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Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Episode 31: The Principal's Playbook for Balancing School Improvement and Holidays
Want to know what it takes to navigate the challenging months of November and December as a school principal? Compass PD's Dr. Bridgett Neidringhaus tackled this head-on. She highlights critical areas like tracking student attendance, achievement data, teacher instruction, interventions, and tips for maintaining a positive school climate. Bridgett delves into the necessity to monitor school improvement plans and share ideas on supporting the staff and students during these bustling months.
The conversation wouldn't be complete without touching on the holiday season. Dr. Neidringhaus discusses how school leaders can maximize classroom time during holidays, especially through learning walks. She offers practical advice on scheduling practices, managing the season of giving, and activities to ensure the holiday spirit is felt, but not at the expense of learning.
Finally, she administrators of the importance of wellness; she talks about the importance of self-care and shares strategies to encourage wellness among school leaders. Tune in to discover how caring for yourself can resonate with the care you give to others and the overall success of your school.
Supporting Episodes
Episode 17: Winning the School Year: Insights from Dr. Niedringhaus
Episode 22: Mastering the Art of School Leadership, the First Month and Beyond
Episode 27: Mastering High-Stakes Conversations-A Guide to Communicating Effectively
Hello, hello, hello, dr Carrie Hepburn here from Compass PD. I'm really excited about our podcast today because I am being joined by my colleague, dr Bridget Needringhouse. Hello, bridget, hi Carrie, how are you? Good, it's beautiful in the Midwest. The fall colors have come in. It's cold at night, and when you wake up in the morning you just kind of want to stay snuggled up in your covers, and so that's been pretty fun. I love fall.
Speaker 2:How about you? Me too, I love being able to open up the windows and let some fresh air in.
Speaker 1:I agree it feels like the house is clean just by opening the windows. So do you have anything fun happening in your world right now?
Speaker 2:I'm actually getting ready to take a little trip to be with some family. That'll be a lot of fun. We're going to spend about three or four days together and it's people from different parts of the country that are coming together for a little celebration. I love that because it gives me time to have face-to-face time with people that I don't get to see that often, so I'm really excited, hey.
Speaker 1:That sounds like fun. Well, those of you that are listening, dr Neijinghaus is here today to talk to you principals, and those of you who are aspiring principals. The podcast is aimed to give you some ideas about around that November-ish, december-ish time frame. So we all know there's a lot happening. Everything that we're going to do is start linking episodes inside our show notes so you'll be able to see other episodes from Dr Neijinghaus that will be kind of leading you up to this point and that could be really nice pairings with what she's going to be talking about today. So here we are, getting ready for all the things that are happening when it comes to holidays. Let's think about being a principal and administrator what should be on their radars right now.
Speaker 2:So there's a couple of things that really should be on your radar right now. The first thing I'm going to talk about isn't really holiday related it's something that should be ongoing, but let's talk about monitoring Right now. There are several areas that, as principals, we're really going to be monitoring. So we want to talk about our school improvement plans. We are in that November-December time frame we're getting close to like the end of a semester so we should have been monitoring and continue monitoring things like attendance. How's attendance going with the students in your building? Are there specific areas that you could put in some strategies to help increase attendance, like making some personal phone calls, or, for some of your students that really maybe need that extra step, are you doing home visits or do you have counseling staff that can help make contact with students? Are there ways that we can make sure that they're getting to school or getting to their bus or whatever? How are we getting kids to school and how can we help? We're looking at our achievement data. We're always looking at our achievement data, it seems like, but we're really going to start monitoring maybe some specific strategies that we put into place to help boost student achievement, and so some of the things that you could be looking at during this time are teacher instruction. You can be looking at, you know, within instruction, what's the fidelity with which teachers are instructing, following the curriculum, making sure they're linked to the standards, all those kinds of things. We can also really be monitoring how our interventions are going, our intervention strategies that we have in place working.
Speaker 2:If not, we need to come up with a new plan to move forward instead of just continuing to do the same thing.
Speaker 2:I love to say Einstein's definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Making sure that, as leaders, if things aren't moving, we're not doing the same things over and over again, or talking louder or slower to make these things happen, because what we really need to do is look at what is the practice and how do we need to change the practice. Another thing that, as administrators, we really want to keep an eye on at this time is that climate. What's the school climate like? How are teachers feeling right now? You know, as we're moving into November and December, they've got a good amount of time behind them and they know what's coming up in these November and December months. How do we make sure that we are supporting learning and supporting our students and supporting our teachers. How are we supporting our support staff? And then, what are you doing if you have other administrators in your building? How are you supporting them? To me, that's just some of the things that we should be looking at in that school improvement world.
Speaker 2:We also need to think about just one big statement how am I checking in? Not just that we need to be doing these things, but the how. How are we checking in? Are we attending PLC meetings or collaborative team meetings and being a part of those as the administrator? How are we checking in with our support staff? You need to make sure you have something in place to check in with your support staff, like your office staff. How are they doing? Your paraprofessionals how are they doing? Let's talk about some good ways, whether you do just like a lunch bunch, some way that you can try and check in with them. And then again, how are you checking in on your students? Are you visible to them? Are you in the cafeteria when they're there? But we need to think past the what and think how. How are we checking in and monitoring all these areas?
Speaker 2:So, that's what I think is. The big thing on the radar right now is all these check-ins, because we're getting ready to head into a really hectic time, although I'm not sure. Is there a time in education where you feel like it's not hectic? Is there a point in the year that we say, oh, it's not that bad?
Speaker 1:I don't think so, but no, no, it does feel like it hits a whole different level of hectic around this time.
Speaker 1:It's almost, almost like rivals, the end of the school year kind of timeframe it feels like, because of all the additional activities that get on the calendar. I do have a question, and this is really interesting to me, because we support a lot of smaller districts. It's not unusual. We support urban districts, we support suburban districts, but we also support a lot of rural kind of districts or small districts, and something that we're seeing a trend right now is not having school improvement plans. And for an administrator who desires to have something like this system in place because it is a system that you're kind of setting up what might be some things that they would do to have a school improvement plan or that might be in a school improvement plan?
Speaker 2:So you think of the school improvement plan, kind of like your roadmap, and so you wanna think about when I'm planning a trip, what's my final destination?
Speaker 1:I need to know where I'm going right.
Speaker 2:Well, the school improvement plan kind of helps you with that, and it's not a final destination like I'm stopping and living here forever. It's like here's where I wanna go now. I'm taking a trip. Here's where I wanna go right now, setting some really achievable goals that we can get to In our trip. We've got little stops along the way.
Speaker 2:When I think about school improvement, I think about what areas are there that we're going to need to measure, and so I mentioned attendance. I think attendance is something that people can really wrap their brains around, because there's really some concrete evidence about attendance. So most schools and school districts are measuring things like total days, days missed, tardy, things like that, and we have those numbers and we can put some strategies in place to help improve things like attendance. And so it's a little more concrete area of the school improvement plan. And it's actually a great place to start, because I think it's something that most of us have a good understanding of and we know that attendance is linked to achievement, and we all know that achievement is really that bar that we're kind of trying to link everything to. Attendance is a great place to start just talking, because we know that if we have increased attendance. That means we have students in seats in front of teachers that are instructing. Those are good things, right?
Speaker 1:So then when?
Speaker 2:we move into the achievement portion of a school improvement plan, we really want to do things like determine our current reality. Before I take my trip, I'm going to have to put into the GPS Well, where am I now, if this is where I want to go, and so if I'm already halfway there, I might only have to spend four hours on a trip. But if I'm further away, I'm going to have to spend more time and I might have to put in a little a few more stops along the way to make sure that I'm on the right track. Achievements very much the same way. So we know, like where do we want to be? But we need to first know where are we right now.
Speaker 2:And so we have to take stock of where are we at in the area of achievement when we're looking at what that end goal is. Where are we at in terms of that end goal? For example, kerry, if I currently have, 40% of my second graders are reading on level, and really we want 80% or more to be able to do that, we want to be reading on level. We have to be practical about this. We're not going to make a 40% gain in achievement in a year. It's, I mean, if we are, please call me and let me know what we did, because I've never found that that works. But what we want to do is start really honing in on some specific strategies, and so we talk about a term smart goals.
Speaker 2:When we're setting those goals, we want to be real specific. What is it that we're going to be working on and how are we going to measure that? That's that M. And then we want to think about are these attainable? Like I said earlier, I can't go from 40 to 80%, but you know what, in a quarter or in a semester, I may be able to go from 40 to like 45% or 44%, making sure I'm setting those attainable goals along the way to help me make progress towards my goal. We're going to be monitoring that by looking at some results. We're going to be looking at informal assessments or those formative assessments that we do along the way to help us know how we're reaching our goal and we need to decide. And in what timeframe are we looking at, if I have a building, where my second grade needs to go from four to 80%.
Speaker 2:I would rather see them in third grade, not four to 80, I'm sorry, 40 to 80. I'd rather see in third grade that, oh, we're now at 50% and I want to get to 80% and so we made a 10% increase. I have less as I'm trying to reach that goal, still working on that, and I'm changing things as I need to, I'm monitoring things as I need to. So part of that achievement, part of the school improvement plan, really involves what's your current reality, your goal, your current reality, your steps that you're going to take along the way and how you're going to monitor and measure those steps to make sure you're working towards your goal.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that. I know I took us on a slight detour thinking about our roadmap what we typically do but I do believe that we have more new leaders in principal positions and leadership positions and districts that are really doing the very best with what they have and any extra support that they can get. I know they find it to be really valuable and helpful, and you're such an expert at this work that I wanted to make sure that for those who don't have something like a school improvement plan, they would have an idea of where they could get started. So that's a great place to get started thinking. Attendance one big rock. If we can get kids in schools, we know they're going to be learning. If they're not in schools, they aren't learning. And then if we start thinking from there, next being achievement, and you can start building a school improvement plan.
Speaker 1:I think something that you did really well. Those of you that have been listening to us for a while know that I was blessed to have Dr Neijeringhaus as my principal. She never did this work in isolation, and so that's not something that a principal ever has to do independently, and she tells you month after month to find your people, build your capacity and something that you can do to start your school improvement plan with your leadership and starting with attendance and then moving into achievement, could be one way to get this work started. Now let's talk about predictable problems that administrators will be facing around this time of year.
Speaker 2:You know some predictable problems. I just think about the scheduling of this time of the year. When we talk about scheduling, we think about all the activities and things that tend to come with this time of year. We want to make sure that we're intentional about the things that can really help us move when I say help us move in our school improvement efforts, when we talk about school improvement planning, what are some things that we can be doing that are gonna help us Be intentional about scheduling? Things like learning walks. You know you don't want to stop, you want to maximize your time in classrooms and by this point in the year, my hope is that you've already normalized that, that you have been a visible leader. You're in classrooms doing learning walk. A learning walk it's not evaluative at all, it's simply for I'm going to look for some things.
Speaker 2:I could go off on this whole tangent about learning walks and the power of a learning walk and I can tell you confidently I did learning walks, even if I wasn't calling them learning walks. You can walk the hallways and read the work that students are doing and learn so much about what's going on in that classroom. You can pop in and just walk around and watch and see what the kids are doing and what they're engaged in. I loved to just be in and mix around with the kids and sometimes I had a very intentional purpose and other times I walked out of there and it was like, wow, I didn't know what I didn't know. It was such a great opportunity for me to be that instructional leader, as a learning leader, because we have to understand that connection, that as instructional leaders, it doesn't mean we know everything, because there's no way that we could you know, but what I could do is get in the classrooms and see what was going on and that was a great opportunity for me to learn and then follow up with some conversation and let teachers know, like I see what you're doing and talk to me about that. Tell me more about that. You know I need to understand and learn more.
Speaker 2:It's funny when you do something like that, it breaks down so many barriers. You know teachers that are no longer on defense about you coming in another classroom, when they really understand the purpose of you being there is not to put you on the spot as a teacher, but to learn from you, to understand, to see it in practice, what we've maybe been learning about together. It's so powerful. You're gonna be doing your evaluations, so making sure that you're scheduling time to get your evaluations in. I think last month I talked a lot about you know, doing some of that, building that internal leadership capacity so that you can block sometimes out for yourself to get into classrooms. Things always get pushed to the side and I understand that emergencies happen, things come up, but making sure that in scheduling you're really blocking your time to do some of the learning walks, the evaluations, things like that. So if you missed last month, go back and listen to that.
Speaker 2:I gave some good tips about things you can do in ways you can build that internal leadership capacity as a principle so that you can do some of those things uninterrupted. When we talk about scheduling and we're talking about November and December, we can't not talk about all the things holidays that are getting ready to come up. I think back to when I was a principal. We started putting together in October. We liked to call it the season of giving. In hindsight it was a lot. We were trying to do it with good intentions. Our team was trying to come up with a way to communicate with our families about all the things going on, but it started in October and went through December and that's a long time.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of instructional time when we were doing other things and other things aren't bad but that's a lot of instructional time that we were spending on other things. We put out a schedule, a calendar, hoping that parents could see here are some ways that your child can participate in different things we have going on, but when you look at it in hindsight, that was a lot of instructional time that maybe we were taking for other things that were coming up. One of the things that I'm gonna talk about in a very loving manner is the Thanksgiving feast. I'm a big fan of a Thanksgiving feast. I actually happen to be married to a trained chef, and so Thanksgiving is always held at our house. It's a wonderful time. I can't tell you enough about it. However, let's talk about the Thanksgiving feast in a school setting.
Speaker 2:As a principal new to a building, I inherited not just the Thanksgiving feast but the whole brouhaha that went with the Thanksgiving feast. Intentions were pure. Nobody set out to do anything harmful, but we kind of shut down to really do all things feast or feast related. We did naming ceremonies. We parents were highly involved. There was food coming in and out, crafts coming in and out. I mean, to tell you, we could have had a wonderful street festival just around the Thanksgiving feast, and it was one grade level it wasn't the whole school, but one grade level really took it over the top. They were able to tie some academics to what they did in this. I mean, it was really like a month long kind of thing.
Speaker 2:It got to be that all of a sudden, this feast, where we're letting kids sample foods and they're crafting and they're storytelling and they're writing and they're doing all these great, wonderful things, right, it turned into I don't have enough outlets for my crackpots. Let's blow a fuse, get in the second grade, come in. Oh, every parent like where are we putting all these people? Like we have a room for our kids. That turned into you need to do something about the parking.
Speaker 2:Really, I think we're doing okay. Our school can really handle our staff and I thought we were doing okay. And then it was well, they ate my corn and not this corn, and they didn't want the turkey, so I brought fish or all these other things. It got bigger than the holiday itself. And the other thing we have to remember is we are the melting pot of the world in the United States and we weren't being very inclusive. We had students who weren't able to participate in this feasting activity and we had people that we maybe set off or really kind of offended over this. I wanna say my word about predictable problems that we need to keep in mind as empathy.
Speaker 2:As the leader, it was my job to make sure I understood, from different perspectives, why we were doing what we were doing, remembering that we're looking at the feelings or emotions of others. We're not connecting to an experience. So the the feast was an experience, me having empathy about the feast. Empathy is not about the feast, okay. Empathy is about the feelings that went with the feast.
Speaker 1:We had a lot of different feelings.
Speaker 2:We had some people that honestly, on the grade level, were feeling really overwhelmed and maybe we're doing this, this activity, because it had always been done, and so they came in and they kind of inherited it, just like I did.
Speaker 2:We had feelings of isolation.
Speaker 2:We had students that could not participate in the feast.
Speaker 2:It's my job as a leader to look at that point of view and say what are we doing that we can make sure that we're including everyone and that no one feels slighted or left out, because this is really our educational time. And then I had teachers that I needed to understand their point of view because this was a tradition that had gone on for years. Was I going to be the person that did away with the feast? Because if I was, I really needed to be ready to stand and make sure that everybody understood my reasoning. What ended up happening is the feast kind of started dwindling a little bit as we put some more procedures in place, as we made sure that we had some clear content, focus on how that actually attached to our curriculum and our standards, as we continued to make sure that we were still reaching out towards our achievement goals, as we made sure that we were an all inclusive school and that nobody felt left out, no matter your ability or your background or anything that everybody felt like they were apart.
Speaker 2:When I think about scheduling, I think about those holidays, and you're going to have your concerts coming up and you're going to have. I was an assistant principal in a school where we did Santa's workshop during school. We did schoolwide singalongs, we did Christmas movie days. Those were fun and great, but those were days worth of missed instruction. What are we doing to make sure that we're scheduling in opportunities for students to continue their learning during these times?
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm laughing because, for those of you that are listening, if you can't see me I was on that team for the Thanksgiving feast. I was a fan of the Thanksgiving feast and when I do things I like to do them very big. But if you haven't learned, that about me.
Speaker 1:Yet, like everything's over the top, I think what was really beneficial for me was as a teacher. We have things that we just love, and I love experiences for people and I loved experiences for students. But I also love more that kids can read, write, do math and that that particular event was based on one social study standard and then we tied in anything else we could reading, writing, everything and it really became more of a thematic experience, not really an instructional experience. And Bridget was what I would call I don't know if I want to say a warm demander in that, but she had the. She was brave enough to ask the questions that needed to be asked so that we had to really think and reflect about what is the purpose of this and are we really meeting that purpose? And the answer was in its entirety, no.
Speaker 1:Maybe parts of it had, or purposeful and aligned the standards and achievement, but in the end, the overall experience. When you're talking like weeks of instruction being missed and focusing on one standard alone and, to be honest, it probably wasn't even culturally relevant or we're probably doing more appropriation than being historically accurate when we had those conversations and made those decisions, in the end it really did make sense and was wise and the right thing to do. But it is hard as a leader to be able to have those conversations and Bridget was able to do that in a way that wasn't threatening and in a way that she wasn't taking away our only child. You know that some of those, some of those conversations can feel like that's a very predictable problem and this story is a very real, true story that I was part of that, Thankfully.
Speaker 2:I learned Well, and when you talk about experiences, I bet kids remember that experience. I have no doubt that kids remember, oh remember in second grade when we did this. But I like something that you said is that we spend whether it's the Thanksgiving feast or it's Christmas around the world or it's, you know it's. It can be a lot of different things. We spend so much time and effort to prepare for these things that they're not relevant for the students at that time. And when I say relevant at that time, I mean it's not part of the curriculum for that time. It's not. You know, in in first grade if we're doing you know, christmas around the world. Are we studying world cultures in first grade? Probably not. We're probably closer to studying more about our community and our city and things like that at that point. I think we have to keep those kinds of things in mind and I can't stress enough as the principle.
Speaker 2:There were times that handfuls of kids would come to the office because it was party time and they couldn't participate. That breaks your heart. What are you going to have in the office? How do we do these? And so it broke my heart for a lot of reasons. I knew that other kids would be talking about what they got to do. I started feeling this urge to make sure that I was at least trying to find something for them to do that would be equally fun or meet their needs. And yet I'm thinking to myself but this is isolating them.
Speaker 1:It was isolating students, and so I was much happier when we were able to find ways to celebrate or to do things where we're enjoying each other, that everyone could be a part of, and I think, when I rather have the experience of a Thanksgiving feast, or kids have the experience of feeling included, learning, being part of a learning community and be able to talk about the experience as a whole in second grade or third grade or their freshman year, then just that experience. So taking that passion and re-channeling that so that kids, all kids, had that same experience, but not just one day, that sort of ran into two weeks, you know, thank you for sharing that, because I think it's very relevant and I do believe it's something. These things are still happening. We're kind of starting to wrap this up. What are some tips or reminders you would like to share with administrators right now?
Speaker 2:I have two tips I want to talk about. Number one how can you increase your visibility? That's so important at this time of year. Increase your visibility as a principal. You know, I read an article about increasing visibility in schools and it showed a principal who got like a standing podium kind of desk on wheels and would move it into the hallways during passing times or you know whatever. And I thought you know that's an easy, like little something to increase visibility.
Speaker 2:However, I also want to say I hope that that principal then was engaging, because it's not about just, it's not about just students seeing you, it's about your engaging with them. It's not just about the teachers seeing you, it's about how are you engaging with them. And so, keeping that in mind, making your learning walks a priority or just normalizing that as part of your daily, weekly practice, and so it's not maybe that you're going into the same couple of classrooms all the time. It may take you a while to get through the building, depending on your size, but make it so that your staff isn't coming into the lounge saying Mr or Mrs So-and-so was in my class today. Can you believe it? You know, like, don't make it so, it's a shock to them or that they're concerned. Or did they come to your room? Did they make it normalized? Make it so that, oh yeah, he did come in, he did pop in for a minute, or she did pop in for a little bit and talked to a student, and you know, make that part of that visibility plan and then think about some simple things that you can be doing right now.
Speaker 2:I want you to think about, as a principal what are ways that, through this visibility, you can support teachers? I walk the halls or I'm bouncing in and out of classrooms and I might say to the teacher, like, need a break for a minute. Or, you know, can I get you something? Would you like to go down to the lounge and get some coffee? Or, you know, if you know that something's going on in the family, hey, do you need to step out and make a phone call? I'm happy to cover this for a while for you as a principal. I liked to cover classrooms. I couldn't do it all the time, of course, but it was kind of a fun experience, because that kind of threw me back in the middle of things and talking about your visibility with both your staff and with your students, you're coming in and guess what?
Speaker 2:I am going to do my best to follow the plans that were going on in the classroom at that time but, I could also take that opportunity to kind of just segue into some good opportunity for some feedback from students about some things that are going on in our school or in our community, and so I think that increased visibility, especially during this time, because it tends to be so hectic it helps everybody feel like, okay, I can calm down things are going to be okay.
Speaker 2:We're normalized here right now. Things are still moving forward. It's not everybody getting all worked up. The other thing, carrie, that I think is really important for our leaders to be doing right now is to model and encourage wellness. Thinking about what does that look like when you think about your own wellness journey? For myself, I liked to carry about a whole water with me every day and that was part of my wellness journey, because I wasn't always going to be near the office if I made sure that I had that with me, but I was always going to be there for me, letting them know that you do take some time to eat a lunch or thinking about I'm reading this book right now. It has nothing to do with education, that's okay, that's good. It helps round you out to be the person that people want to serve under leadership, because then they know there's this whole other person there besides, who I see just as a leader in my school, and it's so important to share your journey. Leaders, be vulnerable. Share your wellness journey. When things aren't going well, reach out, talk to some of your teachers, see what they're doing, see what are some things that are going on that you might change in your life.
Speaker 2:I am a walker, I love to walk, but I know some things I should be doing in my wellness journey at this point in my life that I'm not. The walking is exercise for me, but it's actually the best mental break that I take all day, and it is truly me time. I might turn on music, or I might not. I might just walk and enjoy the beauty that's out there. We talked about the beautiful fall right now, and so, for me, I do that twice a day. I do that first thing in the morning, and then I do it again in the evening, and I do take my dog, so it serves another purpose, but what a calming effect it has on me as a leader to just reset. And so, whether it's reset in the morning to get ready for the day, or reset in the evening to just kind of decompress a little bit, we all have to be really active in our own wellness journeys, and so I think that's a great thing to share with your staff.
Speaker 1:I love this, this episode. I'm just blown away by how much ground we've covered in such a short period of time. So we've talked about school improvement plans and you gave just a little quick tutorial checking in on students, on staff, on different, with different stakeholders within your community, with something that you're like you need to have this on your radar. What does that look like? And then, as we started moving into those predictable problems, talking about scheduling because that is a beast this time of year October, november, december, october is pretty good until toward the end of the month, and then it feels like it just you kind of start to lose it from there those predictable routines in a school day and then in a week. Then we moved into you're talking really about us thinking about empathy and the types of activities that are happening in our schools and and making wise decisions with empathy leading that way when we think about those activities around this time of year, and then moving into some tips and reminders for our administrators being think about your visibility, making sure you have increased visibility. That's going to serve multiple purposes, anywhere from learning walks to class visits.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of mileage that comes out of that time that you're spending in the hallways and in the classrooms and, finally, taking care of yourself. You know when you're on the airplane and they tell you to put the oxygen mask on first before you can help anyone else, your children included, it is important, as a leader, to take care of your health your physical, emotional, mental well being. You have to do that because if you don't do that, you can't serve the people you're trying to serve. Well, just want to say thank you so much, dr Neijering house. This was great. I appreciate you and to everyone. We would love for you to share our podcast with others and I want you to know that Dr Neijering house does this work with principles and with leaders in school districts all the time. So reach out to us. We would love to have her come help you get some of these systems and structures in place. Have a great day.