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ARI FREDE CV
11
ARI FREDE
ARTIFACTS
Photo by Shubham Sharan on Unsplash
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Strategic Leadership for a mission
Kids at the center
Vision
Compassion
Productivity
Strategic Leadership
The Orange School
Orange School
Chicago Public Schools has an equity gap in access to high quality arts education.
Further, CPS was not designed to support these whole-school, research-based approaches.
I needed to design a school that could. This is a new school design from 2013.
1. Arts Education
1. Arts Education
- More learning time and more variety in the arts (4-8 hrs weekly, minimum)
- Access to Teaching Artists in specific disciplines and traditions
- SpEd: Multiple modes of representation, expression, and engagement
- Service learning at Chicago’s premier arts institutions
2. Interdisciplinary Education
2. Interdisciplinary
Education
- Comprehensive arts integration
- Culminating, authentic, project-based assessments
- Greater collaboration between instructors to reach learners
- Curricula and assessments align with empirical research on raising student achievement
3. Social Responsibility
3. Social Responsibility
- Social Responsibility is a significant dimension of Social and Emotional Learning
- Scaffolded experiences K-8, culminating in a portfolio of problem-solving
- Data monitoring shifted toward pro-social behaviors, not just reducing suspensions
Armstrong Elementary
Bilingual Department
Armstrong
Bilingual
At a large elementary school with diverse immigrants, English Learner scores plateaued, a DOJ investigation loomed, and parents raised concerns.
The dysfunctional bilingual team did not communicate with each other.
Led bilingual/ESL department through a visioning process, brought practices in compliance, and raised parent involvement.
1. How it started
3. Strategy: Use common language, vision (right). This changed the feedback (below)
This is the timeline.
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Yellow captions explain.
Click to see process
4. Yielded more, stronger agreement
2. Internal disagreement
*dark orange = strong agreement
More agreement, stronger agreement here...
Board &
Community
Boards and school leaders require high trust and integrity. The work demands transparency and education about their intersecting roles.
Board & Community
Ancona Playground
Ancona Playground
To attract new families, inherited a massive, bespoke facilities project, ambitious fundraising goal, and fabrication and engineering obstacles.
- $2MM
- Innovative, research-based play area
- Outdoor learning, garden, chickens
- Playing field
- AIA Award-winning; supports mission
- Budget & time overage stabilized by schedule and space changes
Ancona Board
Ancona Board
Board with high absenteeism and low participation. 10 years since strategic plan, but temporarily low financial capacity. Loyal families but low enrollment.
- Recommited board to attendance and participation
- Raised family volunteerism and loyalty
- Nimble 3 year strategic plan (affordable, high-leverage, quick wins)
- Raised enrollment and retention to 3-year high
Waters LSC
Tremendous friction between community, faculty, and Principal led me to run for office. Promoted committees in arts and SEL, vastly improved Principal selection process.
Waters LSC
- Aligned and unified criteria
- Educated LSC on leadership and organizational research
- Led interview process, rubric design, candidate reviews
- Ultimately, LSC selected a strong-fit, very successful principal
Rigor and Innovation
Rigor & Innovation
Problem-Based Learning
Faculty had not been observed, and requested opportunities to collaborate on instruction.
I recruited teachers to a professional
learning community that researched current practices, developed their own best practices (partial, right). With my coaching, teachers then piloted expansion and teacher-to-teacher learning.
Teacher-Led Innovation
I consulted for a principal who searched for a vision and struggled to define the "innovation" he sought. Schoolwide, I guided faculty teams to identify the data and opportunities in their classrooms, including arts integration. In one case, 6th grade engagement soared as students invented, classified, and finally taught music and sound waves to younger students (right). Student innovation paralleled teacher innovation.
Culture Building
"Culture eats strategy for breakfast," goes the old saw. Schools benefited from my direction to create a culture that supported students and positive change. Achieved through a combination of PD and systemic reinforcement.
Schoolwide SEL
SEL
At Science and Arts Academy, students demonstrated needs that went well beyond common discipline, and teachers needed well-being supports in class. Pandemic-era stress illuminated diverse needs, which I addressed with a team and three-prongs of a culture-building system.
Right: A child models his inner critic before reforming it into his inner champion
Faculty Feedback
We need to rethink how we support faculty. I designed a better way to separate growth-minded feedback from decision-based evaluation.
Faculty Feedback
Comparing Models
Evaluation and Feedback
Evaluation and Feedback
- Evaluation models sometimes prize performance over growth
- Models tend toward a deficit-thinking mindset: "What is the teacher doing wrong?"
- Growth mindset prioritizes feedback
Examples
Right arrow to zoom in
Examples
Operations
- Award-winning facilities improvements.
- Improved physical learning environments and safety at 3 schools.
- Project management for tight schedules and tight budgets.
- Hiring practices improved for quality, fairness, and recruiting.
- Projected budgeting for strategic growth.
- Ensuring teachers get what they need.
- Admissions growth by digital marketing, storytelling, and fair practices.