Dr. Bob Maxfield introduced Dr. Stephanie Dulmage, Director of 21st Century Learning for the Hazel Park School District, as someone who thinks completely and deeply about educational issues and sometimes thinks a bit outside the box.
In terms of her educational background, Stephanie holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education with a ZA endorsement from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in Reading from Oakland University. At Oakland she participated in the Galileo Leadership Academy while pursuing her Ed. Specialist degree. Returning to Oakland University, she earned her Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership.
Her professional background includes over 30 years with the West Bloomfield School District. After 26 years as a first grade teacher, she transitioned to a curriculum coordinator role focused primarily on using instructional technology to transform the learning environment. Stephanie supported schools in data analysis and implemented a data warehouse and data assessment systems in the district as a huge piece of her school improvement work.
Stephanie’s role as Director of 21st Century Learning in Hazel Park, similar to her work in West Bloomfield, is to support teachers to utilize and really think through how might we shift and transform learning environments with the effective application and use of technology. However upon arriving in Hazel Park, she needed to pivot and shift as the district launched into a total systemic reconfiguration of every system, process, procedure, and structure. Collective energy was directed toward how you engage in deep turnaround work around systemic reconfiguration, and what does that take to build collective understanding, to engage in sense making, to really reform and rethink and redefine what the district does.
Now she continues work on the systemic reconfiguration, moving forward the systems work that was started, and leveraging that forward movement to continue to deepen the capacity of our building administrators and our teachers.Her role also includes some oversight of early childhood and elementary education (K-5) in terms of curriculum and instruction, and occasional work with instructional technology, data and assessment.
When reflecting on her leadership path, Stephanie recalls as classroom teacher she held teacher leadership roles. From the beginning of her career, she launched into saying yes to that one committee, or yes to that one decision that she could help make or impact. She had the opportunity to lead as an instructional leader in the classroom, and to impact systems at the building and district level.
Looking back at opportunities and challenges she met during her professional career, from the big lessons that she’d learned Stephanie advises, "know who you are and know what you stand for personally and professionally."
Stephanie notes Leading with Emotional Courage by Peter Bregman is an influential book for her. The book offers guidance on how to have hard conversations, create accountability, inspire action on your most important work and identify the big arrows that are crucial to decision making. Stephanie explains putting the word emotional and courage in the same phrase seems counter intuitive. If we are attending to and cognizant of others' emotions, as well as our own emotions and how we go throughout our day, we definitely can have the impact personally, professionally, or organizationally that we would want to have.
Another of Stephanie’s big lessons is personal empowerment. Over her career and throughout the pandemic she is committed to the philosophy of really living into your days with the knowledge that you have the power to choose your action, your attitude, and your way forward. It reflects her desire to help others around her inspire to move forward as well.
Stephanie identifies the most important lesson is to always do what’s best. She paraphrases a quote from Mark Twain, it is never wrong to do what’s right. During difficult conversations and difficult decisions, when you don’t always know what is the right way, you just own that is it never wrong to do what is right and continue to lean on that, otherwise you would lose your way.
The concept of digital literacy as a human life skill surfaced while researching her doctoral capstone project. Data literacy as a societal skill extends to how we function, make decisions, and process information. To be an effective functioning member of society and process through the massive amounts of data that we get from various sources, it must be embedded in the very core of what we do, and as the research suggests be part of the educational system. It is imperative our K-12 students understand the concept of data literacy in a much broader context and become critical thinkers, critical learners and make good informed decisions with intentionality.
Her bucket list for the reset would be to develop interdependency between K-12 education, higher education, and profit, nonprofit businesses and community organizations to process through and reflect on the very hard questions that need answers, and take a stand as a society on what we believe in. If we believe in the importance of building an impactful educational opportunity for all children, then we build an interdependent ecosystem that is going to connect and leverage every resource we have. What it's going to do is rather than try to find ways for our learners to fit the system, to flip it and have the system be flexible, nimble, and responsive to fit our learners.
Post pandemic, Stephanie hopes we don't push aside the feeling of being uncomfortable with some of the “gaps” right now, or some of the issues that we saw in the system. It would be really easy for us to get back to that status quo place. I hope that we in Hazel Park, as well as other educational organizations, can stay in a place where we don't forget that feeling of being little uncomfortable, knowing that we had some gaps that we need to live into, and really address. Rather than trying to go right back to where we were, we can all collectively come together, say this isn't right, and actually create the space to have those hard conversations.
Another post pandemic hope that Stephanie has given thought to throughout her career is owning decision making about what's best for the learner. Part B is letting the learners have a voice, and part C is actually being willing to respond to what they share with us, rather than putting adults, politics, internal and external stakeholders first. She hopes that we can shift the post pandemic transition to where's the learner, and what do we need to do for that learner, and let's listen to that learner and let's respond.
Stephanie is adamant teachers and teacher leaders need to own their role as an instructional leader in their classroom. Stephanie defines an instructional leader: you are an active learner, you engage deeply in reflection and you not only respond to but ask for feedback. You're willing to really push toward building those student-led, student focused classrooms where you as a teacher are that instructional leader, but you're also doing that in a way that you're inspiring the greatness in the students that you serve.
Moreover, Stephanie counsels teacher leaders to own your growth and your professional opportunities. Stephanie attributes multi-talented Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy) with promoting the importance of writing your own story and the fact that while you write your own story, you can also rewrite your own story. It is crucial that teacher leaders understand that you own your learning, you own your professional growth, and you have that opportunity to write your own story, to rewrite your own story and be everything that you can be to inspire the students in your classroom as well as your colleagues.
Stephanie summarizes her advice to leaders: know who you are and what you stand for; be willing to stand up and stand into the things that are important to you and that you know are right; any opportunity you have to have your voice heard, to be a part of the bigger picture of how a school or district is run, leap at it because you never know where that pathway is going to lead. Additionally, it is very important that you understand the big picture and understand how the big picture and all the pieces fit together. Make sure you’re being informed by joining outside organizations at the state and tri-county level.
Finally, teacher leadership is the way forward and the way that we actually transform education. The way we actually have the impact that we want on students is by passionately, proactively and fiercely working on teacher leadership skills in order to impact the small and the big picture.
