Building a Culture of Collective Responsibility at UES
By: Katie Barea
Our UES Guiding Coalition (which you may have read about in my post back in September, titled, Our UES Professional Learning Community) is currently focused on one of our 4 MRPS pillars-Collective Responsibility & Collaborative Practices. This pillar is guiding our work as we reflect as an entire staff on our current reality, specifically as it relates to our intentional and systematic collaborative efforts across grade levels and disciplines. Our goal is not only to ensure we are building limitless futures for all of our Wise Owls but also that all students have an equitable experience, each year, no matter what homeroom they are placed in.
Our Guiding Coalition has been intentionally asking questions like:
How are the current collaborative systems we have in place at UES ensuring we are enabling limitless futures for all of our Wise Owls?
Where can we strengthen our collective responsibility toward ensuring high levels of learning for all students?
How can we adjust our collaborative practices to become more efficient and effective?
Where is the time in our daily schedule for teachers to collaborate with one another and what are the norms and commitments that govern that work?
When something is not working, do we predict and prevent rather than react and repair? Why or why not?
With new leadership and multiple years of pandemic schooling, it was a natural time to re-examine our collective responsibility, together. In addition to working to answer some key questions about our current reality as mentioned above, as a staff, we have been discussing the difference between “Buy In” and “Ownership”. Buy in being that you see the benefit of something to you. Whereas Ownership is truly believing you are a part of something and without you, the whole can’t achieve a collective goal. At UES, our goal is that every staff member feels a sense of true ownership related to our collective responsibility and to our collaborative practices.
We are excited about the work we are engaged in as a staff, building further ownership, strengthening our culture of collective responsibility, and the continued positive impact on our students.
