Being a newly appointed principal has provided me with a short window of time during which I am doing a sort of “ethnography” of the school and culture. As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of my goals these first few weeks has been to try to gather an understanding of what staff is most proud of and what they’d like to see abandoned or, at least, reconsidered.
Like some other schools with diverse student populations, our students need a variety of supports – both academic and personal – to achieve “proficiency” on state tests. While I’m not a fan of this kind of assessment of our kids or our schools, as a new principal I believe that arguing about the merits of said tests is best left to the policy wonks. It’s the hand we’re dealt for now, and as a new principal I’m focusing first on those things within my control.
So my main objective in the near-term is to support my teachers in wrapping their heads around the idea that student success as measured on our state standardized tests and student success as measured by their ability to communicate, collaborate, and produce content in an interconnected, global community are not mutually exclusive.
When I first landed in the Big Chair, I ramped up my scouring of the blogs of other school leaders. What I found was an abundance of ideas, lists of tools and apps, advice on being a good Tweeter, and the like. I’m certainly guilty of posts like this…
What I’ve become increasingly focused on is moving from ideas and feel-good blog posts to action. One of my goals is to renew my use of this space and to spend time writing and reflecting about my actions in this first year as principal. I want to look at things that I actually do as a new principal that might improve systems, culture, and learning in my school with the goal of cultivating an environment that empowers students to learn and develop their identities as global citizens and world-class learners.
I’ll probably fall on my face. I might do that more than once. But at least I’ll try to maintain a good record of my thoughts and actions and how they play out in this organization. Maybe they’ll even help someone else who is entrusted with the exciting but very real responsibility of being a principal.
Some topics I will be addressing in upcoming posts:
- Re-imagining a culture of meetings
- Developing a manageable system of academic interventions that address students’ individual needs
- Moving a 40-year-old school into the 21st century
- Paring back “initiative bloat”
- Doing my best not to reinforce the status quo
- Quite frankly, anything else that comes to mind…
So stick around. This could get interesting.
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Best wishes for your new job. My biggest envy is your presumably higher salary;-): In other ways I love and prefer the freedom of the teacher/boss in his own classroom where the Principal’s rule mainly is a paper rule, or isn’t it?
Congrats and good luck! My advice after 15 years as a principal is to learn and understand as much about the history of the school as you possibly can. All the decisions that were made before you were done so for reasons that made sense at the time. When you look at a current policy or procedure, try to understand why it is in place before making changes. Talk to the veteran staff members often and let them know that you are interested in how things have come to be. Show that you care about and respect the past even if you need to make changes for the future.
Great advice, Dave. Thanks!
For a couple weeks after getting the job, I spent quite a bit of time digging into the documented history of the school, including reading up on the bio of the school’s namesake. Fascinating reading.
I also have the good fortune to have the building’s last three principals still working in the District and meeting with them has been a great source of background information for me.
I have been meeting with the school leadership team on and off for the last two weeks as well, asking them the questions I outlined a couple of posts ago and really listening to their responses.
Actually, I should probably publish the above as a separate blog post to underscore the importance of what you’ve written here.
Thanks for reading!
Hi Scott, I have just read your earlier blog post and I must say I feel you had the right idea in starting this new position. An attempt to utilize what policies are already in place, as well as implementing your own is a great tactic to truly understanding the current position, but also being able to make it your own. I applaud you for not just accepting the methods currently set in place or trying to totally disregard the system that had been used is a great balance. I also am interested to continue reading your blog to see what does and does not work, as you try different methods out. I am looking forward to seeing which methods you try out and the result of these things. Thank you for sharing your experience, Brittany Schneider