactions. At my middle school, our

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assistant principal is very mindful of these issues and works to shield our principal from these
distractions. However, the principals day can be dramatically altered by a single phone call.
Principals inspire others, but sometimes find themselves implementing their vision solo,
instead of with the entire chorus. According to a NAASP survey of principals, making the
statement that all children will succeed (or learn to high levels) can be energizing. Trying to
operationalize it as the sole leader of the school can be depleting (as cited in Blankstein, 2004,
p.190). After working in four different schools, at all three levels, with a dozen building
administrators, it has been clear that giving up control, which would allow for increased
leadership capacity in others, has not always been evident. Some of these past administrators saw
giving up control as a sign of weakness. However, my current principal seems to make a daily
decision to cultivate new leaders.
Last year my current principal, Amy Maruca, included me in the school improvement
process. When she asked me to be a member of the team, it was concerning to me that I may not
have the knowledge to be an effective member. She assured me that training would ensue and
that she was still learning too. That statement was comforting to me. When Blankstein wrote
about Richard Elmores comparison of instructional leadership to the Holy Grail in educational
leadership, he stated that most programs that prepare superintendents and principals claim to be
in the business of the next generation of instructional leadersthis is mainly just talk. Few
administrators of any kind at any level are directly involved with instruction (2004).
Working on the school improvement team, has given me an inside look at Mrs. Marucas
drive to make a difference in student achievement by empowering teachers through the school
improvement process. She recognizes strengths and approaches staff members to enlist their

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help by sharing strategies or ideas with others in some way. It is common at our staff meetings or
professional development Wednesdays, that a teacher will take a moment to share something that
Mrs. Maruca noticed while doing a walkthrough in that teachers room. This is a great example
of how leadership capacity is being fostered in our building under her guidance. The future of
leadership must be embedded in the hearts and minds of the many, and not rest on the shoulders
of a heroic few. (Blankstein, 2004, p. 210)
Leadership styles have always been fascinating for me to observe. What makes some
people in these positions of power so appealing? It reminds me of the first day of this class when
we discussed the top qualities of a leader according to The Leadership Challenge written by
Kouzes and Posner (2002). Mrs. Maruca is honest, competent, inspiring, and intelligent which
creates the ability to bring out the best in her staff. Her True Colors are blue and orange. These
are her strengths, but she recognizes that she needs gold and green staff member viewpoints so
the rainbow is complete. It is my fourth year under her leadership, and throughout this time Ive
witnessed changes. Last year she began attending Oakland University to obtain her central office
certificate. She talks about books she is reading and what she is learning in her classes and how
they can become the fabric of Wolfe Middle School. Earlier this fall, at the height of the busy
season, she told me that she had an epiphany. She said she finally realized that she cannot turn
our focus school around alone. However, she still starts every morning with a genuine smile on
her face while welcoming the children and staff. With two young children, university courses
with a doctoral goal, and a school to manage, she must cultivate other leaders within her
building.
Blankstein writes about research that calls for a more participative approach in school
leadership. Our principal was born and raised on a beef and strawberry farm in Michigan with a

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single mom and four siblings. Therefore, our staff will hear the occasional farm analogy. At one
of the staff meetings earlier this year, she spoke about the spring cleaning of the barns. She said
we all had to pick up a pitch-fork in order to meet our school improvement goals. Many hands,
make light work is another one of her common sayings. The staff realizes that Mrs. Maruca
would not ask them to do anything that she is not willing to do herself. This shared leadership
model helps to develop commitment among staff which in turn, creates the opportunity for
higher yields in student achievement and teacher efficacy.

References
Blankstein, Alan M. (2004). Failure is not an option: Six Principles That Guide Student
Achievement in Highly Effective Schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

IMPLEMENTING BLANKSTEINS PRINCIPLES

21

Dweck, Carol S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York, NY: Random
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Kachur, Donald S., Stout, Judith A., & Edwards, Claudia L. (2013). Engaging Teachers in
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Kouzes, P., & Posner, B. (1993). Credibility: How leaders gain and lose it and why people
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In Bardwick (as cited in Blankstein, Alan M. (2004). Failure is not an option: Six Principles
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In Elmore (as cited in Blankstein, Alan M. (2004). Failure is not an option: Six Principles That
Guide Student Achievement in Highly Effective Schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
In National Association of School Principals. (As cited in Blankstein, Alan M (2004). Failure is
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Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
In Schiff (as cited in Blankstein, Alan M. (2004). Failure is not an option: Six Principles That
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