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Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast Episode 48: Principals Navigating the Spring in Schools Data, Budgets, and Staffing
Spring ushers in a season of growth and renewal, and it's no different in the realm of education. With the joyous backdrop of the crisp spring air, Dr. Bridgett Niedringhaus joins us to tackle the crucial topics that school leaders face during this pivotal time. From the meticulous analysis of third-quarter data to the intricacies of budget planning and staffing dynamics, we promise a conversation brimming with actionable insights.
Staffing decisions carry the weight of a school's success on their shoulders, and this episode doesn't shy away from that reality. Dr. Neidringhaus dissects the importance of hiring with organizational improvement at the forefront, setting aside personal connections for the greater good of the institution. She offers candid guidance on navigating the emotional waters of role changes, staff reductions, and the assembly of diverse interview teams. The art of conversation in these scenarios is not lost, and she provides practical advice for educational leaders to handle these moments with the grace and empathy they require.
But it's not just about the tough decisions; it's also about the power of delegation and relationship-building. Bridgett stresses the significance of trust and empowerment in the classroom, the impact of mid-year hires, and the importance of maintaining a vibrant school culture. For school administrators looking for encouragement and inspiration during these demanding times, this episode is a testament to the collaborative spirit that drives educational excellence.
Hello, hello, hello. Dr Carrie Hepburn here from Compass PD, and I am really looking forward to today's conversation. We have Dr Bridget Neidringhouse joining us. Hello Bridget.
Speaker 2:Hi, carrie, great to see you on this beautiful Midwest Tuesday, isn't?
Speaker 1:it though. Yes, it's such a nice reminder of what's to come. It's just like, oh, we're so close to this being every day. It's really exciting. Yes, do you have anything right now? That's just fun happening in your life. Anything you want to share with our listeners?
Speaker 2:Sure, I am planning Easter for my family and. I have extended family coming from Tennessee and from Texas and they'll all come, stay at my house and we'll all gather on the day before Easter, on Saturday, and the fun thing about all of this is, of course, the together time. But we have so many new babies in our family. We have six kids that are under four, Wow yeah. So it just makes it fun, and we haven't all been together since then and since all these littles have come, and so you know I'm really looking forward to seeing the next generation get together.
Speaker 1:Oh that's so much fun. I love babies and puppies bring joy.
Speaker 2:You know I am praying for spring weather like we have today, on that Saturday, the 30th, so that we can be inside and outside and just, you know, having a great time.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think that sounds wonderful. That sounds wonderful. We are heading to Portland, oregon, where our son and his wife live out there. So we're spending Easter with them in Portland and I'm hoping we might get some sun. You know it's tough out there to get sun in Portland, so we're hopeful for some sun and just an enjoyable time with our family. So I'm really looking forward to that too. Hard to believe we're just a couple weeks away from the end of March.
Speaker 2:I know it's unbelievable. It seems so early this year.
Speaker 1:It really does. So, as we think about, we're just a couple of weeks away from the end of March and, if you're thinking about administrators at this time of year, they have a lot happening. What would be some things that you would recommend administrators around this time have on their radars? Sure?
Speaker 2:Well, on your radar at this time of year you're wrapping up all that third quarter data and kind of taking a look at that and making some fourth quarter plans using that data. For some that might mean deciding about where our students are in their learning progression and if they are ready to go on to the next level or not, and we know that those can be some difficult conversations for teachers and staff and parents. So we have that on our radar, that fourth and third quarter, that third quarter data going into fourth quarter, some big decisions that need to be made in fourth quarter. We know that the 23 24 budget is getting ready to wrap up and I remember this time of year like I would say, okay, we have this much left that we haven't spent or costs came in lower than we thought. And so I might say to a reading teacher or a literacy coach or grade level chair or something you can have this X amount of money, or sometimes it would be just let's buy some books, we need some more sets of books for kids, things like that.
Speaker 2:But I had a great administrative assistant that would always keep her eye on that and keep her eye on she knew when I wanted to know and how close we could get to, you know, spending that building budget. And then there's the 24 25 budget that by this time, I'm going to guess your district has already had some kind of a meeting to make sure they have it, and then you're really looking at how to allocate those funds at your building level from your district. But the big one I'd like to talk about the the big thing on our radar right now Carrie is staffing, and so that would include retirements, that would include people that are resigning, that would be maybe people that need to be placed in a different location for whatever reason. Could be that they got certified in another area and so they're needed somewhere else, or that can just mean hiring new teachers.
Speaker 2:So there's, a lot to go in with staffing and, to be honest with you, staffing is is like my passion, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm not surprised. You do a really great job of helping people find the right fit for them and supporting them through that, and it was always really fun to be on committees with you when we were looking for new teachers and new staff and being part of that thinking and that process. I think, new, new energy can be brought into a building and new ideas and new thinking, it can be a really powerful, exciting time.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, and I will say, conversely, not everybody likes that change, and so, really, when I talk about staffing and how much I love it, it's because I had to really become proficient in how to roll out that staffing process. Sometimes staffing meant moving a teacher from one grade level to the next, or it meant that someone was going to be displaced because our enrollment was declining. I think the message I really want to throw out there to administrators and really that some of those predictable problems that they can come up to with staffing is all about the conversations and the relationships around staffing. We can talk about how fun and exciting it is to staff a building, and it is. However, we are not in I'm not in the teacher position, I'm in the administrator position, and I can tell you that for a lot of teachers, staffing can be a really time of anxiety, big time of anxiety. We can bring on a lot of nervousness, especially if you have openings that are. You know people are going to retire or resign. You know they're constantly questioning what is she going to do? Is she going to move somebody there? Are we going to hire for that position? So that can cause a lot of angst for our teachers, and so I really want to talk about that with the staffing process today as being something that is really that predictable problem with staffing. One thing that I think that we have to keep in mind as a predictable problem is that you are not going to make everyone happy, and so I can think of times where I've sat down with even my own children and had that conversation, and those are easy words to roll off your tongue, and yet when you get behind the true meaning of them, it can cause conflict, and so you have to really be a master at how are you going to deal with any conflict that may come as a result. You want to make those sound decisions.
Speaker 2:So I love some things that, like Todd Whitaker says in his book about what great principles do differently, and he talks about the main variable being the teacher, and that it is our job as principles to hire the best. And so what does that mean? And so he goes on later to talk about programs are not the solution, people are the solution, and so do I want to hire the teacher that can tell me every step in a program, or do I want to hire the teacher that displays empathy and care towards a student who may be going through a traumatic situation, or do I want to hire the teacher that is enthusiastic about learning? Or do I want to hire the teacher that really is just going to be the person who helps make us better, and then I can teach that person whatever programs or whatever content need to be taught. And so, for me, I'm always focused on the person. Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, talks about.
Speaker 2:By hiring the best, you are investing. What kind of an investment are you interested in making for your building? You don't want to hire the friend of the friend of the friend, or necessarily the superintendent's niece or you know those those kind of connection pieces. You want to hire the person that's going to be the best for that position. And so what's going to make you as an organization better because that's what we should all be striving for is to do better than we did the day before. Yes, we really want to keep that in mind when you are talking about staffing.
Speaker 2:You may have times where you decide as the administrator that you might move someone from one grade level to the next, and they may be a very good teacher in that grade level, but you really can see the benefit that they can bring to that other team. Make no bones about it, it's not. They're not going to bring their pom-poms and cheer when you tell them they're moving. Some people will just sit back and take in the information and maybe analyze a little bit and come back to you in a couple of days. Others will have immediate questions and they need to know you know what's going on in that grade level or what kind of content will I be teaching? They have a million and one questions and that's okay, and some are going to be downright angry.
Speaker 2:As a leader, it is your job to be ready for whoever comes through those doors when you're ready to talk to them. And please don't make the mistake of sending them an email or a text that you're moving them to another grade level. That, to me, is horrendous. That is cowardly, that there is no sense in doing that. I get it. It's third and a third beginning of fourth quarter. Time is precious to all of us, and so you're going to invest in this person that you're getting ready to talk to. By doing that, they're going to at least appreciate the fact that you took the time to talk to them.
Speaker 2:Yes, you may decide to bring a representative or another colleague with them. You can say, oh no, this is about you. Or you can just say, okay, because what do you have to hide? You have nothing to hide. You're making a move for your building. So there's one kind of staffing predictable problem that could arise.
Speaker 2:Another thing that could arise is, like you said, putting together teams to hire new staff members. You want to be very careful about who represents your school on those teams and you want a good variety of opinions, strengths. I don't want to only ask like-minded people to be on my team. So if I, dr Bridget Neidringhausen, am creating a team for interviewing, I'm going to make sure I have people on there that are not like-minded, and that's a good thing, because as an administrator, it makes me think, but as a group, it brings a different perspective that may not be as well represented, and so you need to make sure that you are bringing together good teachers, but you're not always like-minded.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing you want to do when you're creating that team is make sure that the message is you are here to interview candidates and make recommendations. However, the final recommendation is that of the building principal. The building principal, once the interviews are done, is still calling references, still talking to people that maybe have worked with this person in the past or know this person, or looking at some records or some interview documents that were submitted. The building principal still has all that responsibility to do before even contacting human resources. Or in some cases, the building principal makes their own call and offers the position to the candidate. So if you're actually really hiring, there's that. The third thing I want to talk about is what happens if somebody is put on the parking lot or is being moved from your building because of whatever reason.
Speaker 2:One reason could be a reduction in attendance. One reason could be that they're needed somewhere else or that they're not the right fit for your building. I want to go back to talking to you about don't send those emails, don't send them a text. You talk to them face to face. You want to make sure that you're handling your business with the utmost respect for the person that you're working with. You want to make sure that that person feels like they weren't duped by you, but that you actually took the time to explain to them what's going on and that you left time for them to ask questions, because the last thing we do I'll tell you.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, as an administrator, it's like okay, I got to go, got to go, got to go, and then, yeah, if you have any questions, let me know, and we kind of shoe them up the door, instead of saying I want you to come up with your top three questions right now, or I know you have questions, or, at the beginning of the conversation, say you know we're getting ready to talk about something. I'm going to give you a piece of paper and you tend still to write with, so that if you come up with questions as we're talking. You can jot them down quick, but do the right thing and let them have that time. And there are going to be some times that maybe you do need to come to a stopping point and say I think that for today we need to end this part of the conversation and then let's give it a couple of days, and if we need to pick up the conversation again, we can absolutely do that. But you need some processing time before you continue on, because some people really do.
Speaker 2:They just want to you know maybe argue why they're being moved or question why they're being moved and honestly, I don't always have all the answers as the building administrator. So for both of us it's helpful to just say at this time we're going to end this part of the conversation and we can come back later.
Speaker 1:So thoughtful I'm. What I'm hearing in all of this time is so emotional. There's so much emotion that happens during this time and what I'm hearing from you again and again is, in each of these situations regarding staffing, which is filled with emotion, is reading those that that are your people, that you serve your teachers and your staff With dignity and respect. I heard that again and again. Like Face to Face time, no texts, no emails, which I think anymore we have to state that we have to be really explicit about that I heard. Give them the time, let them ask questions, be ready for the emotion that may or may not happen, because it is an emotional time and it does feel personal, whether it is or not. It feels like that when you're on that end.
Speaker 1:I was thinking a little bit as you were talking about how to have these face to face conversations and how, when I have those kinds of conversations, I have like little notes around just reminding me to breathe, reminding me of the person like that's in front of me, the outcomes like what, why we have to have this conversation, what I hope and how I hope to make them feel. Even when it's hard, I try to have those little reminders, because I will find myself veering off topic or trying to fix the situation, and sometimes it's not that it's a situation that has to be fixed, but when the emotion comes in, you want to fix it or get rid of the emotion, and so those are some little things that I have to do. When I'm doing that now, not having been an administrator, what were some things that like little tricks that you would have for you to go into those conversations?
Speaker 2:So one of the first tips I have for you is think about who we're just moving through.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, we're just like moving through. It's great, okay.
Speaker 2:One of the first tips I have is think about the person, and I want you really think about their strengths. What do they bring? This can be a difficult task sometimes and other times it's the easiest thing you can do, but I challenge you to do it and think about things that they bring to your school, to their team. Maybe it might just be some personal qualities that they demonstrate. I want to make sure that when I am ready to talk to that person, that I'm ready to talk to them about what I appreciate about them, what I've observed about them, some things that I know about them, and how I really need them to be prepared to get to that next level. So even your best teacher can come in and really be unhappy that you're moving them and in your heart you know that this isn't going to end up being a great thing for this person, but they cannot see it at that time. So talk to them about the qualities that they bring. Talk to them about how you know your teaching is so strong. You are very matter of fact with students. You are very matter of fact with parents. I love how a parent can count on you calling them, calling them back within a certain amount of time responding to them. Maybe what I'm not saying is you're too direct for kindergarten. You know I might be saying those things in the back of my head, but really I'm pointing out qualities, about why I'm going to move you to fourth grade instead of leaving in kindergarten, and so how those qualities that you possess are really well matched for that age student and what they can bring to the table for the students of that grade or that age. So making sure you know we talk about all the time and parent teacher conferences, how we always want to start off with good news, right? We want to let them know Parents to know what their kids bring to our classroom. I want teachers to know what they bring to our school. They deserve to know what they bring. They deserve to know. If they are the loudest complainer and you hear from them daily. You talk to them about consistency and how consistent they are in their approach, and so you don't have to say you're driving me crazy, because they may well know that or not. You can just say to them you know, one of the things that I admire about you is the consistency in your approach. I can always count on hearing from you when something may be going awry or there's a question or you know, and all of a sudden you've kind of helped ease the tension in the room by trying to build somebody up. Yes, and just pointing out those good points. I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 2:I have had some of my best teachers sit across from me and cry and I won't say yell, but got really loud with me and said some things to me or about me in the moment that I thought, wow, this, this is really a hard thing for them to grasp. And that does not mean I backpedaled and said it's okay, it's okay, you can stay, because I wouldn't have asked them to move in the first place if I didn't think it was going to be good for them and for the students, right. And so sometimes it does take that processing. Sometimes it takes the teacher just having a friend or representative or somebody with them just to give them that extra boost of confidence or feel like somebody had their back. If I think it could be a volatile conversation, I may very well have my AA come in and just simply take notes and then provide both of us a copy of the notes so that we can be present in the conversation and go back over the notes later and look at it and see.
Speaker 2:You know, a lot of times when things are emotional, we remember what we said or touched us.
Speaker 2:We don't remember everything, and so somebody else taking notes, somebody that's confidential, like your administrative assistant, would be a great way to then provide copies of those notes to both parties, just to kind of look at and at a time when you're a little less charged or a little less emotional.
Speaker 2:So I also want to say make sure you're delegating responsibility. Still and I've talked about this I think every podcast Know who your people are that can handle some of the things that you are not able to handle right now while you're trying to participate in the staffing, and so when your teachers know that you trust their judgment and that they are actually in control of their classrooms, and so when it comes to discipline, just let them know to make sure to have a plan, because it's not always going to be that you're going to be able to send somebody to the office and so that things like making sure your parents have talked to the teacher first before they come storming in your office, because that can be time consuming. So all those things that are naturally time consuming for a building administrator. Make sure that you've delegated so that you can actually focus on the task at hand and have those good, meaningful conversations that aren't just a flash in the pan and give time for teachers to ask you those questions.
Speaker 1:So good. I'm sitting here thinking that this really is such a big part of this time of year and I feel like it goes like this almost until the end, and sometimes we'll see well, anymore. We're seeing this until the beginning of the school year, and even school districts are hiring right now to finish out the school year. So it's really thoughtful to be thinking about all of these, about all of these things, and be planning and preparing I really love the tip and I think you've done that really nicely the entire time talking with principals about the importance of delegating and and having people take some of this off of your plate as a principal or administrator. In your building, there's so many people that are vying for your time and your attention and your, your thinking and your energy that it's not possible. So being really strategic about the different responsibilities that are happening and making sure that you have other people that are able to take some of those responsibilities is super thoughtful.
Speaker 2:So thank you for sharing that Bridget, and doesn't that kind of just go right back into staffing even the people that you have already in place, knowing how to treat them, knowing how to build them up, knowing how to develop them, so that when you need to do some delegating, you have some good, strong people? I think to myself like if I could delegate five things in a week, one each day, that's five things, that's big, that is. That's not. Even. That doesn't even include my AA, who could have done five things an hour on her own. You know, or just in principles, or just thinking about how you're actually building up that leadership capacity within your building, and so you're really supporting the staff that you have and building them up to be those leaders, whether it be a leader of the grade level or a leader of a content area or just the leader of their classroom. Make them feel more confident about what they're doing.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I'm hearing some that you have like a vision crafted of what your school is like and how it's run, and it's all of us being part of that vision and bringing it to life. And so, thinking about that vision when you're hiring, when you're moving, like what do we want school, our school, to look like? What's my dream as the leader for the students in this building? How can I be thoughtful and intentional with the people that I'm bringing into the building, that support that vision, that support the learning that's happening in all of those areas? Because more than once I've heard you talk about the importance of your office staff and having them be. They're the first people that our new family see, they're the first introduction for our students.
Speaker 2:Think about your custodial staff, yeah, and they really give families a first impression of what does the building look like, how is the building here for and just partnering with them and making sure that they understand the vision, your vision for your school.
Speaker 2:I'm going to share a quick story. I know we're running short on time, but you talked about hiring during the school year and I've had to do that before, but one time I had to do after, almost towards the middle of the first quarter, we had to hire a kindergarten teacher and the applicant pool for kindergarten teachers at that point wasn't very big, because that requires a different certification and by then most people had their jobs. And so I was a little bit nervous and I had an applicant that I knew because she had worked in another capacity in our building and I had seen her with children and when we interviewed her we knew that she would come in and build community in her kindergarten classroom and make the kids feel like that's always been their classroom and make the parents feel really confident about leaving their children and moving their children. So we offered the option. We hired the teacher, we offered the option to our parents if they wanted to move their children or not every kindergarten student, with the caveat that that doesn't mean if you say no, I don't want my child move, that they wouldn't be moved, but we're just kind of looking to see who would be open to it.
Speaker 2:And, do you know, because of this person's temperament and her caring attitude and the position that she had been in in the school already, because enough parents knew her, I didn't have to move anybody that didn't want to be moved or that didn't agree to be moved. And she didn't know the kindergarten curriculum and she did not know the programs and she didn't. There were so many things that she had to learn, yes, but she knew how to love on kids, how to build community in her class, she knew how to make that her class and how to include the parents and how to make the students feel special. And so, as somebody who did hire into the school year, I want to say to all of our administrators out there that are having to consider hiring into the school year pick the person, don't pick the person that knows the program.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that. That's a great way to end. I think it it really aligns with our values at Compass PD that it's about relationships. I truly believe in building strong relationships with the people that we work with and, most importantly, with students. So how do we help build strong relationships with the kids that we serve? So thank you so much, bridget, for this time. I really appreciate it and I know that this is going to be especially helpful for administrators at this time of the year. I want to encourage you, compass PD community, to take care and stay inspired. We are so grateful for you and all that you do to encourage us and support us, and wish you the very best day.