“We have to be the best team on campus”
On Friday, I attended a meeting of all our head coaches of our athletic teams. Led by our athletic coordinator, Coach Ron Harris, he reviewed upcoming events, expectations, and sought input from his staff. As he ended the meeting, he challenged his head coaches to something profound.
“We have to be the best team on campus”. Coach Harris was referring to his men and women coaches.
I left the meeting and couldn’t stop thinking about that comment that Coach Harris made and how it related to leadership teams. “We have to be the best team on campus.”
For a moment, take what he said and think about any team on your campus. Does it have the best attitude on campus? Does it have the best work ethic? Does it have high levels of empathy, grace, and kindness?
If not, what are you doing to ensure that your team is the best it can be? What structures and systems do you have to ensure your team is functioning at a high level?
Here are a few strategies that I have implemented to ensure that our team is functioning at a high level
1). Regularly scheduled meetings.
Not only are the meetings important to discuss supervision and deadlines, regularly scheduled meetings allow for teams to have open dialogues about the work. During each meeting, all members should have a voice in the work and a voice in the decision-making. How you structure in voice during your meetings is key to building a strong team.
2). Model, model, model
As the campus leader, everyone looks to you and how you respond, what you say, and how you carry yourself. If you expect your assistant principals to monitor the hallway during passing periods, are you leading the way? In fact, are you out in the hallways prior to the dismissal bell ringing? If you expect administrators to proactively monitor lunch duty, are you modeling this behavior? Are you modeling the importance of classroom observations? Are you the most positive and optimistic person on your team? Are you modeling the importance of family time or are you sending emails at all hours of the day and night?
3). Feedback
Just how feedback is essential to teachers and staff, it is vital that feedback is regular and consistent amongst all teammates.
Our team adopted the motto, “Clear is Kind.”
My team should never have to read my mind. Clear and consistent discussions and expectations are essential to ensuring that team is the best it can be.
4) Structures and Systems
This year, I have utilized my calendar much more to help me schedule my day. In order to become more of an instructional leader, I built a system to assist me with this goal. I block off every Monday and make that a day that I am in classrooms. This system is already working three weeks into the school year.
I have also calendared a monthly meeting over coffee with my lead counselor, my athletic coordinator, and my PTA President. I have found that if I calendar it, it is likely to happen. If I don’t put it in the calendar, it probably doesn’t happen.
I write a parent SMORE newsletter each week. I also send a weekly staff email, an email to all new teachers, and an email to the all students each week. I was coming up on Sunday mornings to type these correspondences. I really didn’t want to give up my Sunday mornings, but I didn’t know when else to get it completed. I decided to calendar 15 minutes a day, starting on Tuesday to allow me to write. By Friday, I am just putting the finishing touches on the emails.
Lastly, I have set up a structure to be able to provide data to me, instead of me having to look for it. A goal this year has been recognition of students that are living The Churchill Way. I have an assistant principal in charge of this. He provides the names of students that deserve recognition, without me having to do this. I then contact the parents of these students and thank them for their academic or behavioral excellence.
My curriculum assistant principal compiles data from classroom walk-throughs and shares that with our leadership team. Another assistant principal pulls data on student attendance and shares. Each PLC shares their agenda with me so that I can comment on their work, even if I cannot attend every PLC meeting.
Early in my tenure, I was trying to gather all this data myself. With strong structures and systems in place, the information I need comes to me.
5) Empower Others
Once I realized that I could not do it alone, my job became so much easier. There are tasks that have to be done by the principal, but there are many tasks that can be delegated. The key becomes identifying which task requires your time and which task can be delegated.
I utilize my administrative assistant for many of these tasks. I spoke a lot about using my calendar. She is the gate keeper and helps ensure that I am on task with the calendar. My administrative assistant also assists me with many of the tasks that our central office asks of us each day.
My curriculum assistant principal is empowered to answer questions from parents regarding issues that arise on the campus. While I read every parent email, frequently I need my assistant principals to be able to address parent concerns.
While I enjoy social media, I am not really a Facebook user. Our district utilizes this platform to help provide parents with information. Instead of me being in charge of our Facebook page, I delegated that to an assistant principal that enjoys Facebook.
Lastly, your staff will appreciate it greatly if a parent reaches out to you and you direct them back to the staff member to address their concerns. This doesn’t mean you are not taking a parent concern seriously, but you want to build a culture where issues are addressed on the level appropriately.
Soon, the state of Texas will release it’s accountability ratings for schools. While this will not be a rant about how unfair these ratings will be, I want to illustrate something that should be valued and measured, but will not.
We all know that education is a people business. We deal with real people, real emotions, and real life situations. We are not numbers, or scores. We are humans.
But state accountability is not what I just described. It is high stakes testing, often times on one day only. Accountability is a moving target, often with rules that have changed after the year has started.
On Saturday night, I brought a ten year old boy to our high school football game. He had never been to a football game before. He was nervous as I explained to him that I was going to have him help out on the sidelines.
What I didn’t imagine was the way that my students embraced this young man. Nobody knew his story. They saw a tiny kid, wearing a Gucci Bowl shirt, and wearing a pair of glasses that were bigger than he was.
Nobody knew he had just lost his mother.
Nobody knew he moved from San Antonio to Louisiana to New York and back to San Antonio in the course of a year.
Nobody knew his father was no longer in the picture.
Nobody knew he was living with his 23 year old sister.
The students asked his name, took photos with him, and put him to work. I looked up and he was on the field during a time out giving water to the referees. I looked up at another point and he was giving a high five to a player. The coaches engaged with him. He even gave advice to our running backs coach, “Score more touchdowns.”
During the last few minutes of the game, he got a piggyback ride from Lauren and then Mason picked him up and put him on his shoulders after the game. The smile on his face was probably the biggest he has had since he lost his mom. I can only imagine what he will tell his school friends next week.
On the way home, he told me “My favorite players are Justin Jefferson, Patrick Mahomes, Harold and Ty.”
Harold and Ty are seniors on our team.
I share this story, because the love that my students showed the K-man will never be measured with any accountability system. We will receive a letter grade at the end of this month. Like most schools, it probably won’t be what we want, or feel like we deserve.
It won’t measure the empathy that our students have for each other. It won’t measure the heart and love that kids show for each other. It won’t reflect kindness for each other.
Our campus and our community is an A.
When non-educators ask about what it is like to be in education today, please share stories like this so that everyone understands what it is like to work with students in 2023.
Three Random Thoughts
1) I love individuals that bet on themselves to win. I love confidence and I love swagger. Coach Prime has demonstrated this and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.
2) “1989, a number. another summer . . .” I heard this while running and it took me back in time.
3) A Pirate Looks at 40 is one of my favorite songs. Jimmy Buffet created something bigger than himself, and his music is iconic. #RipJimmy
Everyone needs a coach.
If this speaks to you, please feel free to reach out to me so that we can discuss a partnership. Check out my website https://www.toddmbloomer.com