When Principal Cryslynn Billingsley gathers with the teaching team at Jennings Senior High and College Prep Academy, she tells them something that is both daunting and empowering.
“I want you to think about your teacher self, your leader self and your learner self,” she says, promising to do the same herself.
As she works to transform mindsets in a building she started leading three years ago after serving as assistant principal, she knew she could not make progress alone.
“This place still needed to roll. We needed to keep kids safe, get some learning done, and build a new culture of shared leadership. Our students deserve the best from us. They should not have to go elsewhere for opportunities. They deserve to have them right here in our school, our district.”
Cryslynn Billingsley, Jennings Senior High and College Prep Academy Principal
Billingsley enlisted both teachers and students to ask and answer some vital questions: What kind of school did they want? What did it mean to be a Jennings Warrior?
“I’m here to learn from them,” she says. “I’m walking through it with them, so I can better support this community we’re building. A good principal raises up leaders. You want them to be able to do things without you.”
When she was a teacher, Dr. Billingsley was also committed to developing students who could be self-directed. With adaptive schools teaching experience and certification as a cognitive coach, she is comfortable leading school-wide discussions about complex issues, including data. In the first year as principal, she shared information with the whole student body that was hard to hear: the overall GPA stood at 1.88. She remembers what she said to the auditorium of students and teachers who were quiet as they let that sink in.
“We don’t want to be a D-average school, do we? What are we going to do about this?”
Two years later, with new strategies and schoolwide buy-in, the average GPA has boosted to 2.25 and the whole school looks forward to a January announcement of a new, even higher average.
The shared leadership and ownership is something Billingsley continues to foster not only for herself, but also her building and district colleagues. She is among 22+ educators from the Jennings School District participating in The Art of Coaching Book Club, a guided set of professional learning sessions facilitated by Washington University’s Institute for School Partnership (ISP) and the Center for Education Leadership at the St. Louis Community Foundation.
Based on Elena Aguilar’s book, The Art of Coaching Teams: Building Resilient Communities That Transform Schools, the sessions provide a safe place for shared learning on the importance of building trust, listening, and asking effective questions.
Balancing the urgent and the important
Protecting time for professional learning is no small task, especially for educators in leadership positions. They are counted on by peers, students and families to plan, make decisions and pivot to meet new needs that crop up daily.
In short, it’s easy to let the urgent supersede the important, says ISP Instructional Specialist Carmen Stayton. She’s co-leading the book club with Jay Hartman, executive director of the Center for Education Leadership.
“Once we get people in the room, it’s about building trust,” Stayton says. “We talk about why we’re here, and are clear about the value of prioritizing their needs. They can say to themselves, ‘I’m going to sacrifice X, Y and Z to get this kind of professional development.’ When we’re doing this work, they know that we’re co-creating strategies and providing a bridge to practice they can apply right away. Then we come back and ask how it’s going, so they can take the next step: adopt, adapt or abandon.”
In addition to being intentional with their time and attention, book club participants are also encouraged to be vulnerable, sharing their problems of practice with peers.
Jennings Middle School Assistant Principal Stan Johnson understood the assignment at a recent book club meeting and was willing to open up to this new trusted group about his problem of practice: infusing more reading throughout the building.
Using a Problem of Practice Protocol to guide the discussion created a safe space for active listening. After he presented his problem to his peers, they were given an opportunity to ask clarifying questions. He could answer those questions, but in a “just the facts” way, not elaborating. Next he was asked to listen to the rest of the group talk about his challenge, with no interjecting or defending decisions he’d made thus far.
Stayton says this approach encourages the group to understand the problem first, ask questions to know more, and think before they start throwing out suggestions or advice that might make their colleague feel defensive.
“This framework also eliminates solution-itis,” adds Stayton, who also tries to model this vulnerability. “It’s okay to say that we don’t know how to fix something, to claim that we need help. This kind of transparency matters. Our students don’t have time for us to be anything but open about the issues.”
Johnson agrees about the power of authenticity for conversations he has with both students and staff, especially when change is necessary.
“I often ask leaders in our building, ‘What is your reservation?’ and let them know that I genuinely care. When you make time to get to know people, you can create movement. Creating a space where these kinds of conversations can happen is really important,” he says.
Johnson believes participating in professional development is critical, despite the never-ending to-do lists that come with a career in education.
“It’s essential as an educator, as a leader, to pull away from the school setting to keep learning and stay relevant in the field. To have the impact that I want to have on students and families, I have to stay relevant.”
Building Leaders and a Legacy
What Billingsley, Johnson and the others participating in the book club are sharing about building leadership capacity in teachers would be music to the ears of the late Dr. Charmyn Andrews.
A longtime career educator who served the Jennings School District as Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development, Andrews learned about the book group from an instructional coach in the District who attended a similar session the year prior and said it was one of the best trainings she had ever attended. That was enough for Andrews. She contacted the ISP to explore the possibility of offering another session for 2024-2025. This current session includes primarily Jennings District staff, but also some from Hazelwood.
“It’s important that we continue to grow leaders in our district,” said Andrews. “Instructional coaches also need this kind of training. Teachers have a lot of experience, and also significant influence within a building. Knowing how to build that buy-in is critical. It’s really been neat to watch our leaders invest in nurturing leadership capacity in others on their teams.”
Dr. Andrews passed away in November 2024, but her legacy of investing in people and the Jennings School District continues.