Amber — Page 22

How do you know when it’s time to unfriend?

September 17, 2017 by Amber 7 Comments

Recently as I was scrolling through Facebook before bed, I came across a video shared by a friend. It had an inflammatory title, and was quite evidently, taken of a group of people committing a crime. It had been shared from a site I’d never heard of, but when I clicked on it to see exactly what kind of site it was, I was distracted by the hateful, hate-filled, hostile comments from the video. They were so disturbing that I immediately had to click off and away.

It unnerved me, but I clicked off FB and went back to watching the news.

As I laid there, the video began to gnaw at me. Why was it shared? What was the point? Why would you contribute to that kind of vitriolic message??

Worst of all…how could someone I am “friends” with so openly perpetuate that kind of message?

I couldn’t stand it. I went back to FB and left a comment…

“I’m disappointed to see this shared. The message and comments there are inherently hateful.”

Typically, I would have just ignored it. Maybe I would have unfollowed this friend and felt content in doing so. Even commenting is more than I would have done in the past. I felt like I should just stay out of situations I didn’t know how to articulately involve myself in…but this time, I just couldn’t.

We’re at a time where when left unchallenged, hate persists and grows.

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The next day, when I checked to see if maybe, just maybe, this friend had embarrassingly apologized for the share, or deleted it. Much to my sadness, that wasn’t the case. It had been defended..and predictably, there were already heated comments left on the “share” as well.

I deleted the friend. Regardless of our past, of our history, or of whatever originated a connection worthy of facebook…I no longer want to be apathetic to situations where silence could equal acceptance.

It still feels insignificantly inadequate, to merely delete someone. But maybe it’s a starting point in openly drawing a line…and knowing that I need to, against even those I thought were friends.

I asked a couple of friends I trust to read over this…to ensure that the message I am intending to come across, does. One responded with the words, “Silence makes us all complicit.”

Silence makes us all complicit.

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I don’t want to be silent any longer. Deleting was the first step, writing this was another.

Hitting post,

Amber

Get the basics right..and let the rest follow! Admin goals for 17-18!

August 23, 2017 by Amber 3 Comments

Our Wolves came back to school this week.

Ain’t no tired like first week of school tired…but ya’ll. Today is Wednesday and it was SO smooth. Like kinders could handle lunch today smooth. We spent two days working on names, and hugs, and relationships. We went over the “essentials” of being at Whitt, and I know the teachers took the time to LISTEN to our students. How do I know this? Because I have spent the last three days walking around classrooms, just soaking in all of their awesome. I saw new teammates fitting in. I saw brand new students EXCITED to be a Whitt Wolf. I saw thankful momma’s being shoo’d away because they could handle walking in on their own.

It’s been amazing.

One of our goals this year is to get back to basics, remembering that a best practice is a best practice for a reason. As an admin staff, we’re doing the same. Here are my goals for getting back to the basics! Hopefully sharing these will not only showcase again that transparency I strive for, but also help hold me accountable!

Walk-throughs but with feedback
- District goal of ten per teacher, my goal is one 15 min walk through a week, per 15 under my TTESS assignments
- 15 teachers x 15 mins = 225 min, less than 4 hours)
- Provide one additional 30 min convo of feedback and coaching per observation, 15 x 30 min= 7.5 hours (This could also be in with their planning time!)
- Total hours of my week devoted to teacher observation and feedback, 4 hours of observation + 7.5 hours of feedback and planning time (on what/how to coach!)= 11.5 hours
- Strategy to accomplish this? PUT THEM ON MY CALENDAR IN ADVANCE.

That’s 25% of my work week dedicated to teacher development and improvement. An investment, but a worthy one!

Investment in school culture: 5 happy notes per teacher, per semester
- Using pre-made happy note starters, I commit to sending each T a happy note 5 times a semester. I do plan on counting “whole staff” treats in this count, 🙂 b/c I like a good seasonal treatie treat!
- Strategy: my teacher template will help me track!!

I have everyone’s love languages hanging up in my office. (Chart paper lovers UNITE!!) I will meet these socio-emotional goals!

Using data to GROW students, not just as a way to have teachers complete one more form.
- I’m rereading “Leverage Leadership“, and it’s just SO powerful. The growth conversations it spurs within myself…yeeesh. I made three new anchor charts today for our PLC room, just based on the chapter I read last night. I’ve recommended it before, and will do it again! If you want to create systemic improvement in your school, this is a GREAT book to do it with! It’s heavy…but SO good!

Read and share the profesh greatness on IG. I still can’t handle book snaps. My buddy Matt Arend has denied me basic training, b/c it’s supposed to just be “that” easy. Sigh! So I give up and will simply take a picture. And share it. #oldschool

I’m wanting my list to be manageable and make an impact. What do you think?? What do your principal/admin goals look like??

Ambitiously,

Amber

Last #askanadmin! #13: So I’m the principal…but how do I KEEP getting better?

August 18, 2017 by Amber Leave a Comment

I’m a learner. I LOVE to read. Obsessively. Insanely. Annoyingly. (like in the shower annoying.) Conferences fill my bucket. My voxer conversations with my principal peeps are treasured times of reflection, growth, and PUSH. It’s easy for me to operate that way.

How do YOU grow? The days are long but the years are short. It’s easy to look up and realize that you could be in a rut. Just trying to the very best you can be, and yet, not ever quite challenging yourself or taking time to value YOUR growth and development. If growth is YOUR mindset, that will trickle down to our staff…and then to your students. Isn’t that what we want?

Answering today are two more rock stars, Dr. Rachel George and Jay Posick.

Rachel:

How do I grow as a leader? Two words-staying connected. During my administrative licensure program an instructor shared with us that being a principal, specifically an elementary principal, was a lonely job. I remember thinking at the time how that would seriously suck and wondering how would anyone grow as a leader if this was truly the case. From that point on, I decided that I was going to take another path. I was going to be connected and learn from others because I didn’t want to be isolated. Over the past seven years I have chosen to stay connected and push myself to grow by being engaged with professional social media content, blogging, reading and attending or participating in professional development conferences
or other educational events statewide and across the nation.

Let me first start with Twitter. Oh my! Twitter has been a lifeline for me specifically as I moved from being a middle school Principal to being an elementary Principal in charge of not only K-5 but also four different and distinct Pre-K programs. In my first days I remember sitting in my office not knowing where to start so I turned to Twitter. Folks like Melinda Miller, Amber Teamann, Jessica Johnson, and Theresa Stager all provided a lot of growth, ideas, and support for me as they were Tweeting out the amazing things they were doing in their buildings. They more than likely do not realize how big of an influence they were on me in my first year at the elementary school, unless they are reading this blog post now, but they provided an amazing amount of insight and knowledge through their posts.

Blogging has been another way that has grown me as a leader. It is one thing to do something but to have to sit down and write about it takes it to an entirely new level. Two years ago I started writing as a guest contributor to ASCD Inservice and it has done wonders for my practice. It forces me to reflect on the work that I do, the beliefs I hold, and it pushes me to take it further instead of just keeping up with the status quo. For those of you that don’t blog or keep a journal, I would highly recommend it. Just like many of you, I read an insane amount. My husband jokes that I am addicted to books and I truly have to limit myself to how many I purchase each month. While we joke about my obsession with reading, it has been a key way that I keep up with current practices and push myself to be better. I don’t limit myself to just education, I read anything that can help me improve. This year I have taken to improving my emotional intelligence and ability to help create a strong culture so many of the titles circlearound those themes.

Finally, I try to get out of my building and interact with others. While it is incredibly hard to leave the school walls when school is in session, I try to make a point to attend events not only in Oregon but throughout the nation. It has been during these great events and/or conferences that I have been able to connect with others face to face and build relationships. It has been through these relationships and conversations that I have been able to learn what others are doing and what is working in their buildings.
So while it might be hard to take the first few steps out the front door often while school is in session, it has been totally worth because it has providing insight into the amazing work that folks are doing across the nation in serving kids.

Jay:

Growing as a leader is an every day adventure. I’m fortunate work in a school district that fosters my leadership growth in three ways- face to face conversations, support to attend state and national conferences, and encouragement to work as a team with our fellow educators.

Face to face conversations

I work with an incredible group of educators. We have the opportunity to speak with one another nearly every day because of the size of our district. I honestly have less than a five minute walk to meet with someone who helps me assess a situation or provide ideas for a situation they are encountering. These conversations aren’t only with administrators. They are with all educators in our school. The importance of building relationships that encourage conversations that help educators grow as leaders cannot be underestimated. If you don’t have that type of environment already, do all that you can to grow one now.

Support to attend state and national conferences

I am lucky to work in a district that provides professional development money for me to attend education conferences. The best conferences I’ve attended are those that include fellow educators from our school. These conferences provide leadership opportunities for me and for the teachers. Conversations about sessions give us better understandings of one another and what’s best for our school. But attending principals conferences is also important. Being in the presence of educational leaders that I admire and learn from via social media provides me with ideas and thoughts to help make our school better for students and staff.

Teamwork

I work in a district that encourages staff to be a part of teams. We have grade level teams, building leadership teams, and school improvement teams, to name just a few. Each of these teams provides leadership to our school, and because I work so closely with the teams, my leadership ability grows along with the leadership abilities of those on the team. We make each other better which means our school is better for our students.

But my leadership is also impacted by the connections I’ve made on social media. Our district allows the staff to have access to social media so that we can share ideas and let others know about what’s going on in our schools. Because of this access, I am able to use Twitter and Voxer, two social media platforms that have helped me immensely. I know that I would not be the leader I am today without the connections I have made. I am pushed and supported and validated by the members of my professional learning network. I don’t even want to imagine where I would be without these colleagues.

My hope is that all administrators can have the support I have from our district. Find ways to have face to face conversations daily with other educators in your district, attend conferences with educators from your district, and create teams that work together for the benefit of the students. And if that doesn’t work for you, get connected on Twitter and Voxer so that you can grow as a leader. You won’t be disappointed.

Whoosh! What a summer of learning this has been!! I hope you have enjoyed these posts!! I know I have learned a TON and am so, so, so thankful to my people, my friends, my peers, who took the time to write these gems and share their knowledge with us, on top of everything else that they do. We truly got to learn from some of the best in the business friends!

My Wolves come back on Monday. I hope that where ever are in your school cycle, starting school or still getting ready, that you remember how very important you are and that what you do matters, each and every day. Shine on, friends!

Wolf ready,

Amber

Missed my other posts in this series?

Q1: What is your go to strategy for team building?

Q2: What is something you do EVERY year, without fail?

Q3: What is something you wished you knew as a first year administrator?

Q4: What has gotten easier through the years? Harder?

Q5: Where do I even start to build a culture of innovation?

Q6: How do I become the instructional leader?

Q7: How does the leader model RISK TAKING?

Q8: What are you reading to GROW as a leader?

Q9: How do you know who to hire?

Q10: As the leader, what are you MOST proud of at your school?

Q11: Uh oh! How do you work with a combative parent?

Q12: What if there is a conflict among my team?

Principal Pinterest pressure..it’s a thing!

August 12, 2017 by Amber 8 Comments

Have you heard the quote “Comparison is the thief of joy”?

I think that may have come out after the invention of Pinterest and/or social media.

Maybe its just me. Maybe I’m the one scrolls through the FB or the twitters and thinks man, I am so slacking. My outfits weren’t that fun. Each and every sentence outta my mouth isn’t Pictaquote quality. My staff development wasn’t that creative. My day left me in tears, and that chick has never cried a day in her life. (and what wrinkle cream does she use anyway?!?)

As if our educational world wasn’t tough enough, we have the constant exposure to all of the rockstars that we are surrounded by. The ones who obviously don’t sleep, the ones that have a bottomless budget, or the ones to whom everything just comes easier too. The pressure of the pinterest perfect principal…it’s a real thing!!

Don’t fall victim to the pressure, friends. There is always more to the story. I made a comment to a friend recently about how proud I was of her for data I had seen, 100% of her advanced students had scored advanced on our state test. She laughed, and said “Yea, I only had one advanced student though”. That sure wasn’t listed in the footnotes for the data on the screen! Please remember that you are only getting to see the highlight reel.

You’re seeing a snapshot of their day, and that is it.

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That aside, what YOU do is good enough. That where YOU are is where you are supposed to be. I guarantee YOUR staff is appreciative of what YOU do, and is thankful for YOUR efforts. Don’t compare. Let’s be satisfied with what we do, and how we do it. Let’s know that our reality is perfectly acceptable, in fact, our reality is awesome. We strive for perfection and success, and when we fall short, we feel less than and worthless. What we don’t seem to realize is that working toward our goals and being willing to put ourselves out there are accomplishments within themselves, regardless of how many times we fail or feel like

If you can scroll and be inspired, excellent. Tweak and twist, and reinvent for your world. That’s awesome! See something of mine you like? PLEASE reach out and I will share it all with you! Education is not a zero sum game.

But if you find yourself constantly comparing, and worse, not measuring up?

The “unfollow” button is your friend. Use it.

Non-guilty-ly,

Amber

#12: What if there is a conflict among my team? #askanadmin

August 11, 2017 by Amber 1 Comment

Drama, drama, drama…it happens to the best of us! What do you do when you have a conflict with your teams?

How about we let Katie Martin and Jeff Zoul answer this! Both have extensive experience in not only working with education peeps, but have led/managed groups of people, which inevitably? Could lead to conflict!

Katie:

When I was growing up my dad used to “lock” my best friend and I in the car when we were fighting. We later realized that we were not actually locked in but it was more of a place for us to work it out where he didn’t have to hear it. Kind of genius, actually. To this day we are still great friends and have always been able to work through our issues. This has probably influenced how I tend to handle conflict. My tendency is to confront issues head on to resolve them and move on.

When there is conflict on our staff, whether it is people coming to me with problems or tensions that I notice, I try to acknowledge them and work with individuals to move forward rather than sweep it under the rug. I always talk with individuals to first try and encourage them to work it out together. But when that doesn’t work, I bring them together to facilitate some “crucial conversations.” Recently, I had two team members that were equally passionate but they had very different work styles and ways of approaching the problem and weren’t listening to one another. Instead, they took offense every time that one person did something differently than they would have. We focused on these 3 strategies to improve communication and better work together:

Seek to Understand: Let’s be honest, when people are frustrated or there is conflict, most often it is because they feel misunderstood and/or undervalued. It is important to listen to one another, you don’t have to agree but we owe it to our colleagues to listen to them and ensure that people know they are heard and valued.

Identify strengths: You don’t have to like everyone, but as professionals we are better if we work together, not against one another. If we focus on what is right with people rather than what is wrong, we can usually find a way to appreciate others and work together. When individuals are aware of what they are good at and leverage their strengths to do their best work, everyone benefits. To collaborate with others, one first must understand themselves and their own strengths and work to understand and leverage the talents of the group to do their best work.

Find Common Goal– In education, our focus should always be on creating better opportunities and experiences for the learners we serve. With this as the common goal, we worked to figure out how to meet our shared goals. Conflict can be healthy and productive and is necessary to get better but it’s important to be tough on ideas, not on people.

Based on the steps above, we began by seeking to understand and found out that a lot of assumptions had been made about one another that had led to their challenging collaboration. Once each person understood where each was coming from, and felt valued, we discussed work preferences and one another’s strengths. At the end, they were both committed to doing great work and reaching their desired goal. Addressing the challenges and assumptions in the open allowed them to better communicate and they ended up being a very effective team once they figured out how to communicate and leverage each other’s strengths rather than take differences personally.

If that doesn’t work, try locking them in a car.

Jeff:

Anyone serving as a leader must, at times, deal with conflict among team members. All teams encounter conflicts at some point; in fact, I believe that high-performing teams engage in conflict every bit as much as weak teams. The difference lies not in the amount or intensity of conflict such disparate teams experience, the difference lies in the way such conflicts are addressed and resolved. Strong teams, with strong team leaders who embrace conflict as inevitable, view it as a way to grow stronger as a team and make decisions that are best for others in the organization the team serves. In our schools, the most important “others” to keep in mind during times of conflict are the students learning and growing in our schools.

When I am leading a team in conflict, I try to keep several things in mind. First, it is important to simply acknowledge the conflict and not pretend the conflict does not exist. Next, it is important to engage everyone involved in the conflict in conversation about the conflict, ensuring that all voices are heard without interrupting anyone who is speaking. As the leader of the team, it is best–at least initially–to do very little talking, instead focusing on active listening with perhaps follow-up questions of team members. We must establish expectations for the conflict resolution process and gain commitment to the process from all involved. Honestly, it is often the case that by simply taking the time to address the conflict openly and engaging affected members in a conversation about the conflict, the resolution almost takes care of itself, as team members gain a deeper understanding of their colleagues’’ perspectives. However, when team members still disagree about an issue, even after the issue is raised openly and discussed thoroughly, there must still be a resolution. Sometimes, the “resolution” can simply be that we agree to disagree privately but also agree to move forward publicly as a unified team, going in the direction of the team’s consensus.

The conflicts that arise among all teams are inevitable and wide-ranging in type and extent. No two conflicts are identical. Unfortunately, they can stem from emotions and personality differences. To resolve conflicts effectively, it is important, however, to take emotion and personality difference out of the equation and instead focus on how the conflict is impacting the team’s’ cohesiveness and productivity. Remind the affected parties of the team’s “Why?” Why do they exist as a team and what can they agree to collectively to turn the conflict into a positive–or at the very least, a neutral. In our schools, it is likely that the team exists–ultimately–to do what is best for kids and it is powerful to remind team members in times of conflict that we are here to serve our students.

How fortunate are we to learn from such greatness? Trying to balance all the emotions, all the times, can be such a struggle…I appreciate these perspectives SO much!

We have just ONE more questions in this series!

RefereeN,

Amber