Waiting on the Ice

I realize this metaphor is deeply flawed. I live in Arizona. It is June. The temperature is already well over 100 degrees. The closest thing I have to a frozen lake right now is the freezer section at Fry's. Yet, this is exactly what waiting for state assessment scores feels like.

Imagine standing at the edge of a frozen lake. You know, at least in theory, that the ice should hold. You've spent months preparing for this moment. You've checked the conditions. You've watched the weather. Other people assure you it is safe. Still, you take that first step cautiously. Then, another. You listen, watch, and wait. Every small crack, every unexpected sound, makes you pause and wonder if the ice beneath you is as solid as you hope.

That is where many school leaders find themselves this time of year. The testing is over. The students have moved on to summer break. Yet, the official scores remain somewhere out there, just beyond reach.

In the meantime, bits of information begin to trickle in. Student score here.

A cluster report there. A glimpse into performance on a particular standard.

Just enough data to keep you moving forward, but not enough to see the entire lake.

So you take another careful step.

The encouraging part is that the signs are there. We are seeing growth. We are seeing more students move into the proficient range. We are seeing cluster reports that show we have narrowed the gap between our school averages and state averages in every cluster, at every grade level.

For a turnaround school, those are not small things. Those are months of work showing up in measurable ways. Those are hundreds of conversations, interventions, lesson adjustments, tutoring sessions, parent contacts, reteaching opportunities, and moments when teachers refused to give up on students. Those are students believing they can achieve something they may not have believed before.

Yet we wait, because anyone who has worked in school improvement knows not to declare victory too soon. The ice may still crack. Maybe a subgroup did not perform as expected. Maybe the final calculations tell a more complicated story than the preliminary data suggests.

Experience teaches caution, but experience also teaches something else. Sometimes the ice holds. Sometimes the reason the walk feels less terrifying is because the work was done long before you took the first step.

Today, while we continue to wait for the complete picture, I spent the day with the teachers and assistant principal who help carry the work of school improvement through the summer months so that we can better support our school community when students return in the fall. Together, we did what lead teams in turnaround schools do. We looked deeply at the data we have. Not the data we wish we had. Not the data that is still sitting somewhere in a state reporting system. The data that is currently available.

We examined student performance, growth trends, proficiency rates, cluster reports, and gaps that still need our attention. We celebrated where progress is evident and wrestled with where challenges remain. Most importantly, we began asking the questions that matter. What should our first 90-day goals be? How can we support our staff in achieving them? What systems need to be strengthened? What professional learning will have the greatest impact? How will the decisions we make this summer create a better experience for students next year? The irony of school leadership is that while everyone else is waiting for the scores, we are already planning for what comes next. The work does not pause while we wait for official results. In many ways, the waiting creates the urgency to prepare.

By the end of the day, our minds were full of data, possibilities, concerns, and opportunities. Before we left, I asked the team to read Chapter 2 of Culturize by Jimmy Casas to set the tone for tomorrow's conversations.

That was intentional. After a day spent analyzing numbers, percentages, and performance levels, we need a reminder that the purpose of the work is not the data itself. The purpose is students.

Tomorrow, with the data still fresh on our minds, we will continue the conversation. We will focus on professional development needs, peer observations, student behavior, engagement, and intervention systems. We will discuss what adults need to learn, what systems need to improve, and how we can create even greater opportunities for students to succeed.

As I stand on this imaginary frozen lake, waiting for the final scores to arrive, I find myself thinking about the central message of Chapter 2. Jimmy Casas reminds us that our job is to champion students, not labels. Long before any state assessment determines whether a student is minimally proficient, partially proficient, proficient, or highly proficient, that child already has value. They already have potential. They already deserve adults who believe in them. That perspective matters during this season of waiting.

It is easy to become consumed by the numbers. We start calculating percentages. We estimate letter grades. We wonder about accountability labels and subgroup performance. We stare at spreadsheets and dashboards looking for clues about what is coming. Yet, the most important work of the year was never about a score report.

The most important work was convincing a student who had stopped believing in themselves that they could succeed. The most important work was helping students feel connected to school, capable of learning, and confident enough to keep trying when the work became difficult. The most important work was creating a culture where students began to see themselves differently than they had before.

The preliminary data suggests we have made academic gains. The cluster reports suggest we have narrowed gaps. The student results suggest growth is real, but perhaps the strongest evidence that the work is paying off is not found in a state report at all. It is found in students who are more engaged than they were a year ago. It is found in students who stayed in the fight. It is found in staff members who refused to let labels define what students could achieve. Whatever the final scores reveal, those victories are already ours.

This year, our staff worked. They worked through challenges, staffing shortages, attendance struggles, behavior concerns, funding frustrations, and all of the other obstacles that accompany school turnaround efforts. They taught. They adjusted. They collaborated. They refused to lower expectations. Now they are feeling something that every educator deserves to feel at least once in a while: anticipation. Not anxiety. Not survival. Anticipation. The sense that maybe the hard work has produced the results we hoped for.

We do not have the full picture yet. The official scores have not arrived. The frozen lake stretches out ahead, and we are still testing each step before putting our full weight down. From where I stand, in the Arizona heat and somehow thinking about frozen lakes, I can see encouraging signs beneath the surface. The work mattered. The students grew. The culture has changed.

Soon, we'll find out just how far we've come.