Snacks and Staff Meetings

Kelly at Educational Discourse tagged me a few days ago. The tag was a continuation of the leadership meme that was going around. That one asked you to list 7 qualities. This new meme is a little different in that it asks specific questions. The questions are listed below and here goes:

Relative to your leadership role…

- What’s working well? Currently the collaboration between the staff and administration is going well. We are heavily involved in disecting our data, implementing interventions and working on presentations for our home and school club. Staff members are seeming eager to get input from the administration on strategies to help students as well as ideas for how to put their presentations together. This is the most collaboration between the staff and admin since I have been at Aptos Junior High.

- What brings you great pride and joy? I receive great pride and joy from doing a project, job or service and seeing it succeed but not having anyone really no how much work I put it into it. Being “behind the scenes” is important. I really enjoy seeing the teachers succeed, using instructions that I put together. I also enjoy seeing students succeed using interventions that the staff and admin have worked on. Seeing instructional practices put to good use always makes me smile. The biggest thing is seeing a student outside of school and having them say hi to you and acknowledge you. Coming from a junior high student this is bigtime. Especially if the student was one you just had to discipline.

- How have you made a difference for good in the lives of those you serve? Being positive, willing to listen, giving the teachers the tools to succeed. Keeping the menial tasks to a minimum so the teachers can teach and the students can succeed. Doing that behind the scenes work so the school runs smoothly.

- What brings you quiet satisfaction? Having an educational discussion with a teacher, student or parent in which everyone goes away feeling that they have learned something. Getting a teacher to look at something through a different lense. Not necessarily changing their mind, but just getting them to recognize that there is a different way to look at it.

- What have you learned over the last few months? Listening is vital, action is sometimes not necessary and being flexible with your time is important. Also, be careful what you say and how you say it and as always 7 positive comments to 1 negative comment a day is one of the best ways to move things forward.

- How can you use this information (above) to move your organization forward? Continue to reflect on these questions and review the answers. Realize that schools are everchanging even as they are standing still. And above all, how do these answers affect student achievement. Are these things best for kids?

Thanks Kelly for tagging me. I am going to pass this on to Santa Cruz Middle School Admin. I think that these questions are items that all administrators should be asking themselves.