An effective Challenge Success school team:

Includes 10 school community members representing a diversity of perspectives, including:

• Team Leader to spearhead the work, facilitate meetings, and liaise with Challenge Success staff
• Administrators to provide have a system-level view of the school
• Teachers to represent the diverse perspectives of the faculty
• Parents to offer an understanding of the lives and needs of students outside of school
• Students to serve as experts on the student experience 
  

Attends the Challenge Success Fall and Spring Conferences.

Develops an action plan that reflects a vision for change and that contains a clear but flexible schedule for moving forward.

Regularly gathers information from and disseminates information to the school community about student health, engagement, and integrity, and encourages cross-stakeholder dialogue about this information.

Holds meetings at least monthly to review and push forward the action plan.

Involves all stakeholders at each stage of the change process.

Pilots discrete, incremental changes rather than trying to do too much all at once. Changes are based on the school community’s needs and are driven by research-based best practices known to improve student engagement, well-being and/or academic integrity.

Evaluates results of incremental changes before deciding to institutionalize reforms.

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I tell people all the time that on September 27, 2019 (yes, I remember the exact date!), I was sitting with my Challenge Success team in a conference room on the Stanford Campus, and we were asked to share what we did for our version of Playtime, Downtime, and Family Time (PDF) — what brought us joy? 

I only half-listened to everyone on my team sharing because I was contemplating the entire time whether to lie and say something generic or tell the truth—that I don’t engage in any (or extremely limited) PDF in my own life. I was mortified and sad at the same time. I was the principal of an amazing school–a nationally ranked school full of beautiful, stressed-out, anxiety-ridden humans, but as their leader, I saw that I was also part of the problem. I knew as much as our school needed some healthy changes, I also had to lead by example. 

When I got back home I took to some pretty deep reflection and made some pretty drastic changes in my own life – changes that I could be proud of.  

I decided I needed to be less available at work and set some boundaries because I could not engage in PDF if I was always working. I used to wear it like a badge of honor that I was accessible 24 hours a day. That changed. 

I made appointments that benefited my own physical and mental health and treated them as I would a work meeting. Those meetings could not be changed, and it was okay to prioritize being healthy, working out, and being present for my family and friends. 

I prioritized eating foods that made me feel good. 

I eliminated friendships and projects outside of work that were not healthy.

I started taking a day off here and there. I had accumulated over 6 months of paid time off in my 8 years! 

By the time the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, I had created a life I was so happy with and so proud of that not even a pandemic could get me down. I counted the pandemic as a blessing to focus even more on my family, my health and spending time doing meaningful PDF. 

During this time I had also started a book club for students on my campus to talk about a growth mindset and perfectionism. I spoke candidly with students about how even as an adult I still had to work on these things that were difficult for them too. I think it is important as adults that we share with students that we are not perfect and that taking care of ourselves is important too. 

Some times I have to be incredibly intentional about PDF, and other times it comes naturally. Through this re-focusing, I am a healthier leader with more realistic expectations and more empathy for both my faculty and students. I am walking the talk, and I am thankful that Challenge Success was able to show me that, as educators, we still have a lot to learn and that it is important to model the same healthy habits we want our students and families to use.

Dr. Amy Cislak first started working with Challenge Success in 2019 while she was the principal of nationally ranked University High School in Tucson, Arizona. She now leads one of the state’s top high schools, Tanque Verde High School where outstanding relationships, culture, and community are at the forefront of every decision.

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The most valuable part of being on this team has been working with people in different roles and learning how we can listen to each other and use each other’s positions within the school community to implement our goals. — Challenge Success Student Team Member, Winter 2019

Over the past 15 years, Challenge Success partner schools have made many changes to increase student well-being and engagement in learning. At the center of each school’s reform effort is a team of committed people — faculty, students, administrators, counselors, and parents — who work together to identify a shared vision, gather and assess data, design an action plan, and engage their broader community in positive change.

When a school applies to our program, one of the first questions we ask is about their investment in convening and working as a multi-stakeholder team. The commitment to work across roles and listen to diverse perspectives is essential to our model. We’ve seen that when team members come together with the common goal of improving student well-being and engagement in learning they have the power to spark a school-wide movement toward beneficial reforms.

There are many good reasons to work as a team. Teams can help to distribute the workload, meet requirements for accreditation or funding, and broaden communication and buy-in. But there is also a larger purpose. Multi-stakeholder teams, specifically, bring diverse lenses, experiences, and sets of knowledge to complex and seemingly intractable challenges. When effective, these teams guide efforts to see root causes clearly, craft new ways of thinking and doing things, test solutions with openness and curiosity, invite the broader community into the conversation, and build momentum and connection across groups that could (and sometimes do) blame each other for the challenges faced.

While every team and school context are a bit different, we have found that Challenge Success teams are most effective when they:

• Keep students at the center of the conversation. We know student participation matters in school reform initiatives, and having students on the team is essential. Students have a sense of urgency for change and insight into the daily experience that can’t be gained elsewhere.  One administrator captured the value of students this way: I’m loving having two student reps on our Challenge Success team. They keep us on track and really steeped in the student experience. Very powerful!

• Share responsibility and distribute power. Team leaders recognize that parent, staff, and student engagement in leadership roles positively supports both school reform efforts and student outcomes. Rather than playing the blame game (It’s the teachers’ fault! It’s the parents’ fault! It’s the students’ fault!), each member recognizes that they are part of a larger system, and the problems and solutions within that system are everyone’s responsibility. We are all on the same side.

• Focus on research and data: Effective teams use data to inform and develop priorities related to their vision and action plan. Collecting and interpreting data, taking responsibility for sharing findings with their broader stakeholder groups, and raising questions all enrich the discussion and build a shared conversation.

• Pilot and assess discrete, incremental changes:  Effective teams try out strategies based on their school’s needs and research-based practices known to improve student engagement and well-being. They also evaluate results before deciding to institutionalize large-scale reforms.

• Have clear roles and responsibilities—including a leader to help facilitate, schedule, set agendas, and keep the team on track.

• Honor process and partnership. As anyone who has ever been part of a team knows, the work often feels slow and cumbersome, particularly at the start. There is a process. Group norms! Scheduling! The need for consensus building, reflection, and jargon clarification! And yet, these processes and conversations–which are sometimes frustratingly slow—provide an important foundation, sense of connection, safety, knowledge base, and commitment to the work ahead. By setting and upholding shared norms, participating in courageous inquiry and listening, teams may build empathy, gain insight and trust, and set a tone for the broader school community.

• Hold the big picture and take the long view. Teams understand that students (and teachers and families) are navigating lots of different settings—academic, social, extracurricular, athletics, and family life. They know that change takes time and is often incremental. Teams also connect their work to the broader school mission and strategic or master plan and to other efforts within the school.

• Celebrate strengths and wins (even the small ones). Effective teams take the time to pause and reflect on what they’ve accomplished and communicate these wins to the broader community.

Working in teams is not always the best way to get things done. But to solve complex issues that involve a whole system of people and their interests, a team is essential. Importantly, the act of forming a multi-stakeholder team, having research-based conversations about causes and solutions, sharing power and voice, and testing out new ways of thinking about and doing things to benefit student learning and health, is action. With a committed team, change has already begun.

Further reading on the power of teams:

• Mitra, D. L. (2008). Amplifying student voice. Educational Leadership, 66(3), 20-25.
• Mitra, D. (2006). Increasing student voice and moving toward youth leadership. The prevention researcher, 13(1), 7-10.
• Osberg, J., Pope, D., & Galloway, M. (2006)  Students matter in school reform: Leaving fingerprints and becoming leaders. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 9(4), 329–343.
• Rudo, Z., & Dimock, V. (2017). How Family, School, and Community Engagement Can Improve Student Achievement and Influence School Reform. L. Wood & E. Bauman (Eds.).
• Shafer, L. (2016) Giving Students A Voice. Usable Knowledge.
• Weiss, J. (2018).  Involving the Stakeholder that Matter Most: Student Voice in School Reform. ASCD Express, Amplifying Student Voice, 13(13).

Mary Hofstedt, School Program Director at Challenge Success, is an educator, mom, and facilitative leader with a passion for supporting youth and families to thrive.

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