TregoED Blog — Collaboration

Collaboration produces higher-quality solutions and greater commitment to the outcomes.   When people feel valued and are fully engaged, they have higher levels of job satisfaction and feelings of efficacy.  Yet not all leaders embrace collaboration or use it as fully as they might. In “Collaborative Leadership:  6 Influences that Matter Most”, author Peter DeWitt cites Read the full article…

Here is a scenario that you may be familiar with.  Trouble is brewing in a local school district.  Like many districts, it is experiencing declining student enrollment. Because of projections, the district is considering closing schools. You can feel the tension growing in the community. Policies and cutbacks at the state level have put increasing Read the full article…

Imagine politicians reaching across party lines, 200 million dollars and lots of good intentions all focused on turning around a failing school district.  The idea was to move a city with very poor schools and poor performance of children to a model of educational excellence in five years and use that model to help solve Read the full article…

Technology decisions in education can be complex and costly.  Successful upgrades and smooth implementation depend on many factors – both human and technical.  Planning for potential problems and opportunities is one way of avoiding inevitable pitfalls. We asked leaders, David Blattner, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Director for Media and Virtual Learning at Iredell Statesville Read the full article…

This is part 2 of our series about handling complex technology decisions based on the interviews of school leaders David Blattner, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Director for Media and Virtual Learning at Iredell Statesville Schools in North Carolina, John Guyer, Executive Director of Technology at Summit Academy Management, a free public non-profit Academy for Read the full article…

No one wants to be “that district” where large sums of money were spent on technology devices that are rarely used or worse yet, never make it out of the cartons.  The key to successful technology integration starts early in the decision making process.  We turned to three district administrators charged with making big tech Read the full article…

You can’t escape it these days. It’s everywhere you look: politics, government, social media …and schools. “It”…  is the cry for business…both public,and,occasionally, even personal, to be conducted in an atmosphere of total and complete transparency. A Facebook and Instagram culture expects nothing less than immediate access to anything and everything. Period. What does that Read the full article…

Workplace silo:  “A system, process, department, etc. that operates in isolation from others.”(Oxford Dictionaries) We have all run up against silos in the workplace.  We may have railed against their lack of responsiveness, cooperation or incomprehensible procedures. Or perhaps we have worked in a silo, enjoying the “us vs. them” camaraderie while lamenting the unreasonable Read the full article…

My son recently was ‘inaugurated’ as president of the University of Akron Graduate School Government.  In the ceremony, the associate provost, Dr. Becky Hoover, shared her experience with the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra from New York.  This Grammy-winning orchestra has never had a conductor! As one observer, David Pearce commented, “In a conductorless orchestra, the Read the full article…

Many people agree that effectively involving others in organizational improvement can build stronger solutions and enhance stakeholder commitment. However, we often see involvement as being superficial, disingenuous, or mishandled. Important questions an executive leader may ask are: Who should be involved? When should this happen? How do we structure meaningful involvement? 3 Key Questions for Read the full article…