One of my self-imposed jobs over the past months has been to learn as much as I can about leadership before I officially jump into it next year. A quick look at the recommendations of my PLN and I knew reading a book (or books) by Todd Whitaker was a “must do”.

Todd is a former administrator who has written several books about leadership. His message crosses over into business while staying very relevant to education. Besides books, Todd is a major tweeter, with many, many followers and multiple tweets everyday. The best part? He is a great, funny, inspirational tweeter. Many of his 140 character remarks I’ve copied down as quotes to use in PD next year. Similarly, there is a great twitter-following of Todd’s books, which resulted in my participating in my first-ever Twitter PD Event: a book chat a few weeks ago. Amazing! I learned so much and even witnessed my first “twitter spam” moment.

I decided to particpate in the book chat and follow Todd Whiticker on twitter in earnest after reading Shifting the Monkey. Not only was this book full of great lessons in leadership, it also gave me practical ideas to try out. Here’s my five finger summary….

1. Leaders should develop and promote a culture where good people (people working hard and doing a good job- the best employees) are protected and can thrive. They do this by shifting the monkeys (tasks/feelings) back where they belong so their good people can continue doing good work.
2. Leaders should treat everyone well and protect their good people first.
3. Monkeys come in all shapes and sizes and can even be placed on people’s backs by the leader… Blanket Monkey= when a leader makes a rule all must follow because of the unwelcome actions of a few. This monkey then sits on the backs of your good people. That’s bad.
4. When someone is underperforming, leaders need the courage to confront people one-on-one.
5. Leaders don’t pick up everyone else’s monkeys and try to do it all. Instead they shift those monkeys around, ensuring good people are protected and everyone is accountable.

As you can imagine, May is moving month for me. I’m moving from being an Instructional Coach into our school’s first Assistant Principal. Because the position is a new one, there isn’t a person in there right now, tying things up and prepping things for me to take over. While that’s exciting (make my own mark and all that) it it also means I am being asked to take-on or begin things with regard to that role I probably wouldn’t be if it had a live body attached.

One celebration I’m having while wearing these two hats (or actually while taking one off and putting the other on) is the stretch I’m feeling around managing my time is making me even more committed to structure my day, week, month, year around being with teachers- in classrooms- watching kids, then ever before.

Twice this week I had to cut short or reschedule a “meeting” where I was working with a teacher on an important student-learning or professional-practice goal and landed in an admin “meeting” on the more big-picture pieces. While I know these admin meetings are important, I also know keeping the work with teachers and kids at the forefront of my J-O-B is the number one thing my PLN is striving to do.

While I don’t yet know how I will actually balance it. I’m thinking about it more and more. Here are a few of the ideas I’ve picked up and want to try:

• Office Hours- Instead of posting the hours I’m not available in my office for a meeting, I’m going to post the times I am. (Like my university professors used to do…) Then I can work to make sure the time spent in my office is less than the time I’m “in the field”.
• Saying NO- At this point I’m not sure where/when NO is an answer, but I know how valueable it can be to say… “No” as a means of ensuring your time isn’t eaten up before you actually get to the WORK.
• Time management- Controlling my time spent in meetings with a timer/buzzer/or my new favorite… Pomodoro App is going to be very important.

How do you get to the important parts (teachers and kids) while balancing those other tasks and meetings?

I’ve mentioned before how Katherine Casey’s book and the CEL institute I attended 4 years ago propelled me into coaching and working with adult leaders. As I move into a “coaching-leadership” role as Assistant Principal next year, I’ve been in contact with Katherine to learn more about how that might look (and what to be weary about). Not only does she continue to provide me with inspiration and motivation, she has also led me to a new professional development opportunity for leaders and coaches this summer in NYC led by the coach who trained her… Lucy West.

Sadly, I’m booked up with PD already this year, but maybe someone out there can benefit? Check it out HERE.

In my last post I blogged about how inundated I’m feeling about the different options for getting my “stuff” out there on the web. Finding the correct entry point for my personal web presence, my professional web presence, and for my business (school’s) web presence is part of what I’m considering. I’m long past simply sending an email or posting an update on Facebook. But where, when and how to get out there?

Good news? I’m not alone in trying to decipher the best tools for each job. Check out this cool infographic on this very subject first posted here on this great tech blog:

 It seems this is a topic many people and institutions are wrestling with and with the introduction of new “tools” it will continue to be something to consider. Does your school have a vision for using social media for professional development? Parent Communication? Teacher Portfolios? School advertising and PR? If so, please share!

I have been spending a good deal of time lately thinking about technology and how it relates to teaching/learning, my role as a leader, and even how my daughter is connected. As you might expect, the deeper I dig the darker it gets. Sure, I’m back to trying to tweet 2x per day. (I’m much better at reading the tweets of others.) I’ve also set up a Pinterest account, signed up for ScoopIt! and been hard at work on a new wiki where I can tag and store all the gems I’m finding about technology.

But the thing is, I’m feeling as confused as ever about what is most important. At one point today, when I came across this interesting blog post, I froze, not knowing if I should:

• Compose a tweet
• Write about it on my blog
• Post it to my wiki

Then of course maybe I should

• Scoop it
• Pin it
• or even (and this one I find the most confusing…) Link it on Linkedin

What’s especially sad, is I’m one of the ones at my school who is out there using technology. I’m no novice. But today I for one, feel overwhelmed, over-connected, and just plain… Over. It.

So, good news I just bought a new App for my computer- Pomodoro which is ticking away in the background giving me exactly and only 25 minutes to write this blog post. (It’s a productivity app which I’m going to use to help me balance some of the time I’m spending creating, connecting and collaborating.)

Maybe setting a time-limit on how much “information-age” I allow in my life will give me some perspective.

Photo credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Il_pomodoro.jpg/220px-Il_pomodoro.jpg

As a school, we have been analyzing student data to inform our teaching for years. One of the biggest issues we’ve faced has been consistency in assessment practice. Without the consistency, it is difficult to compare data across grades and vertically across the school.

Until now, I’ve held a meeting prior to the administering of a “core assessment” (DRA, Words Their Way Spelling Inventory, MAP testing) to highlight where teachers need to use common practices. These meetings take time- and who has that. They are also an unenlightened source of spreading information if you consider 1/2 of the people present always complete the assessment correctly and don’t need the refresher.

In an attempt to rid our calendar of a meeting and help differentiate the message for all teachers, I have been making video tutorials with information about these core assessments. So far, the feedback has been mostly positive, with one teacher saying she loved how she could go back, at her leisure and check on something rather than bother her team (or me) with questions. Here is my most recent video about administering the DRA:

As with everything, I’m sure this tool can be improved. Do you make video tutorials for teachers? Please comment if you have hints, tips or ideas.

Photo credit: http://confessionalouthouse.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/apples-and-oranges1.jpg

This week we hold our Spring Parent Teacher Conferences. This will be a time to share and celebrate. In a recent email to teachers I stressed the need to have fun at conferences this week. Why? Because this is what we’ve been working so hard for… growth. 

How we share and show that growth with parents is key. In many instances, it is as simple as putting two pieces side-by-side and walking parents through what you see, giving them a lens to view the work.

Then of course, for those that haven’t had the required or predicted growth, those side-by-side selections can clearly show that too.

The final celebration we have as a whole school is that we have student-created artifacts to share and not simply test scores. It is the combination and the analysis of the whole that lends us insights into our learners.

All year we have been hard at work writing new Social Studies units in Kindergarten to Grade 5. While this normally would have been work solely for teams, we decided to ensure vertical strength across the school by creating a spiral and dedicating time for a representative from every grade to work in collaboration with other Social Studies representatives. There were great outcomes to this, but first some cautions…

• Writing units is a time-consuming endeavor. Couple that with the fact that a great unit on paper can be a dud in front of children, there also needs to be time to revamp, reconsider and rework written units.
• Writing new units with new teaching practices (like inquiry) is a double whammy. Without professional development on what those new teaching practices look like, all units will revert back to what we’ve always done. Similarly, we have to gradually release teachers into new practices, just like kids. Just because you attend a PD session on using primary source documents doesn’t mean you are going to use it, or use it well right out the gate. We all need the time (and encouragement) to improve.

1. Working in vertical teams at the start of a curriculum writing process is a front-loading mechanism which ensures the whole picture is sound before the individual pieces are created. (Imagine how frustrating it is to head off as team, work hard to write a unit based on the standards and benchmarks and/or even on a topic like: Me and My Family, only to find out later another grade level wrote (and now loves) a very similar unit. The easy question is… Who has to change? But the more important question which hasn’t be articulated is… How does a child grow across the grades?
2. The resurgence in social education in the Social Studies research we’ve been reading is important, welcome and necessary. In a fully-packed academic program like ours, it is easy to assume kids are learning how to be social beings by virtue of being present. However, explicit modeling of how to solve issues, acceptable behavior and discussion about feelings, and other community building practices is required for kids to truly learn how to socialize. We all feel good about writing a first unit which not only introduces students to school, but, with the inclusion of a Responsive Classroom-style community circle time, we’ve developed a framework all teachers (and all kids) can count on to practice socialization. Social Studies (studying how to be social…) is the place for that to begin!
3. Although the Social Studies team at my school took on a mighty task, the socialization of and between the team made us more collaborative as professionals. How often in a school setting do teachers have time to talk through and listen to others, let alone teachers from other grades? Our collaborative learning has made all the difference.

Here is the plan I utilize to ensure we had time to write, share, and reflect on the units across the year.

How do administrators build capacity to be better at their work? How can leadership in an elementary school be valued by all the critical members of an institution: students, parents and faculty? What can I do as a school leader to enhance student learning? Teacher practice? The general health and well-being of the whole school community?

These are some questions I’ve been thinking about as I begin pondering my transition from Instructional Coach to Assistant Principal next year. Remember when you landed your first teaching job and your hopes and dreams for the teacher you were going to be where right there, touchable and waiting to become a reality? I feel like that a little. I believe my work as a coach can continue and will enhance the role I play as an administrator. Although the marriage of the two jobs is anything but simple, I’m struck by the simplexity I can strive for if I think of it like this: Education is a people-based-business. Building community around student learning requires working together to help each other get better at what we do.

I’m inspired by what I’ve been reading/listening to, the best part being those authors (my new mentors) working online who I can chat with via email, blog comments or twitter. Slowly but steadily I’m creating my own PLN, which I’m calling Leadership Literacy. (From the Apple Dictionary- literacy :noun: competence or knowledge in a specified area.)

Here’s my “roundup” of recent reads…

• Books by: Michael Fullan and Kim Marshall
• Blogs: Leadership Freak, Molehills Out of Mountains, Reflections from an Elementary School Principal
• Podcasts: Eduleadership Radio
• Twitter: Todd Whitaker, Franki Sibberson, Jim Knight

As happens, the more I read, the more I wonder. So far though, all of my new mentors talk about the important of leading by building community and fostering trusting relationships. As a coach, I’ve always had the same goal.

We did it! This is the final video in our year 1 launch using Real Spelling and Structured Word Inquiry. All in all, the work, the processes we used, and the gradual release to ensure student (and teacher) learning has made what seemed impossible, actually happen.

After a much needed break, I will be back to blogging. Topics to include: Building a spiral in Social Studies, Year 2 of Launching Word study, Technology Tasks, and Leadership Literacy.

More soon…