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Underlying Assumptions

People operate and behave in accordance with the assumptions they hold. The assumption that all children can learn is not the same as the assumption that all children can achieve high standards. Each assumption leads to a different educational approach. The process of developing shared assumptions among a team of educational leaders is critical as it provides common ground for all future work together; laying the foundation for all that follows.

The VELA Legacy was developed with the following underlying assumptions. These assumptions provide the context for this resource.

• A highly functioning leadership team will reduce leadership turnover and lead to increased student learning.
• Effective leadership requires the contributions of multiple individuals working as a team, including at minimum the board, superintendent and principal(s).
• Teams that maintain a systems focus are engaged in continual growth.
• Effective teams clearly identify and articulate how they operate.
• Teams that have ongoing dialogue around why they exist, what they need to accomplish and who is responsible will surface underlying assumptions, conflicts, and tensions and can work through these issues to find common agreement in alignment with their system goals.
• Without ongoing dialogue assumptions, conflicts and tensions remain liabilities to the growth of the organization.
• All school leaders want to understand their roles and perform their responsibilities within the boundaries of law, regulation and policy.
• Clearly defining and documenting responsibilities are the first steps in holding leaders accountable.
• The role of the board is distinct from the role of the administration, which has greater variation among supervisory unions.
• Each school district and supervisory union in Vermont must address the same core functions but may accomplish these in a variety of ways.
• In order to promote efficiency there are many tasks which may be done centrally at the supervisory union level rather than multiple times at the local level.