Highlights From Superintendent Finalist Dr. Hiersche Live Blog

Melrose Public Schools superintendent finalist Dr. Steven Hiersche met with the public and was interviewed by the School Committee on Thursday. Below are highlights from Melrose Patch's live blog of the meeting.

These are lightly edited selections from the live blog, a . Questions are in bold and Hiersche's responses start with "SH."

State and Federal Mandates

Q: We have many talented teachers in Melrose. They have great ideas, but get frustrated because of tight schedule of stuff coming down from top, many of it from state standards. What's your philosophy about getting around that state standard, which is sometimes very mundane?

SH: Right now not as concerned about the state standards as federal standards, Race to the Top. You should understand the rules well enough that let you do what you want to do anyway. What feds are enforcing us to do, it's important for us to know what we want to accomplish clearly enough so we make sure what we're doing for the state and federal government is a continuation of what we want to do ourselves.

Right now, concern on MCAS. It really did drive for a period of time the standards. Now it's a 20th century test and we're trying to build 21st century skills. Around this time of year in Watertown, we had to literally stop what we're doing, go back and review for MCAS, then as soon as MCAS was over, start up again. So what I've done a lot in past years is advocate at state level. Presently on the board of Greater Boston Readiness Center. On it to try and shape how it's playing out for school districts and get people to understand it in a way that doesn't get in a way. I'm not averse to ignoring rules, but in many cases it would lose me my license and we wouldn't get anywhere. Fit it in as much as we can and not sidetrack teachers and training. Scores in Watertown today I'm proud of it. I've been gone for three years, but it takes 5-8 years for everything we did to catch up. Started not necessarily ignoring MCAS, but knowing if we focus on what we need to do, MCAS would take care of itself. Now, Common Core—not that different, just have to change frameworks and documents. If you stay ahead of curve you can usually keep doing what you're doing. Also focus now on new supervision model. We should be clear in our supervision and evaluation model. Similar expectations. While it's a struggle, you have to understand the rules well enough to make them work for you.

One of our most exciting pieces now—taking lowest performing school in Framingham and using state Innovation program, making it an International Baccalaureate School over the next four years. We found something that works for the kids, works for the staff and it will take care of our level three status in that school.

Initiating Change

Q: What's the ideal time frame for a superintendent to come in and start initiating significant change?

SH: Usually takes six months to have enough information to plan out. What's strong in the district already that you can build off of, rather than starting from scratch. Triangulate in my mind what's the easiest and clearest path to capitalize on. That was a lot of the conversation I had today. In Framingham, five superintendents in 10 years, which caused backup and challenges. When I got there, I went through door with loss of ARRA money and all the issues we're trying to address, we got a lot of them done, but it's really making a good effort to ensure that you're leveraging the most important piece right away, the low hanging fruit. The more experience I have, the easier it is to see the low hanging fruit. Training at this point, how do we take it and move it forward, how much 21st century learning has embedded itself. Assessing that and trying to leverage that. One of the intriguing pieces here for me is there's not a lot of major, major things assaulting right now. We're taking a school system in pretty good shape and leveraging to move forward in a significant way over the next six years.

Carrie Kourkoumelis: You have many years in education and exposure to philosophies about learning. Now that you've studied Melrose, understanding that there would be a transition, is there an area right off the bat that you think with your vision and beliefs about education, you'd want to try and introduce some of those philosophies and ideas of your own, or a change in direction.

SH: That's a difficult question. It takes about six months for me to have enough questions answered to find out what's the easiest leverage point to move forward. Want to hit ground running, but not change direction on something people have worked hard on for past 6-8 years. It's important I look for those leverage points where I can offer direction and assistance immediately. I had a lot of connections in the Boston area from standpoint of how we can leverage teachers going out and accessing resources. That might be a first—there's a lot of that going on here, so I'd be able to add to that. Already a pretty solid culture of looking at things differently. Want to be careful of is the fear of all the staff when the superintendent turns over, OK, we're going in another direction now and how long will that person last. Want to know most critical pieces going on now that need to continue. That's what people are worried about right now. Today I asked a lot about materials people using and what's becoming systemic that needs to be nurtured a while longer and moved into another realm. Easy piece for me would be new supervision and evaluation method. We're a little ahead right now in Framingham as a level three school.

More on 21st century, less about MCAS, hope we're not doing Race to the Top five years now. Not necessarily enhancing what we want to work on as a School Community. We have limited time to work on things, used to be just state mandates but now federal. Taking away time. I'd like to think our classrooms are 21st century classrooms from way instruction is delivered, five years from now how to leverage tech as instructional tool. Long way to go before we do that, but way kids are using is something we can leverage from an instructional standpoint. When I look at one-on-one computing, it's really one-on-one access. I want kids to have access to the tools they need when they need it, period. Doesn't need we have to buy stuff, but our infrastructure and kids' own devices, using in a way that's safe.

Challenges in Melrose and Strengths

Don Constantine: What is one of the challenges you've heard from Melrose staff today and how aligned with your strengths?

SH: Heard about stability, heard everyone put in a lot of time and effort and wanted to see that seen through to fruition. Also standpoint on professional development. Hours are scarce and their hope was that while it might bring new things in, the things ongoing will be finished through to the end of the process. What they looked at is real challenges around figuring out a way to deal with supervision and evaluation going out. They understood that, what expected changes are going to be. A lot of people wondering what I see with MCAS, and what's expectation of them. Leadership is certainly looking to make a solid leadership team that's a trusting team and yet a challenging one. What they should be reading, thinking about from a leadership standpoint. I think they're concerned about they heard about public relations—many times with superintendent search, some stuff comes up that may or may not be as real as it feels to the professionals in the district, so they expect me to not jump to any conclusions.

Other part was continued effort around literacy. If we don't have a good solid literacy plan, we don't have a foundation we can build off of. They felt they put a lot of effort in and wanted to continue. In other districts I've worked, literacy foundation of what we worked on. The other thing is very real hope that they feel they're on the verge. They'd like to see what I can bring to add to where they are right now. I think they're probably in a better place than they think they are. Come in and start working from enhancement rather than change direction.

Last piece that came through is wrestling with what to do with Gifted and Talented. They spoke to people in my program in Framingham and the value of that program. The real key for us is the assessment that we do. We do very clear assessment and I know Melrose uses some of our assessments but not sure they understand to the point that the people who've been doing ours for so long understand it. Students have to emerge from that assessment process—truly G&T kids are also not performing in school the way they should be. I bring that in with me which I think would help a lot. I can get into that pretty quickly. Our model has changed substantially since Melrose actually looked at our program and we're doing much more teacher professional development, particularly at middle school, enhancing instruction for all kids.

Managing Principals, Working With School Committee

Q: What do you look for in your leadership team?

SH: Principals key part of the team for me. The reason is that tends to be your big picture group of people because they spend the day to day basis in the building to make sure everything works harmoniously as best they can. I also want them to see educational leadership as their number one role. How I can tell that is how they spend the day and how they're clear with staff about importance of them being in classrooms, supervision and evaluation. First most important part they do is hiring. I meet with every new teacher in Framingham and you can imagine I meet with an awful lot of them, 800 teachers. Gives me a chance to see what principals are looking for and see if there's a common link, are they all looking for the same thing. I expect a lot of work out of them and for them to have a good sense of humor. Expect them to manage their buildings, I don't micro manage their buildings, but I'll ask questions—and do a lot of teaching.

I'm a pretty experienced principal so I love to mentor principals. In Watertown I hired 5 out of 5 principals when I first started. Same experience in Framingham, with turnover. In Watertown I used frameworks and went through as if teaching a grad course, as part of our meeting structure that year, because I want meeting structure to be example of what they do with their teachers. About growth, professional development and what we're trying to accomplish for kids. You can only create rigor when you all have same definition of the word 'rigor.' How does it get consistently applied.

Q: In Melrose what would you guess rigor means?

SH: Have feeling it means a lot of things to different people right now. From people I talked to today, the two things I was hearing—it's a challenge to get to the point where rigor means something different than it used to be. As a math teacher I couldn't be happier that technology is easier now. Problem with teaching solid Geometry is to have a real conversation, you had to figure out way to do calculations rapidly. Now that they don't, having is a much higher level conversation than it used to be. So we have opportunities to do that. Other piece is communication. Electronic communication now, higher level skills needed by students more than ever before. No body language or figuring out follow up questions. I always use the example of the persuasive essay. Every email you write, at best use all the aspects of persuasive essay. How do you right to begin so there's no misunderstanding when you send something out.

Driscoll: All good superintendents manage down and up. Offer us an example of how you manage up for improved outcomes for students.

SH: Good question. Make sure the School Committee is focused on the right things. I want the committee involved in the process of education in a real way. I want them not to be swayed by every blogger, phone call, conversation in the grocery store that people get caught up in. It's a lot of conversation I try to have. I do a retreat with SC on a regular basis, to get to educational core of what we're trying to do. Fewer of them in Framingham. In Watertown, had principals join us for a period of time. To see what the work is. More of a challenge in Framingham with 13 principals. I want the committee to be engaged in their portion of getting to the goal we're trying to get to it. Also not driving crazy with side conversations we get caught up in. I have a town member in one of the communities I worked in constantly challenging about room in our schools and committee concerned about me answering that person. That person really was not interested in the truth. He was going to say what he say what he said no matter what I gave that person. That's not the important part of our job. We put our energy into answering the other people that question and not the one person who was going to say the same thing no matter what we did. I try to manage our meetings down to 2 to 2-1/2 hours as often as we can, because you don't do good stuff when you're out three hours, you just don't.

Using Data

Thorp: Data-driven. We're trying very hard to be data driven in our decisions, and a lot you've talked about is not. I'd like to hear your philosophy.

SH: Being a mathematician, data very important to me. If you don't figure out what the questions are first, it gets lost in the data and you don't get anything out of it. A lot of time building data teams in the building. Getting teachers to analyze their own data. For math teachers, it's a common occurrence. For others, not necessarily. I can make changes in my classroom tomorrow, I don't need to wait for people to tell me what to work on. In last two districts, we picked up on measures of progress as our data point. Grades 3-9 in literacy and math. It is a tool that is an online tool. The teachers get feedback within 24 hours. And it's individualized. So if a child does really well here, next time they go on the performance measure, it has graded itself up based on what student is doing. Teacher gets feedback on what student did, the group weaknesses and make changes, and look at individual students. Immediate feedback important, perhaps downfall of MCAS is it's not immediate.

Reflection on Career and Future

Q: Hypothetical, after seeing what's going, you're in your car thinking. Imagine your mentor is in the car with you—says let's get to brass tacks. In your heart, what's your real passion of what you want to accomplish by the end of your career and could you do it in Melrose?

SH: I think after visiting today I say have a good chance of getting it done here. For me, it would be about student performance, elevating student performance across the school district, consistent from room to room to room. Doesn't mean it doesn't play out different, but it's clear what we're trying to accomplish. From 21st century learning, they'd say, "Melrose is the only one that gets it." Getting it is a huge challenge and it's very different from what we're doing in public schools right now, and it's not the same as what Race to the Top and the state expects. It's high quality, kids getting to do whatever they want when they leave Melrose High School.

Don Constantine: Stability, led three districts in Mass, leaving Framingham now, what about Melrose that makes you want to come in and make your mark here?

SH: Stage of career I'm at. I'm really not looking to do another superintendency than my next one. Looking at the course of my career, and where was I happiest and most engaged and what communities I see that match that. In most case when I left after five years, I was recruited. Now about finding right conditions for me and in the school community that suggests my leadership will be an asset. Finances, budget, that's the easy part of the job, but it's not the thing that feeds my soul when I see myself as a superintendent. More time spent on those things, the more it takes away from who I am as an educator. To be quite frank doing in a town with Town Meeting right now is not going to do it. It's not about money or negotiations, it's about the instruction for kids. People will pay for things as long as it's compelling enough for them to want to. I tend to be conservative anyway, so I see the financial obligation both as to the taxpayers and the district. The story has to be what goes on in every classroom for kids. When that's what we have our focus on, that's what makes me happy and also makes me grow. There's a lot here I can learn. That combination is real key. I have a lot of experience, I also have a lot to learn. I really see this as an opportunity to provide stability and that's what I'm looking for myself right now.