https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-yzxwa-d886f9
We had a virtual meeting to discuss what everyone is doing in light of COVID-19 in regards to graduation, prom, grades, etc… People from all across Georgia came. This is the recording of our conversation.
Guest Moderators: Dr. Jim Finch, Principal, Mary Persons HS and President of GASSP
Dr. Alan Long, Principal, Jefferson County HS and Incoming Executive Director of GASSP
Dr. Mark Wilson, Principal-Matters
With school-in-person cancelled for the remainder of the 2019-2020 year, administrators are addressing lots of questions about how meaningful year-end events will be conducted. Prom, graduation, fifth-grade recognition, ninth-grade orientation, third-grade field day. Honoring retiring teachers, holding year-end banquets and awards, powderpuff, and cleaning out your room for the end of the year. There are a LOT of things that are supposed to be happening now. With the public health dangers we are confronting, how do we handle our most cherished traditions?
Here are a few thoughts for your consideration as you develop your plans.
So, bring the creative minds of your team together and explore how to do what you want to do with what you’ve got to do it. Good luck!
Tweets may have to replace treats for now but as always, it’s the thought that matters the most.
People everywhere are seeing what we all have always known– that teachers, administrators and staff are dedicated, resourceful, and capable of amazing things.
I continue to marvel at how in a matter of hours we flipped to a digitally-delivered learning environment AND, added in preparing, distributing and delivering meals to boot!
As we approach week two of this learning and leading opportunity, please take a moment to see some exemplary work from some of your colleagues. Maybe these examples will give you ideas, encourage you in what you’re doing, or inspire you in your work.
THANK YOU for your service, and thanks to all of your people for what they’re doing for your students and your community.
Get some well-deserved rest this weekend, please!
THANK YOU for the leadership you are providing for your school and for your community. If I can be of any help to you please contact me at mark.wilson.ga@gmail.com .
Keep doing well and keep doing good! MW
principal-matters.com @MarkWilsonGA March 18, 2020
Remote learning has been around for some time and nearly everyone has some experience with it. Remote leadership is a bit of a different story. While full-time, all-the-time, digital learning leaders have experience in this, for most everyone else, this is new ground (and especially at such a large scale).
What does it take to be effective in remote leadership? Here are seven “Cs” that describe the remote school leader:
Cool, Calm, …. these are stressful times, and, as always, the leader sets the tone for the others. You are bound to get frustrated. (We DID shift our method of delivery across thousands of schools in a matter of hours, days as the most!) There are some things that aren’t going to fit neatly into our new norms. But as always, the leader who stays calm under stress helps reduce it for others. To finish off that phrase, you want to be cool, calm, and…
Connected. As different as things are for everyone, you have a unique opportunity to connect with your people. You have more opportunity to schedule your time than you usually do. In doing so, you may want to consider keeping an ongoing list of who you’re in contact with, to make sure that you don’t inadvertently leave anyone out. You can connect with your folks in one of the many, many platforms that we all are going to get very proficient on! Stay connected.
Confident. The person who thinks they can and the one who thinks they can’t are both right. (Revised from a Henry Ford quote) This is a time for leadership, and leadership requires confidence. So, you’ve never done what we’re doing now. That puts you even with everyone else. You have done things in your previous experience that should give you the courage to know that you’ll take on these new challenges and succeed. Believe in yourself, especially as things get more challenging. I can’t help but think about my mother and father who grew up and lived during the Great Depression and World War II. As challenging as what we’re working through now may be, we can stand tall on the work of those who have come before us, especially when it comes to summoning up the courage and confidence needed to move forward each day.
Creative. What a great time to be a creative leader, and what an opportunity we have to do things we normally haven’t been able to do! You can meet with your people in small groups, 1:1, large groups. You can create digital games and challenges. You can use your creativity to keep the energy and excitement going. And, if you’re one of those people who often say “I’m not creative,” guess what? You can see what others are doing and creatively copy what they’re doing! Keep it interesting for your folks. Have some games and giveaways. Create the space for joyful work amongst your people.
Consistent. Jerry Bavero, principal of Union County Elementary School has a “pep rally” for his entire school every single day of the year to start the day. He’s working to provide consistency and normalcy for his students and teachers by continuing to do it… digitally each day. Whatever you usually do at school… shout outs for birthdays, the pledge, things of that sort… consider doing it virtually to help everyone in your school fam have a little bit of anchor to connect to.
Caring. Bibb County Schools has started a hashtag, #BibbAthleticsShoutOut to share profiles about their Senior Athletes, particularly those who are currently missing their spring sports season. This is a huge loss for those kids and their parents, and this small, but caring touch helps them know their work hasn’t gone unnoticed. As the leader, we naturally look around and notice… we notice who needs a little extra and we work to get it for them. Now’s a great time to be an observant noticer, and to show that you care. It’s really the little things that make the most difference in challenging times. This is what you’re great at on a regular day, and now you’re called to do it in another way, at another level.
Chances are, you’re thinking by now, “those seven Cs aren’t any different just because we’re leading remotely.” You’re right. You’ll need to adjust your approach and change your platforms, but yes, these are the same things that you do 247/366 already. Which means, you should stand tall and know that you’re ready for this work. In times like these, you don’t have to help anyone “find their why?” Now is your time to lead them, to support them, to nurture them and to do what’s needed, because that’s what you always do.
Thank you for your service.
The work that you, your teachers, your custodians, your nutrition teams, your technology people, your staff have been doing is nothing short of amazing, inspirational, and powerful.
Thank you all for what you are doing to bring learning, caring, calm, and a sense of normalcy in a time that is anything but.
Working through obstacles is what we’re good at. Leading people through tough times is what you’re good at as a leader. That’s what is needed right now, and that’s exactly what you do, what is needed.
THANK YOU for what you’re doing. Like every other day you spend as an educator, never undervalue the importance of what you are doing for others and for your community.
Again, THANK YOU.
You know what’s awesome? Spirit week. Guess what? You can have it remotely. That’s what John Rhodarmer, Principal at Armuchee High in Floyd County has rolled out for his faculty and students.
Karen Carsten, the principal at Tritt Elementary in Cobb County, held a leadership team meeting yesterday. The opportunities for connection and leadership are plentiful!
Remembering to show gratitude and support, and to celebrate it publicly is a great way to keep the fuel going for our hard-working teachers. Dr. Olga Glymph is an assistant principal at Milton HS in Fulton County.
One of the most important things you do as the principal or assistant principal is to keep things calm. When others are beginning to panic, the seasoned leader keeps her head and in doing so helps others to relax, think more clearly, and act more effectively.
The most effective principals make things better by slowing things down, getting emotions under control, and keeping their work from being a frenzied rush.
That’s a great way to approach your work… except when it’s “Hiring Season.”
When it’s hiring season, you need to be working with urgency. There are only so many candidates for the positions you may need, and you need to prioritize this work. It’s complicated by the timing: hiring season comes when you’re registering students and families for the next school year, preparing your school for end-of-the-year testing, and doing the daily, busy work of the school. Maybe that’s why some leaders don’t get hiring season right— the other priorities are too much and you aren’t able to immerse into hiring because of those other tasks at hand.
If that’s you, here’s something for you to consider: what you do during hiring season is a gift that keeps on giving. If you do well, it’s a treasure; if you do poorly, it’s a gag gift. You can put in the time and energy needed to do well in hiring, or you are at risk for spending much more time correcting your hiring mistakes and cleaning things up. It’s SO much better to take time and hire effectively than to suffer through poor choices in hiring. Those poor choices can hurt your students, your teachers, and others’ perception of your judgment.
So, if you have people to hire, put other things down, read resumes, call references, host visits to your school. Either get busy hiring, or you’ll be busy next fall wishing you’d done better on the front end.
In the chart above, you’ll see a number of things to consider during the hiring process. First and foremost, make sure that you are connected at the hip to whomever works with you on Human Resources. Each system has their own nuances about the hiring process and you need to follow the policies and protocols that your system has in place. Beyond that, those who invest more time into a task are more likely to be effective in completing it. Don’t rest until you get your people in place, begin their transitional phase, and start to engage them in the culture of your school.
In 2020, school leaders should expect to spend more time than ever in developing the talent in your building to grow effective teachers and a top-notch faculty. You make that job harder than it might have to be if you do poorly in hiring. All of the time you spend now is time invested into getting the teachers and staff that will make a positive impact at your school.
© 2020. Dr. Mark Wilson principal-matters.com
As educators, we spend a lot of time with other people. That time can be ongoing, longer relationships or brief, specific encounters. You can categorize mosts of your interactions, at school as well as in the rest of your life, into two columns: transactional encounters and transformational relationships.
When we have transactional encounters, they don’t necessarily have to be bad. They are defined as a limited interaction for a short period of time and may or not be repeated. When you’re out to eat and get a chicken sandwich, you are having a transactional encounter with the person who takes your order. It can be a good one (when it’s their pleasure to see you) or a not-so-good one (when you’re in the drive-thru and they make you park your car because you had a salad). When you go to get your drivers’ license renewed, it’s a transactional encounter. You are unlikely to see that meeting turn into a long-term relationship.
Transformational relationships as the name suggests are quite the opposite. They are beyond an encounter and are instead a chapter in a longer, ongoing book. Transactional encounters are about the transaction; transformational relationships are about the relationship, the people, and how they change individually and together over time.
That takes us to the parents of our students. The time we have together with them is very limited. The nature of our interactions? Unfortunately, they can tend to be matters that are transactional in nature. We spend time with parents when they have an issue or concern, when they are completing required paperwork, and when they are delivering and/or retrieving their children.
What if we worked more intentionally to extend our school family to our parents? What if we created an environment in which those encounters became less transactional because we’d spent time getting to know each other in advance? We also should never forget– the right kind of attitude can make a transformational relationship out of a transactional encounter. Think about your favorite restaurant, coffee shop, or office you go to. Chances are that you feel the way you do about that place at least in part by how you’re treated, by how someone there sees you as a relationship waiting to be developed instead of transaction that has to be completed.
It can be a positive thing for an administrator to know a lot of the parents at the school from previous experience and longterm relationships. That fast-forwards the matter of trust and makes for better relationships and partnerships.
It can’t stop with a widely-connected administrator, however. The relationship of the parent to the school is also defined by their relationships with teachers, with office staff, with bus drivers. If we work at it, transactional encounters don’t have to be only that. Putting your child on the bus can be transactional, but with the right bus driver it can be a relationship that defines a positive perception of everything about the school.
How do we do it? Listed below in the infographic are five ways to connect school and home. There are probably five million things you can do to develop these connections. (We stopped at just five). These ideas are ways to make deeper connections with parents without the need of extensive time. Connections lead to relationships, which lead to trust, which open doors for true partnerships between school and home, between teacher and parent, between people in a community working together for the well-being of individuals and the greater good for all.
“Decades of social science research have demonstrated that differences in quality of schools can explain about one-third of the variation in student achievement. But the other two-thirds is attributable to non-school factors.”
Richard Rothstein, 2010, How To Fix Our Schools
Working to lead students to success without developing a partnership with their parents is like driving a car with a flat tire. Cross country in the rain. Without windshield wipers.
You get it. Research tells us that the influence of parents, or others raising a child in place of parents, is among the most impactful in determining student achievement. We know that a particular type of parental involvement is very effective in leading to student achievement, but at schools we typically don’t spend much time to foster that behavior. John Hattie’s meta-analyses show a high effect size for parental involvement* (.58). There are other things that are prominent at schools everywhere that don’t have the same research basis, but we do them anyway. For example, homework (.29 effect size); 1:1 technology (.16) and mentoring (.12). (Remember that anything below a .40 effect size is not considered to be successful in advancing student achievement.)
So, it’s possible that we do things that may not yield a lot for our efforts while missing out on something that could make a great difference. Why? We know that we tend to do things the way they’ve always been done. Even when we make an effort to “increase parental involvement,” we often spend time on things that don’t necessarily produce a high yield.
Let’s look at Hattie’s study of different types of parental involvement (2018) and their effect on student achievement.
Supervising Child's Homework 0.19
Parent Participation in School Activities 0.14
Communication with School and Teachers 0.14
Parent Listening to Child Reading 0.51
*High Expectations for Student Achievement 0.58
(and verbalizing these to the child)
According to Hattie, more than homework, more than 1:1, more than mentoring, more than getting parents to come to school events, more than communication between teachers and parents, what really makes the biggest difference is when parents establish and communicate high expectations for student achievement with their child.
It would seem to reason that we the school would work really hard to encourage and influence parents in communicating these high expectations. Yet, when I talk about school separately to parents and teachers/administrators, there is often frustration on each’s part with the other. Rather than dissect those arguments, perhaps we the school would benefit in our mission by seeking more positive relationships with parents. If we could become partners with parents(and often we do!), we can more intentionally focus on a tidal shift of educational expectations among the families of our school. To become partners, we first have to have a relationship, which follows making connections with each other. Those relationships lead to trust, and with trust influence, particularly if we never grow tired of working to earn that trust.
If it sounds like a lot, it is. Relationships take time; partnerships take time, trust, and intentional focus. As much effort as it may take, the benefits of doing so are well worth the effort.
One of the most common leadership mistakes is thinking you’ll get maximum performance from others without first building relationships with them. As school leaders, our success is measured not only by our own actions but even more so by the work of those we lead. The same is true of our teachers and their students.
What is it that relationships do? They give you access to the key to leadership: influence.
If you want to lead other people as a teacher leading his class or a principal leading her school, you want to become a powerful influencer. The reason being, you can’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to do. Using your authority, you can make things uncomfortable for others in their decisions, but going along with you is still a choice for them.
So why do people do what they do? Here are three things that influence our choices: 1) beliefs; 2) experience; and 3) environment.
Whether we’re thinking of students or adults, most of the choices that are made each day in your building are filtered through each person’s beliefs, previous experiences, and perception of the environment.
“The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority.“
~Ken Blanchard
So, as leader (or teacher), you can run yourself ragged spending all of your time hyper-focused on the choices (also known as behavior) of those you supervise and serve. Where our time would be more wisely invested would be in developing relationships instead of directing actions. Some actions, obviously, require immediate attention or redirection, but until the student (or teacher) changes beliefs, gains new experiences, or is presented with a changed environment, their choices will most likely remain as they are.
Instead of making them do, influence them so they’ll want to do.
Back to influence. Think about the people in your life who influence you. What is true about them? Most likely, you’ve developed some sort of relationship that has led to trust. When we trust someone, we are willing to believe them, to be influenced by them.
Make connections and build relationships. We connect with others, continue our conversation, and in time, the conversation leads to a relationship. Relationships, in turn, lead to trust.
Student behavior can be influenced through relationships more effectively than it can be controlled by rules.
If we know the power of influential relationships, why does it remain the road less traveled? Why do we rush to an insistence on other people’s behaviors when we can influence them for good through relationships?
Relationships take time, energy, and a lot of upkeep. But then again, mandating behaviors from students or adults takes a lot of the same. It’s something to consider though: would your time and energy be spent more effectively influencing those you’ve build trust with or insisting behavior from those you haven’t?
© 2020. Mark Wilson.
Nearly everyone talks about the importance of relationships at a school. So many conversations work around into the comment, “it’s all about relationships.”
For the principal or assistant principal to work well with the faculty and staff? It’s all about relationships. The teacher and her students? Also, all about relationships. Partnership between the school and parents? Again, relationships.
So, you know that they matter, but how do you promote their importance to your people? Even better, how do you help someone develop great relationships when they don’t come so easy for them?
” I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot. Together, we can do great things.”
Mother Teresa
Chances are if you’re a school administrator, the people who hired you noted your natural knack for building relationships. As the leader, you want your faculty and staff to also be great at relationships. Here’s a challenge: what comes naturally to you can be hard for you to teach to others.
Here’s a way you can help others in your school develop the kind of relationships that inspire everyone to do their best:
1.) Talk about relationships. See the graphic above. It’s important to ask your faculty about the fundamental nature of their relationships with students and with each other. The growth begins with a conversation.
2) Encourage reflection. Open the conversation about relationships, then ask your faculty and staff to reflect on their relationships. What are the products of their relationships? What kind of relationships do they have with students who do well in school? And, what kind of relationships do they have with those who don’t do well?
3) Prioritize ongoing growth. If you think that relationships are important, you can bring attention to reflection and growth in relationships. Celebrate those who foster good relationships. Create time for your teachers to recognize their colleagues who excel in relationship-building.
As the principal or assistant principal, if you want your teachers and students to be successful, you should be interested in their behavior and in the quality of their relationships. What people do and how they interact with each other is the definition of your climate and the strongest indicators of your culture. Like anything, your intentional focus in these areas is your best bet to get what you’re looking for, and in building a school where people are successful and enjoy the experience.
© 2020. Dr. Mark D. Wilson
Attitude Check
Above the door leading into the Professional Learning room of a school I was visiting was a sign that greeted participants with this question:
What attitude do you bring to today’s learning?
It’s a great question to pose, as it forces its readers into a brief moment of reflection about their approach to the learning that awaits them on the other side.
After Further Review
After the visit and while riding around the hills and plains of Georgia, further reflection led me to ponder a different question, one that wasn’t posted or printed, but one that made me go hmmm?
Shouldn’t educators be passionate about learning without a sign to remind them?
The sign about attitude on the PL room door… I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing that it was put there either to prevent visibly-bad attitudes about learning OR in response to such attitudes in meetings past. I’ve been around professional learning for decades, so it’s not shocking to think that teachers (or administrators!) might be less than enthusiastic about some learning, but despite that acknowledgment, it’s still disappointing. How can we get our students to be passionate about learning if we aren’t passionate about it first?
It’s probably easy to contend that while we may not always be passionate about all professional learning, we can still be enthusiastic when in the role of teacher, particularly if we enjoy that content more. But here’s the problem with that line of thinking: the students may find the content intended for them just as uninspiring as the content from the PL room that the teacher didn’t engage with.
Passion For Learning
Here’s a question to consider: When you learn a passion for learning, isn’t everything else easier to learn after that?
Our students would be well-prepared for their next endeavor if they left their class at the end of the year, full of curiosity, a thirst to know things, and a satisfaction in the process and product of learning. Truth is, we don’t spend enough time on those things, but what if we did? Would our students approach their learning differently? Would the content we share be more readily mastered if we taught the value of learning before (and during) our specific instructional goals?
Back to the PLC Room
Let’s connect the classroom back to the PLC Room with this question:
Are your expectations of passion for learning higher for your students than for your teachers?
We have PLCs and other groups and teams of teachers all across the land who value learning, believe in collaboration, and treasure the opportunity for learning with their colleagues. There are a lot of these teachers and administrators in schools and systems all over the map. There are, however, teachers and administrators who don’t feel that way.
How about at your school? How passionate about learning are your teachers? How passionate are YOU about learning?
When you are leading learning with your faculty, are you modeling quality, empassioned instruction? PLCs and professional learning ought to be fun. How is adult learning normed at your school? What percentage of the time that your adults are in learning settings are they sitting and listening, and what percentage of that time are they talking, sharing, and doing?
One of your most important roles as the school’s instructional leader is to set norms for learning. Is the learning you facilitate with your teachers engaging? Are you passionate about it? Do you work to create a great learning experience with your teachers?
Good Goes Around
Teachers with a passion for learning tend to lead classrooms that foster that same passion. The principal and administrative team can fuel and foster that passion by leading professional learning and PLCs that circulate a love of learning among all its participants. When that passion becomes the norm, your teachers will race to get INTO professional learning and their PLCs rather than to race OUT. When you establish THAT culture about learning, you will thrive not only in PLCs but in your classrooms across the school.
And then you can take down the “what’s your attitude…” sign.
© 2018. Dr. Mark D. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.
If you’re working long hours every day, taking work home every night, spending lots of your weekend doing emails and paperwork, and always feeling like you’re running behind, rest assured you’re not the only one.
Just because others are doing it doesn’t make it any less damaging to you as a leader. At this time of the year you may be feeling the strains of all of those hours that you’ve been logging since July coming home to roost. Continuous overwork leads to fatigue, poor executive functions, inability to solve complex problems, issues with interpersonal communication and relationships, and shaky judgments.
In other words, overworking leads to less-effective performance in pretty much everything that your job is all about.
First, if you’re working all the time and feeling out of balance, here are three reasons why you may have arrived at this destination:
1. You’re Doing Too Much. One of the biggest reasons principals and assistant principals get overwhelmed is this one: they try to do too much.
When you have more to do than you can possibly do, and you aren’t sure what ONE thing to do first, principals often try to do EVERYthing. They end up not doing ANYthing particularly well, but they continue to try to have their fingers in everything.
Newly-arrived principals often do too much. Sometimes it’s strategic so they can learn how things work; other times it’s from not knowing who can be trusted to do things, and to do things well. This can be a transitional practice, but can’t be sustainable.
Finally, there are some leaders who struggle with “doing too much” because… they choose to do too much! They operate from the idea that “the only way to make sure that it gets done right is to do it yourself.” This wears the principal out and also develops a faculty who isn’t prepared to think on their own.
2. You’re TOO Accessible.
The modern-day leader has been told by everyone that you need to be accessible. That’s true, but you can take it to an extreme and when you do, you make it difficult for you to be efficient and effective.
If you are available all day every day, and then again at night whenever people want to text, call or message you, you are too accessible.
The most efficient and effective leaders find the balance between being (and seeming to be) inaccessible and being overly-accessible to the point of harm. How is it harmful? If you’re not careful, your folks develop a co-dependent relationship with you. If you’re willing to do most of the thinking, lots of the problem solving and ALL of the decision making, people will let you. That’s REALLY dangerous, because the more you operate that way, the less capable your team is to do those things (think, problem-solve, make decisions) and the MORE they will rely on you to do those things.
Don’t go to the other extreme in an attempt to find balance; the answer lies in between. The answer does NOT lie in you doing all of the brain work.
3. You’ve Developed Habits of Inefficiency.
Often, BECAUSE you’re doing too much, and BECAUSE you’re too accessible, you inadvertently and often unknowingly develop some really inefficient habits. One of your challenges is this: you’re at the top of the food chain at your school. Unless you have a coach, an attentive supervisor, or a really good mentor, it’s EASY to fall prey to inefficient habits and have no one to prompt you to reflect and evaluate what you’re doing.
The isolation of leadership can leave you ill-prepared to examine or alter your habits, and if they go unchecked for a while, they become your routines and eventually your beliefs. Beliefs are harder to change.
For example, I was visiting a principal who was so intent on listening in on what was happening in the adjacent front office that we could barely have a coaching conversation. Every person who came into the office and every interaction that the secretary was having stole the principal’s attention. Over and again, people came into the office while we were meeting (some with a knock, some with an knock while they were opening the door). None of them were arriving with things that should have been tagged as “urgent.”
What had happened there was this: EVERYTHING became urgent, and everything had to run through the principal, and it had gone on long enough that it had become normal.
During our coaching session we talked about…. you guessed it. How the principal was struggling to get it all done.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Regarding the struggle of workload for the current-day principal or assistant principal, despite the aforementioned you are NOT the problem. We have continued to add on responsibilities to these positions without additional support or people to assist in completing them. Even if you’re doing it all most efficiently and effectively, it’s STILL a lot.
The suggestion here is this: can you make your job more reasonable? Can you be more efficient? Can you examine your habits and do things better?
© 2018. Dr. Mark D. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.
While the temperature soared around 90 degrees in much of Georgia today, the calendar told an entirely different story. It’s October.
So, what have you learned so far?
You’ve been in school long enough to generate the necessary data to make important inferences. But, if you don’t invest adequate time to look and listen, you may miss the moment. You have an opportunity RIGHT NOW to make adjustments that can be the difference you’re looking for, but if you’re not careful, you’ll just keep driving forward. There’s always enough work to keep you busy, but if you want to make progress, take a deep look at where you are now, and what adjustments need to be made to move forward as you’d like.
All right. How? How might you take stock of your current situation and plan the next steps forward? Here are some specific steps to take to gather the data needed, and analyze it meaningfully for change.
1. Planning Meeting. Bookend your quarterly examination with strategy meetings, one at the start and the other at the conclusion of your review. You convene a planning meeting of you and your guiding coalition. (That group might be your administrative team. It could be an extended version of that group. It could be any group that you determine to be helpful in reviewing your progress and strategizing next actions. Don’t EVEN try to do this alone. You won’t have the perspective you need, nor the time to do it by yourself.)
The planning meeting is to compile a list of everything you want to know at this point. What does August and September have to tell us? Many of those answers should be in easy-to-access data that you’re collecting. Other questions may require additional effort. It’s one thing to know which students are soaring, which are floating, and which are sinking. That’s the OPENING, not the whole story. With that information, how might you determine WHYthose students are in each of those three categories?
One of the things your planning session might accomplish is to determine who you need to listen to, and who will do the listening. If you truly are committed to progress, face value isn’t going to be enough. You will need to find out WHY people are behaving (and performing) as they are.
For you as an administrator, you will want to know the same things about your teachers as we’ve already suggested regarding your students: who’s soaring?; who’s floating?; and who’s sinking? Yes, you have TKES to support your work but, just as is the case with the student data, this is an opener, and not the whole show. You will want to know WHY teachers who are soaring, floating, or sinking are doing so.
Your planning session is to develop the list of what you want to know– what August and September have to tell you. Remember this: if you want to move the needle, you’re going to need to plan, and if you are going to plan, you’ll need to INVEST time in this process. Many of you have Data Teams that routinely and regularly are looking at data, but this quarterly review is a bit different. You can BUILD on the work of your data teams, but this is bigger-view exercise; you will need to get away from distractions, allot adequate time, and focus on the work in order to successfully progress.
Once you determine what you want to know, it’s time to move to step two:
2.) Gathering Information. You’ve made your plan; now you work it. You collect the data you need to give you an idea of what progress has been made during August and September. THEN, you begin a series of conversations with a number of people to gain a clear understanding of not only WHAT happened, but WHY?
Some of these conversations can be held in small groups; others may need to be 1:1. You can get a jump start in gathering perception data by administering surveys to both students and teachers. From those surveys, you can get a broader picture of the WHY… for example, if you ask students who are soaring why they are doing well, they might tell you that their teachers are particularly engaging or insistent in their expectations. The survey may accomplish much of what you’re after, but if not, having face-to-face small-group conversations may get you the rest of the way. You don’t necessarily need to interview every teacher and every student, even in small groups; but you can assemble some representatives for focus group work. Also, you (the principal) doesn’t need to do all of the interviewing. With good coordination, you can spread it out among the members of your guiding coalition.
The bottom line is this: spend adequate, but not exorbitant time seeking the answer to ‘why’ are the results we are seeing taking place. It will involve polling many of your Ss and Ts, and interviewing a representative sample for deeper understanding.
If you want to make progress, you have to listen to the people who are engaged in the work at the foundational level (the teachers and the students).
3: Strategy Meeting. Now you’ve gathered data and it’s time to convene the initial group again. The first meeting was to design a plan to hear what August and September can tell you. Step two was to go and listen; now, you’re at the third and final step– what do you do with what you have learned?
The strategies that arise from this data analysis can be structural, on a school-level, or support to effect the classroom level.
For example, let’s say that your data tell you that students in your third grade are minimally progressing in mathematics during August/September. Your brief surveys and follow up conversations tell you that students believe that instruction is moving too quickly for them.
At this point, you and your administrative team determine what you might do to approach the progress you’re after. Maybe you focus on supporting the teacher in formative assessment; maybe you review your MTSS strategies for these students; perhaps you spend time in the classroom to take a deeper look at what may be regularly occurring.
The intended goal is this: using the information you’ve collected, how might you align your resources and strategies in the most impactful way to lead students towards the progress you seek?
August and September have a very rich story to tell you about what’s been happening in the walls of your classrooms, the halls of your school, and the minds of your students. You just need to invest the time needed to plan what to ask, listen carefully, and adjust as needed.
The first quarter is ending; it’s time to make the adjustments you need to go into halftime with a lead.
© 2018. Dr. Mark D. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.
Science has proven what you probably suspected.
The number one influence in schools related to student achievement is what your teachers collectively believe about your students.
John Hattie and his team, using a meta meta-analysis have studied effect size of what works in schools. Hattie’s work is chronicled in his numerous books, conference speeches, and papers, notably found in his book Visible Learning.
The single most important question for any school or school system is this: what do the teachers at this school REALLY think about the students? If the teachers REALLY believe that students can learn, that collective belief becomes who they are as a faculty. The opposite is just as true. If the teachers don’t believe they can make a difference, regardless of what other initiatives you launch, their impact will be limited.
What Hattie and his team have done and updated regularly is a list of factors (252 to be exact) related to student achievement and their effect sizes. The higher the effect size, the more likely the positive outcomes on student achievement.
Ranking number one is collective teacher efficacy, defined by Hattie as the “collective belief of teachers in their ability to positively affect students.”
Another way to look at it could be the “group think” of the adults in your school; that notion you’ve been working on since you’ve been in school leadership– culture. Specifically, your school’s culture around whether they believe that together, they can make a difference.
In your efforts to improve instruction at your school, are you building confidence in the heads and hearts of your teachers that they can do their work well, and together make a difference?
At this point in the school year, you are deep into observations, observation write-ups, and the evaluation process. Do the teachers truly see your work as a vehicle to help them be better prepared individually and collectively to make a difference for your students? Or, do they see you much like you view the fire marshall when they make an appearance at your school? (necessary but not necessarily welcomed)
The subtle difference of your work in the evaluation process can make a difference in the way that individual teachers at your school think about their work. This isn’t a suggestion to “go easy” on your teachers in evaluation work: it’s quite the opposite. Teachers who get meaningful feedback and timely follow-up become more confident to do the work, and then begin to believe that their work can make a difference. That attitude spreads; if teachers think that your feedback is a canned response, rushed, or for compliance, its influence on their belief in their work will be limited if anything at all.
Think back to your days as a student. The teachers who challenged you are the ones who made the biggest difference in your learning. If you can challenge your teachers individually to be the best they can be as a part of a team of teachers that are on an important mission, you’ll be amazed at how differently your school can be. Like all good things, it takes time.
Where do you begin? With one teacher at a time, but in each interaction sharing a vision of what you can do together.
© 2018. Dr. Mark D. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.
For additional study, check out these links:
Hattie’s Visible Learning Listing
https://visible-learning.org/2018/03/collective-teacher-efficacy-hattie/
Issue Brief from CSRI
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED499254.pdf
Research on Collective Teacher Efficacy
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6167/a32cba0f727d72b071df00f8fc2d8b6d8673.pdf
In schools everywhere, there is a spotlight on safety and on leading a school that is “safe and orderly.” At first glance it seems like it’s all about a focus on security and preventing intruders from disrupting the safety and lives of our children and staffs.
When you look again, leading a safe and orderly school is a multi-faceted challenge. What do you think of when you hear “safe and orderly”? What does the school leader do to not only secure the school, but to make it safe- socially and emotionally as well as from outside forces.
At our Principal and AP Academies, this is our focus for September. Please find the following link to a Google Drive folder full of links, resources, and other items for your study and learning about leading a school that is safe and orderly. Take a look, and if you have additional resources that ought to be in that folder, please contact me with those links so we can share with them with the group at large. Thanks! ~ Mark
Safe and Orderly Schools: A Folder of Links and Resources
© 2018. Dr. Mark D. Wilson.
Becoming a Principal can be a curious thing.
You get the job before you know the job, and then a big part of your job is to figure out what your job really is.
Are you with me? Please let me explain.
The expectations of the principal haven’t changed over the years… instead, they’ve multiplied! People still expect the principal do things they’ve done for decades– be the face of the school, support the students at extracurricular events, open car doors in the morning and solve bus issues in the afternoon.
And.
And develop a comprehensive school improvement plan. And a hospitable culture to rival Chick-Fil-A. And infuse STEM, Mindset Training, and Differentiate for teachers and students alike.
That’s just a sliver of all of the things you’re asked to do, as you know. But here’s the challenge: out of the many important things that you do, what’s the most critical for you to do to live up to the standards set for your performance?
Help your teachers grow.
Yes, your responsible for safety is always the most important thing you do, but the most critical for you to be deemed successful is to help your teachers grow.
It’s for that reason everyone says you need to be visible. It’s to help your teachers grow that you go to grade-level meetings, and PLCs, and book studies. It’s the goal of your school’s evaluation program. It’s the most critical thing you do. In its absence, you are at best a caretaker of the school, not a leader. Our business is learning; our key representatives in the business are our teachers; their performance IS your performance. It is on this that you focus if you want your school to meet the needs of the students, because it’s through your teachers that you reach out to each and every one of your students. Your heart and your head through their hands. Hands whose work YOU are responsible for.
Your commitment to the task at hand– leading your teachers in their professional growth– is the pathway to success for you, your teachers, your students, and your school. Using the evaluation system as a support and as a needs assessment, your role as the school leader is to find out what your people need and get it to them. (Just as the teacher’s role is to do the same for her students!)
I’ve heard school administrators tell their faculty members, “my job is to make your job easier,” That’s a notion worth a challenge. The truth is, the teacher’s job isn’t really easy, and while administrators offer support, our best play isn’t to present ourselves as Tech Support or the Geek Squad. Perhaps our goal should be to be more like Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid? A trusted, wise coach whose wisdom matches up with his authority.
Making your teachers’ jobs easier may be a lot to promise, but what if your focus is on helping your teachers find more meaning in their work? What if your “job’ is to help them learn so much about doing their job that their confidence stands taller than their troubles and their doubts? That’s a lot more substantive and sustainable of a gift.
As we enter September and the second phase of the school year, the performance of your teachers will become more and more an indicator of the success of your students, AND your quality of life as the principal. Their growth is your job. Make sure your calendar reflects it as the priority that it is.
© 2018. Dr. Mark D. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.
Do you have MTSS for your teachers? We often think that we don’t have to differentiate for our teachers since they’re professionals, they’re adults, and they’re paid to come to work.
What if we could develop a more effective approach to helping our teachers grow by differentiating our work with them towards their development?
The following graphic is here to provoke your thoughts about the nature of professional growth for ALL of your teachers, and a framework in which you may find success. Share it with your administrative team. Talk about which of your teachers would belong in which tiers, and then consider the possibility of a more effective school driven by the recognition of the varying needs of your teachers towards their learning and growth!
© 2018. Dr. Mark D. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.
OK! You’re convinced that the growth of your teachers is critical for success at your school and now you’re ready to do something about it.
You’ve been credentialed to evaluate teachers, you’ve been recognized as a good teacher yourself, and you have served as an instructional coach and/or a team or department leader.
In short, you’ve got game!
Here’s the challenge: what got you here won’t keep you here (and it won’t get you there >>> either!).
Your self-discipline, attention to details, and amazing work ethic got you through the door and into school leadership.
Your ability to lead adults (not always the most coachable learners in your building) is now the pathway to your continued success. However, one or more of your teachers isn’t doing what you want them to do.
Getting mad at them for not being “on it” at the same level as you isn’t very effective. What IS more effective is taking a look at the progression between the idea (whatever part of instruction you’re focusing on) and successful performance. Hopefully, the chart will lead to conversations between you and your administrative team, and will help you see the progression that happens for students in class… and for your teachers with you just as well.
The progression is:
Often as school leaders, we assume that our people can come right out of the gate into the fourth level of the implementation progression, Performance. That notion rarely works out like that, and we can spend more time going back through the steps than if we had began directly with an intentional awareness campaign, followed by checking for understanding, assessing for clarity by observing the application of the idea, and finally sharing in the joy of performance of a new idea, something of which you can celebrate among your faculty and staff.
© 2018. Dr. Mark D. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.
