#suptchat

What’s in your heart?

Heart. A fitting topic for Valentine’s Day. Those who know me understand my passion for building great people relationships at work and in your personal life. Having great people relationship skills allows us all to improve our reputation, our image, and our rapport with everyone we meet. Great people relationships start with a passion, and that passion begins in our heart.

Any corporate culture thrives when people remain our focus. In an ideal world, our work lives would be completely fulfilling. But what if it isn’t? Some people see their work as a job, others see their work as a calling, maybe a passion. Many of my friends who are in the education field know that finding a teacher who has passion is a priority for enabling students to achieve success at their highest potential.

People who have this calling unsurprisingly exhibit higher performance levels at work and feel a greater sense of satisfaction at the end of the day. The key for all of us it to determine what we care about, what’s in our heart. Once we discover that, passion and motivation it will build from there. The key for you is to determine what you care about. What drives you? What’s your motivation? Answer those questions. Build from there. Reinforce your strengths and discover your passion. Once you do, you’ll find what’s in your heart.

(Fourth of a 4-part series) 

New superintendents are typically surprised and often challenged by how much of the job has very little to do with educating children or raising academic achievement, especially in districts with frequent turnover in top leadership positions. In some states, the average length of service for the superintendent position has lately and historically been fewer than two years, this in a profession that research suggests requires five or more years of consistent leadership in order to affect meaningful change.

This juxtaposition often results in time spent building trust and establishing a vision with constituencies that are understandably reluctant to invest in the process. Leadership is only as effective as the "followship" it inspires, a process that can easily be sidetracked or completely derailed by the tenuous hold a new superintendent may have on the position. This difficult, though not atypical, scenario has a direct connection to two aspects of the superintendency that few anticipate as they acclimate to the job.

7. Much of the Superintendency Often Has Little To Do Directly with Educational Issues In any district with a full array of extra and co-curricular activities including a robust interscholastic sports program, issues arising from those offerings frequently and eventually end up landing on the desk of the superintendent. Even when proper delegation of authority and responsibility includes interaction with principal or athletic director as proper initial steps in a parent or student concern, some are never satisfied with the outcome of events until and unless the superintendent weighs in.

Parents are often at their most unreasonable and least rational when it comes to the extracurricular or interscholastic athletic activities of their children. Most superintendents with any time on the job have fielded phone calls or emails that begin with the statement, "This is not about the playing time of my kid" before a parent launches into a tirade that clearly or eventually belies that qualifier. It is almost always about playing time when a parent has a problem with the coach of a sport or the advisor of an activity.

Another realm that vexes most superintendents is of oversight of the physical plant, an aspect of district leadership for which most district leaders are ill-prepared. Though others are nominally in charge of buildings and grounds issues, many board members and lay-people fully expect the superintendent to know as much as anyone else in the district about fenestration, EPDM versus built-up roofing, or levels of carbon monoxide adjacent to all boiler rooms in the district. Time spent on each of those issues is time lost to overseeing innovation or ensuring gains in academic achievement.

8. Not All Board Members Serve to Advance the Interests of Students In a perfect world, those who run for a seat on the board of education would have no political aspirations and only want what's best for the students of the district. If true, then Mark Twain was wrong in 1897 when late in his life he infamously wrote: "In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards."

In a more practical and realistic assessment, school board members are no more or less likely than anyone else to exhibit entirely human characteristics like compassion, ineptitude, or hubris. Their role as policy creators and fiscal overseers is made infinitely more complicated when parents burden them with unrealistic expectations of instant improvement and magical solutions to everyday issues. In a well-intentioned effort to assist parents, many new school board members overstep their authority and promise more than they could or should deliver when a problem is shared, often in a social setting far from school time and place.

Into this all-too-typical milieu confidently strides the superintendent, who is instantly confronted with the need to simultaneously settle an issue while correcting a board member's misstep that may have exacerbated it. The seasoned superintendent immediately recognizes the value and wisdom of enlisting the aid of the board president in calming the waters and settling the problem, if only by teaching a rouge board member the blessings of restraint when confronted with an irate or irrational parent.

Principals and superintendents serve in positions of authority and leadership rivaled by few if any others in a school district. These roles require patience, wisdom, and the humility to accept the fact that their jobs are sometimes made more difficult by others not restrained by professional ethics or a moral compass. Graduate school is important in the preparation of school and district leaders, and practical experience that only comes with time spent in these positions is irreplaceable and invaluable. Principals and superintendents who learn early that locally derived data and its proper analysis by professionals trained for that task is the best bulwark against making decisions based on instinct or experience alone.

(Third of a 4-part series) 

School principals have the unique responsibility to ensure the smooth daily operations of their schools while simultaneously holding everyone accountable for doing their best work. The biblical phrase "all things to all people" first attributed to the Apostle Paul is an apt descriptor of the role of a school principal, especially at the elementary level where virtually everything lands in the lap or on the desk of the principal.

Running a school takes on a certain automaticity, and the logistical aspects of the job can easily overshadow the more seminal responsibility of increasing academic achievement. Especially in a smaller school with little or no administrative support from a vice-principal or guidance personnel, being a school principal can be a very challenging proposition, especially for those who embrace change over the status quo and who take seriously their responsibility to drive innovation and improvement in the daily delivery of instruction.

Adding to the challenges of serving as a school principal is managing the role of parents in the operation of a school. Parental involvement has become a catch-phrase for a wide variety of behaviors exhibited by parents, not all of them conducive to running a school efficiently or effectively. Though it is awkward and politically foolhardy to admit or acknowledge, this aspect of school leadership leads to two more things not taught to those who aspire to the principalship. 

5. Not All Parental Involvement is Good Consider the practice of allowing parents to assist in the school library or in any other school day program or activity. Even scheduled in advance and carefully monitored, having parents present during the school day automatically makes them occasionally or persistently privy to things that parents should not necessarily witness, most notably the interactions between a student having a difficult time of things and the staff member(s) who are trying to help the student and the situation. Rare is the school principal who has not dealt with fallout from parents who hear an inaccurate version of events from a volunteer about an incident in school.

The right to and expectation of privacy can be compromised when a parent volunteer with the best of intentions to serve the school engages in the entirely human practice of telling a trusted friend about something that happened at school during a volunteer activity. The seasoned principal is typically mindful of this possibility and careful to intervene diplomatically by counseling volunteers to respect the privacy of students and parents by not sharing stories of what happens to the children of others that may be perceived negatively.

6. Parental Involvement is Different and Distinct From Parental Engagement The difference between these two phrases is often the hinge point as to whether the presence of parents is productive or detrimental to the operation of a school, extending well beyond semantics or the turn of a phrase. Parental involvement has by far been the more popular phrase in the lexicon of public schooling, though parental engagement is healthier for children and schools.

Parental involvement is an excellent way to describe the role parents should play in all aspects of their own child's education, ideally driven by the needs of the child and the inclination of the parent to help in a way that matches their ability to help. There is no formula for success in this realm, in keeping with virtually all aspects of being an effective parent. The best approach is to do what seems right, and to monitor and adjust the approach to parental involvement as any child progresses through the school experience.

Parental engagement is a much better description of the preferred role parents can play in helping a school or its principal to deliver the best possible experience to all children. Parental engagement can take the form of serving on committees or regularly attending meetings of the PTA, PTO, or HSO. It can also include running for a seat on the board of education, clearly the most productive and responsible way to craft policy with the legitimate authority to do so and to ensure that the schools are well run without trying to actually run them.

(Second of a 4-part series) 

The comprehensive role of superintendent requires a skill set that includes many things anyone would expect of an educational leader. The ability to communicate well with different constituencies and the ability to establish a vision for the future of a district are two of the most basic responsibilities of anyone who serves in a central office leadership position. Striking the proper balance between transparency and confidentiality in decision-making, while less apparent to those who have never served in the position, is no less important for those who succeed as a chief school administrator.

The career arc of anyone who becomes a superintendent typically includes time as a teacher, where many of the communication skills required for success are developed. Also common is time spent as a building-level administrator, where many of the delegating and prioritizing skills necessary for central office success are similarly honed. Regardless of whether time as a teacher or principal precedes the superintendency, the feeling of being occasionally overwhelmed and consistently humbled by the job is virtually universal among new superintendents.

Graduate school and an advanced degree or two are standard fare for most superintendents before ascending to that position. Despite the best intentions of virtually every program of study meant to prepare superintendents for their role, there is no better preparation than time served. The mistakes made, lessons learned, and improvement experienced as a superintendent is priceless and irreplaceable.

A brief examination of things not taught in graduate school can assist anyone who needs to understand the responsibilities of a superintendent of schools or a school principal. If scheduling and budgeting represent challenges for most new principals, the two items examined herein certainly qualify as equal challenges for superintendents.

3. Establishing Partnerships New superintendents are initially very popular, with a "honeymoon" phase that can last for weeks, months, or longer. In the most respectful manner possible, taking stock of what has transpired in the recent past and learning from everyone as to the perceived strengths of a district and challenges faced and overcome is an especially wise way to spend the first many months as a superintendent. Before setting out to change a culture, learning about the culture that exists is the best way to exhibit the proper respect for everyone who works in a district.

It is during the halcyon honeymoon days that a new superintendent can establish the partnerships likely to ensure long-term success. Superintendents who are affable, avuncular, and accessible from the minute they land in the chair are those who succeed in improving the district they are honored to serve.

Partnerships with union leaders, local law enforcement, local political leaders, parent groups, the education foundation, local media, and local businesses all pay dividends for the district, and the degree to which the superintendent is front and center with many or all of these groups as "the face of the school district" is typically a surprise for a new superintendent. Embracing these opportunities to raise the district's profile and position it positively in the hearts and minds of the people in these groups and organizations is a central responsibility of the superintendent of schools 

4. Crisis Response Few people who serve as a superintendent of schools ever escape the job of responding to a crisis, whether an unexpected or untimely death, a natural disaster, or a breach in school security. Most who begin their time as a superintendent give little if any thought to this aspect of the job, but those who anticipate the need to communicate during or after a crisis and have a plan in mind or in place for such emergencies are better positioned to reassure people and establish order and comfort in a time of potential chaos.

Experienced district leaders are careful to keep the board president fully apprised of all events as an important initial step, sometimes before anyone else is informed or occasionally once law enforcement has been contacted. If a particular emergency requires an immediate response, and if that immediate response has been handled professionally and successfully, communicating with key personnel is an important and immediate next step.

Another aspect of crisis response that few new superintendents have ever handled directly is confronting the media when they make initial contact. It is precisely this situation that provides a compelling case for having a mutually respectful relationship with local media figures before a crisis occurs. A polite rebuff and a brief explanation as to the necessity of such a response is more easily delivered and more likely to suffice in the initial stages of an emergency situation than a simple "no comment."

(First of a 4-part series) 

The role of school principal or school district superintendent each carry with them the need for unique skills and competencies, and colleges and universities that seek to prepare people for these roles do the best job they can in anticipating the demands of these leadership positions and crafting programs accordingly. Nothing in any graduate program, however, can truly prepare anyone as effectively or comprehensively as actual experience in the position. Anyone who has served as a principal or a superintendent could easily develop a list of things they wish they had learned in graduate school.

Though the two roles involve skills with considerable overlap, there nonetheless remain several aspects of each job that are unique. This series will provide a list and some brief commentary on four things for each position that would be good to know and that may have been absent from typical graduate programs in educational leadership. Considered first will be school leadership, further divided into the very different positions of elementary and secondary principal.

1. Scheduling While technology has certainly made the job of building a school schedule somewhat easier, the task of creating a schedule each year is daunting to every new principal, especially at the elementary level when little assistance is typically available other than from more experienced colleagues willing to help. This responsibility at the middle and high school levels is often shared with guidance personnel and vice-principals, and larger schools with multiple sections of classes are easier to schedule than smaller ones with more singleton courses that cannot conflict with other classes offered only once a day.

Graduate programs in school leadership rarely provide practical training in schedule building, simply because every district, and often schools within the same district, allow certain priorities to trump others. The principal, ideally with measured input from teachers themselves, should ultimately be the one who decides how to create a schedule that takes the interests and needs of students into account as the top priority. Doing so within contractual considerations of instructional staff is another constraint that is unique to every district and, therefore, cannot be adequately addressed in graduate programs of study.

New to scheduling in many districts is the connection between budget and program, resulting in the need for software that tracks spending and ties dollars to program, products, and personnel. Investing in such software is a cost-effective strategy for managing costs and tying resources to student achievement in a meaningful and tangible way.

2. Budgeting The process of building a budget and managing spending for an entire school year are aspects of the principalship that take most new principals by surprise. Direction from the business department is helpful during budget creation, and new principals are particularly wise to ask many questions and lean on the advice of experienced colleagues in the district. Managing a budget as a school year progresses is an entirely different process, one that includes prioritization and negotiation skills that few graduate programs provide for or include as part of the preparation of principals.

New principals quickly learn, sometimes the hard way, that spending early in a school year is smarter than waiting. It is not at all uncommon for the business office in many districts to institute a system of heightened scrutiny or enhanced justification of spending in the spring of a school year, spending that would sail through a less rigorous process at the beginning of a school year. Emergencies aside, if something that was anticipated while crafting a budget wasn’t purchased by the spring of a given school year, conventional wisdom often prevails and such late spending is typically forestalled.

Elementary principals often have a deeper connection to spending on instruction than secondary colleagues, simply because the nature of a secondary school budget includes extracurricular and interscholastic sports spending that is often and completely absent at the primary and intermediate grade levels. High school principals who maintain a detailed view of all spending, especially resources devoted to instruction, are those most likely to succeed at raising academic achievement, especially if software is in place and data is developed and considered that connects dollars to student achievement.

(Fourth of a 4-part series) 

Public school districts and the people who lead them are accustomed to the scrutiny and oversight inherent in a profession that seeks to improve the lives and prospects of the nation's young people every year. The process of continuous improvement carries with it the need to use data to guide decision making, and the need for reliable data that relates directly to the needs and interests of students and the local community has caused many districts to expand the collection of data to include sources other than results from state or federally mandated annual assessments.

The existence and recent expansion of companies that exist to serve the research needs of K-12 schools has resulted in new kinds of data that has more of a prospect to guide local decision making than many previous sources of data, justifying the modest expense of contracting with such companies and outsourcing research on current practices or programs. Districts are also using this resource to determine whether to pursue new initiatives or abandon unproductive ones, guided by data gathered and analyzed at the local level.

New federal legislation that includes more freedom for local districts and states to pursue assessment protocols of their own design, and the affordability of outsourcing a research function to companies specializing in this service, has made school improvement more likely under ESSA than it had been during its more draconian predecessors. The tipping point as to whether the return of local control will improve educational opportunity may well hinge on the degree to which districts invest in local research, and whether districts furthermore invest in ways to use that research to connect dollars spent to academic gains made.

4. Local research, conducted independently and analyzed with software designed specifically to connect dollars to achievement, is one of the best ways to ensure a high return on investment in the nation's schools.  It came a pleasant and welcome surprise to many educators when one of the central tenets of ESSA, the federal legislation signed into law in December 2015 that replaced Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind, was the intentional increase in local control and autonomy in the assessment of learning. Implementation details have thus far aligned with the original intent of the new law in the area of assessment, and the coming elections will likely have little impact on ESSA in the near term.

At a time when the political world seems uncharacteristically willing to allow educators to have a stronger voice in developing and implementing policy on assessment of learning, it is incumbent upon district leaders and school boards to be prepared to act in the interests of students by having in place the products and personnel necessary to assess student outcomes and quality of products purchased and programs implemented. Included in this effort must be the rigorous and appropriate development, collection, and analysis of data that actually matters.

Every educator who has ever opined about the inadvisability of using high-stakes standardized testing to gauge the effectiveness of teachers or the learning of children must now be prepared to demonstrate that they have always known there was a better way, ideally by replacing old, summative, single assessments with an array of new assessments that match local priorities and that relate directly to local district goals. The implementation of ESSA, unlike its predecessors, allows for and encourages this outcome, making this the ideal time to invest in research and the use of data to drive instruction, all with the foundation of tying academic achievement gains directly to the resources it takes to enable them.