Leading Through Touchdowns and Test Scores: An Indiana Principal’s Story

Principal Dustin Criswell knows what it takes to help his students win both on the field and in the halls of his beloved Perry Meridian Middle School. He’s been, as his students would call it, “Chasing W’s,” - or “wins" - for nearly 17 years and has no plans to hit the brakes anytime soon.

But consistent growth, as Perry Meridian Middle School has seen, takes data-based decision-making, agile and innovative leadership, and the constant drive for improvement - qualities that Criswell’s previous experiences, like the varsity football assistant coach at the district’s high school, helped set him up to offer.

“I see a lot of similarities between being a principal and being a coach. You get to build and grow people and calibrate your team. There's a lot of thinking and problem-solving behind the scenes. You fall in love with the process of getting the outcomes that you're looking for as well,” Criswell explained. “But I think as a principal, you can have a much greater impact because you're influencing a lot more people as well. So that's what led me to this role - and I’m so glad it did.”

A Building of Belonging

Criswell first stepped foot into Perry Meridian Middle School in Perry Township Schools nearly 17 years ago as a student teacher. He knew right away it was a perfect fit for him.

“I loved the teachers, loved the staff, there was a sense of community, a sense of belonging, and I was like, this is really where I want to teach,” Criswell said. “At the end of that summer, the principal called me and said, ‘Hey, I have an opening, would you like the position?’ Well, absolutely I would.”

The longer Criswell stayed in Perry Township Schools, the deeper he invested in different roles. His first position was as a seventh-grade social studies teacher, then shifted to eighth, and later became the middle school basketball coach. He eventually became the varsity football assistant coach across the street at the district’s high school. On top of his athletic coaching, he served as social studies department chair and other various committees, stocking up on leadership opportunities and cultivating his professional growth through his roles. He was all in.

“I really enjoyed being part of the building and trying to help push it to be better than it was. Eventually, it seemed like every year my principal or the assistant principal would mention to me, ‘Hey, you may want to consider going into administration,’” Criswell said. “So eventually I decided, hey, I'm going to give it a shot.”

Criswell enrolled at Indiana State University in their master's program and quickly discovered that the principal role had been calling his name. Following his shift to administrative roles, Criswell served as an assistant principal at Perry Meridian Middle School before taking a role in a neighboring district for a few years. Eventually, he got a call that Perry Meridian Middle School needed a principal.

“Perry Meridian Middle School and Perry Township Schools, that was home to me,” Criswell said. “The culture and experience that people created for me is what drew me back. It's a place to put kids first, and it's also a place leading continuous improvement. And I also knew it was going to be a place that was going to push me to become a better leader.”

For Criswell, becoming a better leader meant a schoolwide shift in helping students analyze and interpret text.

Curriculum as an Opportunity for Equity

Criswell helped facilitate a shift in his school in response to new standards in Indiana that called upon his school to refine the curriculum for different content areas in their building. What some may have seen as a hurdle, Criswell and his staff embraced as an opportunity to strengthen equity in their school.

“We wanted to make sure that we had a guaranteed viable curriculum in every single content area in the building so that every kid had access to the same skills and the same content being taught. Their success doesn't hinge on which teacher they have, because everything is being taught in every single classroom and there's equity across the board,” Criswell said. “We now have these formative assessments where we can identify the deficiencies and go back and reach the kids that continue to struggle.”

It didn’t take long for the adjustment in the curriculum to bring a very specific challenge to light that students were facing - analyzing and interpreting text. Making the curriculum change, led to an assessment and finally to a change to support students in this area.

Through field-testing a certain strategy with teachers discussing student work in cluster meetings and analyzing data from it among the Instructional Leadership Team, the building was able to find an effective approach to helping students annotate, which included encouraging them to question the author, identify central ideas, and center around an objective in the annotation. The field testing showed this approach was effective, and the data began to roll in.

Before Perry Meridian Middle School implemented this strategy, it saw its 7th graders at about 88% proficient through ILEARN, which measures student achievement and growth according to Indiana Academic Standards for English/Language Arts. After rolling out the new annotation method, that number soared to 100% proficient for the class. In a 7th-grade English Learner class, one teacher saw a 63% passing rate on the ILEARN one year, and then in 8th grade, that class hit an 83% passing rate, according to Criswell.

“We're inclined to believe most of that is because of this annotation strategy,” Criswell said. “The kids are engaging in the text and understanding its meaning. The piece that I'm most proud of this year is our teachers - social studies, science, and ELA, they have taken it and they have run with it. And I have never seen anything transfer into the classroom as quickly as this has and at the level that it has.”

Learning to Lean

It’s not easy being a principal, and it’s a lot harder when you expect yourself to know all the answers, Criswell learned. He advised new principals to embrace their ‘I don’t knows,’ which helped the road to progress become a bit less bumpy - and certainly less lonely.

“I would encourage a new principal to lean on their admin team, to lean on the central office,
but I think above all, lean on your teachers as well - because the answers oftentimes are somewhere in your building.”

One strategy Criswell implemented when he first started his role at Perry Meridian Middle School was making time to sit down with every staff member and ask them three questions:

• What do you like about Perry Meridian Middle School?
• Where’s an area of growth?
• How can I support you moving forward?

Using his staff’s answers, he compiled their answers into an Excel sheet and looked for trends and patterns to help guide him in his leadership and craft his vision for the school.

The last and just as important piece to keep in mind, Criswell said, is to be patient, and be present.

“You're not going to ‘build Rome’ overnight. You have to be patient, and I would also encourage [new principals] to get immersed in the culture of the building. Anything that you can do to get involved or get immersed into the culture of the building will pay dividends because people see you in a different light,” Criswell said with a smile. “It allows you to continue to build those relationships and the trust that you're going to need to do all the other work.”

As Criswell crests his year-and-a-half mark with Perry Meridian Middle School, he looks forward to continuing to build upon the culture and community that tied him so tightly to his school and the district when he first started as a student teacher.