Don Davis is unrelenting in his focus on improving instruction and improving collaboration with teachers. As principal of Waterford High School in Waterford USD, his instructional leadership has taken the school from the lowest performing in Stanislaus County to the highest performing high school in five counties.
For his Herculean efforts, Davis has been named ACSA’s 2008 Secondary Principal of the Year.
Davis said his role is to advance the Waterford High mission to provide an excellent comprehensive educational program for the students. This defines the school’s purpose and guides decisions. As Davis says, “The students deserve to have the best.”
“The terms ‘comprehensive’ and ‘excellence’ are not vague or ambiguous. Rather, both can be explicitly defined,” he said. “Like concentric circles, we broaden our curricular and co-curricular offerings each year, providing students a greater array of choices and opportunities; and we measure excellence according to the students’ participation and achievement in academics, athletics and the arts.”
WHS is a Title 1 school with poverty and language barriers, but leadership and staff concluded that the quality and rigor of the instruction determines achievement, not demographics. The school has risen from the lowest decile rankings, state 1 and similar schools 1, to a much more than respectable 8 and 10.
“The teachers know that I believe in them. I am continually praising and encouraging their efforts, and together we believe in our students,” Davis said.
Davis commits to the teachers that each time they meet as a staff, half of the time will be spent in a professional community having professional conversations related to organizational beliefs, and half the time will be spent in site-based professional development in which teachers receive ongoing training in instructional norms.
“By providing them with guiding questions that get to the heart of our challenges, I give my teachers a structure for having courageous conversations about our students and our school,” he said. “These frank and focused exchanges provide me with valuable information that I use to develop the school’s goals and action plans.”
Davis’ leadership has resulted in WHS becoming a demonstration site for other education professionals. More than 200 educators have observed classes at Waterford High, discovering that teachers and administrators can agree on a few core principles of instruction and have schoolwide implementation. Peer observation and professional conversations about instruction contribute to the school’s culture.
Davis has been at the helm of WHS since June 2001. He was formerly a vice principal in Merced UHSD. He began his career as a teacher, working at Atwater High, Washington UHSD and Avenal Elementary.
He has been a guest lecturer in educational administration at CSU Stanislaus and a judge for the Stanislaus County Academic Decathlon, among other wider community pursuits.
In addition to ACSA, he is a member of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and has served on the board of managers for Yosemite ROC/P and the California Interscholastic Federation Sac-Joaquin Division. He understands the importance of continuous professional development.
“I am linked to an incredible network of dedicated professionals,” Davis said. “In this atmosphere of high stakes accountability, we must learn to lean on one another for support, and become skilled at replicating those successful practices that are working in schools across our state.
“The collective knowledge in ACSA is its greatest asset. I continue to be impressed with the level of professionalism I see in our ranks. We have thousands of administrators who are ambitious, not for themselves, but for their schools and districts.”
The ACSA Secondary Principal of the Year designation is a significant validation of the work that has taken place in Waterford over the past seven years, Davis said. He credits the support of superintendents Frank Cranley and Howard Cohen, and the board of trustees. And above all, he said, the credit goes to the teachers, who declared in a 2005 WASC self study that “scores will rise as instruction improves.” The data speaks for itself.
“As a principal, I must know that I have the confidence of those I serve,” Davis said. “The student body continues to meet our high expectations, and the community is very proud of their high school.”
Each of ACSA’s 19 Administrators of the Year will be featured in EdCal through Nov. 3. They will be formally honored during ACSA’s 2008 Leadership Summit, to be held Nov. 6-8 in San Diego. For more information or to register, visit ACSA Online or contact the Educational Services Department at (800) 608-ACSA or (650) 692-4300.