my version of transparent, collaborative leadership...with a Teamann twist

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

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One of the challenges in being an administrator is never allowing yourself to forget the passion you had for your building when you first got there. Do you remember how excited you were when finally, after wanting and feeling like you were ready, you were named administrator? It’s an incredible feeling. It’s easy in the hustle bustle of what we do to forget how incredibly important every decision you make is, and that you’ve made some good ones! What then, are you MOST proud of? What do you think about when you think of your impact on your campus?

This question stems from again, valuing perspectives of two principals I admire, for totally opposite reasons. Different parts of the country, different focuses within their world…plus that whole male female thing. Ha!

Matt Arend is from Plano, Texas, and has been there 6 years. Melinda Miller is from Springfield, Missouri and has served as principal for 15 years. Both are great at telling their schools stories, and I don’t think get to brag on THEIR contribution enough. Here’s hoping this question allows that to come through!

 

Matt: 

Entering my seventh year as the principal of #SiglerNation there are many things that come to mind when you ask “What’s the thing you are MOST proud of as an administrator?”. Honestly, there are so many! As leaders we spend a lot of time talking about how we measure the success of our students and not defining their success based on the outcome of a single test and I believe that to be true when it comes to the work our teachers do as well. Our teachers are not defined solely on the scores their children produce. There is more to the story than that. Rather than celebrate the scores at the end of the year, I suggest we celebrate the effort our students and staff pour into learning. Yes, that’s right! Our teachers are learners too!

 

When you ask, “What I am most proud of?”,  I think of the colossal effort our teachers put forth to ensure their students have what they need to learn and be successful. In fact, while I write this, I am reminded of the effort our teachers pour into their learning not only during the school year, but all year round. Who ever thinks teachers have summers off has another thing coming! Our teachers are writing curriculum, attending conferences, presenting at conferences, participating in online book studies, Twitter chats and hosting week long camps at school to expose students to learning outside of the “regular” school year. Teachers jump at the opportunity to teach summer school not just to make money, but rather to understand they will get to work alongside other teachers whom they typically do not get to work with, network and try new ideas before students return in August. I appreciate our teachers for meeting the challenges they face head on, not backing down and overcoming the obstacles to do what is in the best interest of our students. Yes, even during their summer!

 

I am so proud of our students and the gains they showcase socially, emotionally and academically. I am so proud of our parents who support their children the best ways they know how and work in tandem with our teachers to model the importance of teamwork and education. I am so proud of so many things, but I am MOST proud of the teachers who choose to make the commitment to grow themselves and grow #SiglerNation.

 

Melinda:

There are so many things I am proud of at Willard East Elementary! How can I possibly narrow it down to just ONE? I can’t. Here’s my list:

Families: Our school is blessed with very generous, awesome families. Every school leader needs support from the community and families. This support, or lack of support, can make or break a school. We are so fortunate to have families who are willing to help their kids at home and at school.

Students: Our students are excited to come to school! They are eager to be filled up by our amazing teachers. This year we are excited to bring Stephen Covey’s Leader in Me program to our school.

Staff: There are not enough words to celebrate the Willard East staff! Putting kids first comes naturally. Everyone is willing to try new things and take risks for student learning.

This will be my 15th year as the principal of Willard East Elementary. We are a family. It takes time. We spend more time with each other than we do with our own families. We spend more time with our students than they do with their own parents during the school year. We are a TEAM!

I am proud to be the principal of Willard East Elementary!

 

 

 

These two are rockstars. I’d encourage you to follow @SiglerStars on Twitter, and Melinda has an excellent YouTube channel worth checking out! I learn from them both regularly, and think you could too!

 

 

What are YOU most proud of???

 

Sharingly,

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?

My “to don’t do”list…what’s on yours?

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Last week we had a guest speaker, Ryan Leak, at our church who spoke on the need to be real. He talked specifically about Elijah, a noted trash talker, who had no problems calling out those around him, because he knew that God had his back…but that even Elijah had moments where he doubted himself and cried out for support. He then connected that with his own struggles and the need to “hide” how he was really feeling from those who were supposed to care the most about him. It was a powerful message.

One of the things he mentioned specifically that just stuck with me the idea of the “to don’t do” list. I speak a lot about the power of a vision for leaders and how important it is to know what you stand for and what you believe in…the “to don’t do” list is similar in my mind. If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for? Knowing what you won’t do will help keep you in your lane..staying true to what you want to do.

On my “to don’t do” list?

  • Compare my insides with other’s outsides. (Love this quote from @MsMagiera  and her #ISTE17 talk today!) There is more to leadership than what someone puts on twitter. Regardless of the amount of quoteable quotes or amount of twitter followers one has…don’t fall for the notion that it’s easy for everyone else. It is hard, it is messy…for us all. And that’s what makes it so worth it!
  • Walk alone. If you’re walking alone, that’s your choice. Even going into year three, I am so thankful for my colleagues, PLN and peers that I can reach out to for help. It doesn’t do ANYONE (much less your staff/students) any good if you think you know it all. Leadership isn’t a zero sum game…by leveraging the strengths of those around you, everyone wins. Play by yourself, and only everyone loses. 
  • Forget that you can be hungry and be humble. You are where you are for a reason. Don’t ever forget that. That doesn’t mean you can’t strive for more, or to be better. Never stop wanting to grow and learn!
  • Just because you have the right to say something, doesn’t mean you should. Can you be supportive and condescending at the same time? Value the relationship over being right.

 

What’s on your “to don’t do” list?

 

Pondering,

Amber

When awards go wrong…

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One of the benefits to our downtime in the summer is that we actually HAVE downtime. I have the opportunity to dive deeper into data, start plans for next year, and spend some time deep cleaning/organizing my office. This week, I also had a reminder that even when I think I’ve covered my bases, I can still miss the obvious. Like the unintended impact of awards, or what we’ve been calling them…student celebrations.

So when I had a parent email me about needing to meet…I’m not going to lie, I may have sighed. I wasn’t in parent mode, I was in organize bunny mode!

Ya’ll. I genuinely think this was another sign from Jesus that I needed to fill my summer principal bucket. I had emailed this mother her daughter’s test results earlier in the week and they were REALLY good, so I wasn’t sure exactly what this meeting was going to be about. This sweet momma spent about an hour with me, going over her daughter’s previous year…making sure I recognized the significance of her standardized testing success. She was in RTI, they had worried about a learning disability, she had tutoring every.single.week. She told me about how her daughter suffered with low self-esteem, because of how hard her year was. She told me how she hated awards days and tried to miss school when we had our “student celebrations”. How on the last day, when we had final celebrations, her sweet daughter wouldn’t even make eye contact with her as she lined up for class. She didn’t receive an award the entire year.

I literally teared up. How could I have failed this sweet girl? How could I have missed that happening?

Don’t get me wrong. I am NOT an everyone gets a cookie kinda girl. I frequently told my students that there was only one Superbowl MVP, and that even Troy didn’t get it every year. But…this isn’t the NFL. This is elementary school. There wasn’t one way that she could be celebrated all year long? There wasn’t one opportunity to for her to have been recognized in front of her peers?

I find that hard to believe, but this year, it was apparently true.

This wasn’t even the point of this mom’s visit. No, she actually came in to tell me about how one of her daughter’s teachers had lifted her up, academically and emotionally through the year, in particularly during the testing season. She had taken her for ice cream the weekend before the big tests, and was taking her to lunch this next week to celebrate her success. She wanted to make sure I knew how much that meant to her and her family. Moving forward for the next year, she asked that her daughter be placed with someone who could meet those needs again, just in case she struggled.

Luckily,  I have a staff full of amazing teachers and could reassure her.

I knew her visit wasn’t with the intent to make me feel bad or feel guilty. But it was a heartfelt reminder that even on days where we think we’re “celebrating”, there are kids who struggle and feel left out. They notice what is going on. They are well aware of their academic inadequacies. 

We can do better. We WILL do better. 

I don’t know what the solution is, but never again do I want to look a momma in the eye and realize how I allowed something that was meant to “celebrate”,  hurt her and her student.

Chris Wejr is my go to guru on this topic and he has written a plethora  of really thought-provoking posts, should you want another perspective.

  1. Rethinking Awards Ceremonies | The Wejr Board

 

Celebration deliberating,

Amber

 

 

PS: I absolutely asked the mom if I could share this story here, 🙂 just in case you were wondering.

When connecting hurts…

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I woke up today to the heartbreaking news about a former family. There were two years in a row where I only spent one year on each campus. One might think I was there too briefly to make any connections, but of course, any educator knows that isn’t true. Each staff spent a year being a part of my family, and all of those students were who I spent my days with. It’s impossible not to build relationships. We were connected, albeit briefly.

This family, in particular, not only stood out because of her sweet 1st grader, but also b/c of her precious soon to be kindergartener. That baby girl was dressed to the 9’s each and every time I saw her, no jammy days for her! As a girl mom, 🙂 this was always so impressive to me! I left before she became a student, but I ran into the momma every now and then, and we were facebook friends, so ya know, only as far away as a picture comment. I even ordered tee shirts from her for my office staff this past Halloween. We were still connected. 

Hearing that her sweet baby girl was killed in a car accident yesterday has just devastated me. I am sad for her family. I am sad for her school. I am sad for her principal, her teacher, her classmates. I am sad that she won’t be a first grader. I am sad that that mom woke up today having to remember that news. I am sad.

What we do…it’s living life with people. It’s going to baseball games, it’s going to the hospital when they are sick. It’s sending cookies when there’s a broken limb. These are things I do, not because I want to Instagram them, but because I genuinely LOVE these Wolves. I had a parent this year thank me for loving her kids like they were mine…but they kind of are, ya’ll. My role is committing to being there, for not just their academic needs, but also their emotional ones. I want to be remembered because I cared, but more importantly I want them to FEEL that I care, now. I sent a post card last year to all 667 of them. Not because I had to, but because I want them to know I know their name, that I care about each one of them. I recognize my role in preparing students for their future, but we have to remember that our present is pretty darn important too. It fills our days with more joy than a regular “business” person could possibly imagine, but it can also bring us to our knees. I don’t know how to lead without forming these connections…and I don’t think I am supposed to, but today’s like today, hurt.

Value your connections, friends. We are blessed to spend our days seeing the present version of who they are, and dreaming about all that they can become. Of course, we all abide by the notion that once you’ve been “my student”, you’ll always be “my student”. The fragility of our relationships is never felt quite as much as in moments like this. Know that you are spending time with our communities future. You are modeling what a caring, involved, invested adult looks like in the lives of our students. You are connected. 

Hug your babies tonight. Life can change in an instant.

 

Sadly,

Amber

 

5 things a principal can do this summer for 17-18 …also, principal checklists! #leadership

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Summer has either already begun for you, or is JUST around the corner. I am sure there are many things a principal can do in the summer, but use your time intentionally to get yourself ready! June is my “close it up month” that I spend wrapping a big red bow around our 16-17 school year, so that in July, after my extremely welcomed week off, I can move forward with all of my 17-18 plans.  I’m also a big fan of checklists…there’s just something that makes me feel that much more accomplished when I can scratch something off of a list. 🙂

There are a few things though that need to happen first. As a leader, it’s important that you determine what you NEED to do, in order to decide WHAT to do. At this point in my principal-ing, I have a pretty good idea of what is going to happen. I know what is going to be stressful at the beginning, I know what I am going to need to get ahead of…and June is my month to get all my plans in place. Working a month ahead this past year was easily the best thing I changed from year one to year two.

  1. Data: From state testing to student independent DRA levels, I can crunch the majority of the data I need to make instructional decisions in the fall. When looking at class placements I want to use DATA to determine which teachers were the most successful with certain student groups and be intentional with student placements. I know, for example, that one of my first grade teachers, showed a 100% increase on her ESL students this year. Each student made at least one years level of growth from August to May in TELPAS. Makes placing certain student pods easier when I have data to support it!
  2. Schedule what you can NOW. I’ve already ordered my life planner for next year.  Some events you just know are going to take place each year and can get on the calendar. I use my Erin Condren from LAST year to help map out events and days for this upcoming 17-18 year. Things that took place in a certain month, but that I am unsure of an exact date for, I write out to the side. This planner has daily pages in addition to monthly “at a glance” pages. However you choose to stay organized, this is the time to get your skeleton in place for the next school year.
  3. I still use this trusty notebook to take notes in throughout the year at all the meetings I attend. It’s really handy to have them all in one place and I can refer back to it during a meeting very easily. I just don’t use/refer back to an electronic system, trust me, I’ve tried. I take advantage of summer down time to flip back through all those notes to reflect. My goal is to be able to plan better for the next time, or just to refresh my memory in general of where we were last August, September, etc. I also use the EC version because of its bulleted lists out to the side. I find those to be really helpful in a meeting to help me discern between notes and things I better get done.
  4. Get a head start on your social media! Our district calendar is set. I know the dates we’ll hold our PLC meetings, I know when report cards are going out. All of the items I can auto schedule now, I do. This allows me a sense of calmness to recognize that my BIG items will be shared automatically, but I can still push out timely content when I’m out and about in classrooms in the fall.
  5. Take. a. vacation. Unconnect. (yes, I made that word up.)  Intentionally disconnect. I’ve taken to un-following the social media accounts that stress me out or make me doubt myself. (No guilt!) Give yourself a refresh. Your campus and staff will be all the better for it. Take the time to remember your “why”. One of our staff development activities in August will be to share our individual “why” and have them hanging in the hallway. I’m really excited about it! (our template!)

Five easy things…but what about the rest of the summer? I’ve been working on checklists for my assistant principal and I to work on. If you work in Canva, let me know and I’ll share an editable copy with you to adjust as you’d like. What would you add?

 

I hope you have a fabulous last few days, or weeks!

 

SummerN,

Amber