Michele, I appreciate your attention to the topic of engaging in instructional leadership. As a principal for 16 years, I found managing my time to get into classrooms a big challenge.
Through trial and (lots of) error, here are some strategies I found helpful:
1) Put classroom visits on the calendar. Make this time sacred.
2) Get clear with your assistant what is and is not an emergency.
3) Create systems that prevent others from taking your time to get into classrooms. For example, if students were sent to the office for misbehavior, they first had to complete a "think sheet": a list of questions they had to reflect upon and respond to in writing before they would speak with me.
4) Be clear with faculty that classroom visits are non-evaluative. This is where Kim Marshall and I may disagree. He uses his mini-observations as part of a teacher's evaluation process. Notes from my instructional walks were never entered into a teacher's observational record, unless they wanted it in there (and they often did).
5) Observe classrooms through the lens of an agreed-upon instructional framework. I avoided the teacher evaluation rubrics (see #4) and went with something more personalized to our school.
I will share one more strategy that should really be #1 on this list: build trust and relationships with teachers first. No notes, no feedback until leaders have made enough classroom visits to communicate that the intent of them is to focus first on strengths and build understanding of each teacher's practice.
Thanks for this, Matt! Appreciate your points and what you’ve found successful with this. You may have more in common with Marshall than you think! From my reading, it seems he created these systems for informal mini-observations as an intentional alternative to the system of formal teacher evaluation in his school. To your point — to build trust with teachers and to explicitly make the point that these weren’t being codified for eval or rated on a rubric, he talks about not taking any notes during the obs and delivering feedback orally rather than in writing. Very much appreciate your last point - a strengths-based perspective is so crucial to the work of teaching and learning, both for students and for adults!!
I am hugely familiar with the challenges of being a Principal at a Success Academy Charter School. Many, so-called experts in school reform and school improvement have been offering advice based upon limited which knowledge accrued from working primarily in Charter Schools or in a school that is not nearly as challenging as leading or teaching in an inner-city school with predominantly students from impoverished families.
For starters, imagine leading or teaching in a school in which many of the students are multiple years behind in both ELA and Math. The ONLY research I can respect would be my own, having lead and taught successfully in the city's most challenging schools, in multiple grades, for 4+ decades, or others, with similar experiences. FIXING OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN IMPOVERISHED AREAS SHOULD BD A MAJOR PRIORITY. I was hoping that many of Success Academy Charter Schools' former leaders and teachers would enter the inner-city Public Schools and try to fix them. WHERE'S THE EQUITY? Dealing with th UFT, which minimally prioritizes children, and a Principals' Jnion
Michele, I appreciate your attention to the topic of engaging in instructional leadership. As a principal for 16 years, I found managing my time to get into classrooms a big challenge.
Through trial and (lots of) error, here are some strategies I found helpful:
1) Put classroom visits on the calendar. Make this time sacred.
2) Get clear with your assistant what is and is not an emergency.
3) Create systems that prevent others from taking your time to get into classrooms. For example, if students were sent to the office for misbehavior, they first had to complete a "think sheet": a list of questions they had to reflect upon and respond to in writing before they would speak with me.
4) Be clear with faculty that classroom visits are non-evaluative. This is where Kim Marshall and I may disagree. He uses his mini-observations as part of a teacher's evaluation process. Notes from my instructional walks were never entered into a teacher's observational record, unless they wanted it in there (and they often did).
5) Observe classrooms through the lens of an agreed-upon instructional framework. I avoided the teacher evaluation rubrics (see #4) and went with something more personalized to our school.
I will share one more strategy that should really be #1 on this list: build trust and relationships with teachers first. No notes, no feedback until leaders have made enough classroom visits to communicate that the intent of them is to focus first on strengths and build understanding of each teacher's practice.
Thanks for this, Matt! Appreciate your points and what you’ve found successful with this. You may have more in common with Marshall than you think! From my reading, it seems he created these systems for informal mini-observations as an intentional alternative to the system of formal teacher evaluation in his school. To your point — to build trust with teachers and to explicitly make the point that these weren’t being codified for eval or rated on a rubric, he talks about not taking any notes during the obs and delivering feedback orally rather than in writing. Very much appreciate your last point - a strengths-based perspective is so crucial to the work of teaching and learning, both for students and for adults!!
I am hugely familiar with the challenges of being a Principal at a Success Academy Charter School. Many, so-called experts in school reform and school improvement have been offering advice based upon limited which knowledge accrued from working primarily in Charter Schools or in a school that is not nearly as challenging as leading or teaching in an inner-city school with predominantly students from impoverished families.
For starters, imagine leading or teaching in a school in which many of the students are multiple years behind in both ELA and Math. The ONLY research I can respect would be my own, having lead and taught successfully in the city's most challenging schools, in multiple grades, for 4+ decades, or others, with similar experiences. FIXING OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN IMPOVERISHED AREAS SHOULD BD A MAJOR PRIORITY. I was hoping that many of Success Academy Charter Schools' former leaders and teachers would enter the inner-city Public Schools and try to fix them. WHERE'S THE EQUITY? Dealing with th UFT, which minimally prioritizes children, and a Principals' Jnion