A Reader Asks... Campus Administration Survival Skills

A LYS Assistant Principal asks the following:

SC,

What knowledge or skills help a campus leader move through a range of demands and decisions required to efficiently and effectively manage operations and resources?

SC Response

Great question that has a two-part answer.

Part 1: Experience.  The principalship represents the greatest learning curve in education.  To go from having input in decisions or limited decision making authority to being responsible for the performance and behavior of students and staff, 24/7 is at first overwhelming.  For the first year principal, everything is new, everything must be reviewed and the pace is relentless. Which is why, all things be equal, the experienced principal gets hired over the in-experienced assistant principal in most districts.

Part 2: After experience, here are the basic skills, understanding and characteristics that any decent principal must have.

1. The ability to deal with people, especially difficult people.

2. The ability to manage up.

3. A solid understanding of pedagogy.

4. A solid understanding of effective literacy practice.

5. A solid understanding of basic data analysis and adjustment practices.

6. A solid understanding of how to build and manage a flexible budget.

7. A burning desire to recruit staff and build successful teams.

8. The discipline and fortitude to fire.

9. A fundamental need to compete.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Upcoming Conference Presentations: The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool)
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

The Problem and the Solution

Today, I was on a campus training teachers. A teacher comes to my third period session beet red and spitting venom. It seems that she sent a student to the office for immediate execution and the assistant principal just administered a slap on the wrist. Yet another case of administration not supporting teachers.

After she calmed down a little, I took the “teachable moment” opportunity and explained a basic fact of school life. “If you divorce yourself from the problem, you divorce yourself from the solution.”

What this means is if you hand over your student discipline to someone else, you don’t get to dictate the outcome, because it is no longer your problem.  And if you don’t like it, it’s not personal.  It’s professional. 

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Upcoming Conference Presentations: The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

When Observing a Class - Do Something if Necessary

This year I’ve been training a large number of professional support staff on how to conduct formative classroom visits. This is a good thing.  But these new observers aren’t Assistant Principals or Principals and that has highlighted a blind spot in our observer training, which I’m rectifying now.

You are the observer, and you visit a classroom. The teacher is doing an excellent job of teaching the class and keeping students focused on the task at hand.  But there is one student who is doing his level best to take over and disrupt the class. 

What do you do? 

If you aren’t an administrator, your instinct is to do nothing.  This would be wrong. Because this student is attempting to show his peers that he runs the class.  If he does this with two adults in the room he is showing his peers that he runs the school. This has to be corrected. Here is what you should do.

1. Go stand by the disruptive student.  This will solve the problem 90% of the time.  If the student continues to disrupt...

2. Quietly remind the student to pay attention to the teacher and/or start working on his assignment.  This will generally solve the problem.  If the student continues to disrupt...

3. Ask the student to step in the hall with you. In the hall, tell the student there are now two options. Option A – Get it together, go back into the class and start working.  Or Option B – Go to the office and deal with the consequences.

If the student picks Option A, escort the student back in the classroom, make sure the student gets settled and give the teacher a wave of support.

If the student picks Option B, escort the student to the office.  Let the AP know that the student was disrupting an entire class and disrespected and was defiant to two educators (you and the teacher).  Let the AP determine the appropriate consequence.

You would be hard pressed to find a better way to support teachers and hard working students.   

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Upcoming Conference Presentations: TASSP Aspiring Principal Workshop (Multiple Presentations), Learning for a Change Spring Summit (Keynote and Multiple Presentations) 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

The Positive Benefit of Dropout Accountability

I was recently talking to a group of high school educators who were bemoaning the fact that in their state they would now be accountable for reducing the dropout rate.  The crux of their complaint is that they should not be held accountable for a student/parent decision that they essentially have no control over. For those of you working in states where dropout accountability is already a reality, you are likely to be thinking, “Been there, done that.”

Many of us in education have been accountable for reducing the dropout rate for a number of years and the dropout numbers are dropping.  Which means that, "yes," we do have some control over the dropout decision.  The main way being that we tear down the hurdles and roadblocks that we have built over the years to sort the easy to teach into academic pathways and the difficult to teach out the door. 

I know that sounds harsh but it is a truism.  In my own experience the switch to dropout accountability occurred right after I became a Principal.  This forced me to re-think and re-design how my school and I intervened with difficult students. You see, even though I considered myself an enlightened educator, as an Assistant Principal I was lauded and rewarded for my ability to convince “trouble makers” to just leave. To go and “enroll” at a campus where they wouldn’t be watched and hassled for not engaging in the academic program.  Did I make the decision for the student to withdraw? No. Did those students enroll in other schools? No.  Am I responsible for those dropouts? Absolutely. 

Dropout accountability forced me to change my professional behavior many years quicker than my conscious would have.  And for that I am grateful and more importantly hundreds of students now have a better adult life due to completing their high school education.

So my advice to those educators facing this new reality. Embrace the challenge.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: LYS / TASSP Advanced Leadership Academy (Keynote); The 2016 Texas Charter School Conference (Multiple Presentations); The 4^th Annual Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook