A Layered Approach to Distributing Leadership, Centering Public Learning, and Improving Student Outcomes

Examining student data with colleagues requires a willingness to be vulnerable and honest about teaching and learning, how our actions serve our students, where we are succeeding, and where we need to grow. 

At Halkin Elementary School, a vibrant and busy place in San Leandro, California,  we have seen ourselves develop our work with data through the use of action research and Lead by Learning’s Public Learning tools for equitable discourse and collaboration in professional learning communities (PLC). 

Since 2022, we have been a partner of Lead by Learning, and this past school year, we have focused our professional development on our multilingual students, specifically those who are identified as English Learners. It has been my honor and privilege to serve over 700 students, with 40+ credentialed staff, as the school principal for the last 7 years.

At the launch of our 2024-2025 action research, inquiry cycle, Halkin educators used ELPAC (English Language Proficiency Assessments for California) data as an entry point to reflect and learn about our multilingual students, intending to dive into multiple sources of data throughout the year. The ELPAC is a test used to assess the English language proficiency of students in California whose primary language is not English. It serves to identify English learners and determine their progress towards English language proficiency. 

After examining ELPAC data in our initial Public Learning spaces with all teachers, their feedback in their inquiry journals, a space to hold teacher reflections, and next steps indicated a desire to better understand the content of the assessment and how to unpack it for our students required to take the exam. The Design Team, organized by Lead by Learning to distribute leadership through adult learning, composed of administrators and teachers, met in December and discussed the need to collect another common source of data that would help Halkin educators create and tell a story about how our students understand themselves as multilingual learners. We hoped this deeper knowledge of our students would support their learning and our planning for instruction, but also engender a sense of efficacy in the face of the complex structure of the assessment, student results, and our expectations. 

At Halkin, we use a layered approach to distribute leadership in professional learning. We have a design team facilitated by Lead by Learning that meets monthly to help plan Instructional Learnership Team meetings, then our ILT (Instructional Leadership Team) meets monthly to plan our whole staff meetings. While this layered approach may feel slow at times, it allows for deep reflection and design for both teacher and student learning.

The Design Team worked together to create an agenda for the Instructional Leadership team to build upon the interview structure from Lead by Learning, Focal Student Learning Partnership Conversations, used the year before, that revealed our students’ understandings and feelings about language and goals for learning, specifically in English. Design team member and kindergarten teacher, Melissa Lew, offered to model her prior interview structure to the ILT.  

At the next ILT meeting, the ILT reflected upon the examination of ELPAC and parent-teacher conference notes data collected by teachers that had been used for Public Learning. Melissa shared her interview film during the Public Learning part of the ILT meeting, and members embraced Supportive Challenge to reflect upon both this year’s students’ responses and how we might roll out this interview process to the whole staff. The team, embracing the notion of creating a qualitative narrative of our learners to enrich the qualitative data we had, deepened the menu of questions teachers might use in their interviews with multilingual focal students:

• What does it mean to you to be able to use two languages?
• Do you remember the first time you used language (English, Spanish, Cantonese?)
• What is your goal for learning English? What do you want to focus on?
• What is the most helpful thing we do in ELD?
• How does being multilingual make you feel?
• What are you proud of?

The ILT decided that teachers could use this menu to select 3-4 questions for a 5-minute interview to share as a data source for Public Learning. Teachers could record the interview in the mode most comfortable for them: transcript, notes, film, or audio recording. 

Similar to how the ILT experienced the plan, at the following Faculty meeting, Melissa shared her film of her student interview and reflected upon the process. Melissa shared her recording of her student, whom she created using her phone. She also shared some pre-selected questions and her reflections on the process, as well as options for audio recording, taking dictation. She made clear to her colleagues that the collection methods were flexible, while highlighting the value of the data collected. Teachers were given time to reflect and plan how they would format their interviews with their colleagues and alone. Staff shared their questions about how to best document interviews for their own data, including musings about comfort with filming and methods for transcribing. Notably, Melissa’s sharing of her experience, data, and collection suggestions fostered staff trust, interest, and commitment. All staff brought interview data to the next public learning session, and most shared reflections about interview content and wonderings in their interactive journals.

Teacher Leaders then met and planned for check-ins with their grade level and department PLCs to see what questions and needs they had ahead of the interview process. 

Teachers used the interview data as their content for Public Learning, and the optimistic close reflected the inquiry journal question from the ILT: What made you curious today? Teachers shared their interview data at the next action research setting, in which one team member was the public learner, another the listener, while the team provided supportive feedback via guided questions and using their own data as a touchpoint. Reflections about this data and the desire to use the interview as a source of data came up as reflections and plans in many teacher inquiry journals as well.

As the year came to a close, the Design Team identified areas of adult learning to celebrate at the close of the year: 

• increased enthusiasm and ease with Public Learning 
• Staff appreciating the ideas and next steps that came out of the focal student Public Learning sharing
• Increased asset-based mindset towards developing multilingual students
• Building teacher-student rapport and empathy
• New ways of seeing student growth and eliciting student voice

Halkin’s action research will continue to involve the examination of data about multilingual learners and their writing, maintaining equity of voice through Public Learning and discussion protocols, and, significantly, observing each other as a data source through lesson study, where colleagues plan a lesson together, and then observe each other. 

The work facilitated by Lead by Learning’s collaborative processes and protocols allowed for educators at Halkin to be leaders among staff and the district, as well as beyond our school setting. 

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Virginia Quock grew up in Houston, Texas and San Mateo, California. She received a BA in American Literature from  UC Santa Cruz, and a Masters in Education from Mills College. After teaching elementary school in for San Leandro Unified for 20 years and Mills College Children’s School for two of those years, she attended Santa Clara County’s Office of Education Leaders in Educational Administration Program (LEAP) Santa Clara Office of Education and found her first administrative job as a vice principal at John Muir Middle School in San Leandro. She left Muir in 2018, to move next door to become Principal of Halkin Elementary in San Leandro through 2025.  This 2025-2026 school year she is returning to her passion, teaching TK at Monroe Elementary in San Leandro.

Interested in working with Lead by Learning to support your educators and teacher leaders? Connect with a member of our team to learn more about our partnerships.