So, the 2015-16 school year is well under way. In our district, we are in our second week of having students and our third week overall. We had a teacher work week, where we reviewed a few things and introduced some new material. But most importantly, we reinforce with our staff our school theme. A few years ago, I decided that we did not need a new theme each year. I wanted our staff to have one thing that we believed in, one thing that defined who we are. What I came up with was, “getting better every day”. When I was a coach, way back in the day, I always told my players that there was no such thing as “maintaining” where you were. You we either getting better or you were falling behind. There were no other options. This is the attitude that I wanted my staff to have.
This year I took it one step further. I am constantly asking my staff to look for ways that they can get better every day. The thought I had this summer was, what am I doing to get better every day? Am I living the words that I am asking my teachers to follow? It was a good reflective question. I determined that I was living the words, but how did I model that for my teachers? I decided that this year, one of the things I would do would be to pick a topic each week that I wanted to learn more about. Not only that, I wanted to share this learning with my staff. Here is how I decided to get better every day this year.
First, each week I send out an electronic newsletter to staff. In it are things they need to know, a to do list, upcoming staff birthdays and the like. I also have a few sections that are repeated each week. I have a Tech Tip of the Week, a Quote of the Week and a WOW Moment of the Week (where I highlight something I saw that week that made me go WOW). I added another section, titled “What I Did This Week”. In this section, I talk about my weekly learning topic, what I read and what I learned about it. Second, I also created a Google Doc (we are a Google platform division) where I store the link to the articles and provide a brief description of the article as well. That way, teachers have access to the readings I am doing and can get to them if they are interested.
The key for me was making sure my staff knows that I am modeling the theme that I am asking them to do. This is my leadership goal for the year. What is your leadership goal for the year? Feel free to leave me a comment with your leadership goal.
A Principal's Life 