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I really enjoyed reading this post. I do not think enough consideration is given to a positive work environment. It is so pleasant when everyone helps each other. I have found that to be rare. I liked the ideas it gave for creating a better environment, but I don't think many people would be willing to attend activities outside of work with people they don't like. I think once an environment is bad that it is hard to turn it around. I guess the best thing to do is to scoop up new teachers  before they have an opportunity to be exposed to the negative aspects of the school environment. It is like the story of the starfish, you begin by saving them one at a time. It also takes time to get to know people and learn about their families. I am guilty of getting all involved in what I am doing and not spending enough time building relationships at school.

Tracy Rees

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Administration & Leadership

If schools want a strong collegial atmosphere, they need to foster it intentionally-both across the school and on smaller scales.

Some of the best professional advice I've heard and keep returning to is "Designate time to what you want." If teachers want a stronger classroom community, they need to use instructional time to build it. If leaders want more collaboration, they must allot time in the master schedule. The same idea holds if a school wants a strong adult culture.

Speaking from personal experience, the more I know and trust my colleagues, the better I work with them. I'm fortunate to have worked in several schools that allotted time to building a strong adult culture. Here are some of the best strategies I've seen.

School-wide Systems

Social and emotional professional development sessions: We've all experienced feeling tired, burnt out, or insecure about our efficacy. I know this from my experience to be especially true in schools serving at-risk populations.

In one of those schools, our leadership addressed these feelings directly through professional development sessions called Fill Your Cup, which incorporated social and emotional learning. We had staff members sign up to lead activities they enjoyed, such as yoga, cooking, running, biking, singing karaoke... really anything that brought them joy.

Then each staff member signed up for two of the sessions to "fill their cups." These sessions were always highly rated by our staff, and the next day the school always seemed to have a lightness in the air. The sessions provided a chance for staff to get to know each other in new ways, to blow off steam, to build stronger connections with each other, and to break down barriers of mistrust.

Public acknowledgements: Many schools start or end staff meetings with shout-outs, a beneficial practice. I've seen leadership go beyond this-one example is a practice I call "collective cards." My school's leaders had staff members with different roles sit together at tables. Each person wrote their name in the center of a card (a large index card or half sheet of paper will work), and passed it around the table so that each person there could offer a note of thanks or acknowledgement. This continued until everyone at a table had signed all the cards, and then they were returned to their owners.

This kind of practice allows people to offer a compliment they might not normally make the time for, and it also encourages staff to find the good in everybody they work with. A different approach is to end meetings by encouraging staff members to email a colleague a note of thanks.

Gatherings: We all know the cliché: the family that _____ together, stays together. This can apply to school communities as well. Create opportunities for social gatherings outside of the school day. Make sure they don't always include alcohol-find a variety of activities to meet the needs of many different types of people.

One person doesn't have to do all the work-try organizing a social committee. And offer opportunities for staff members' families to mingle as well.

Food: Need I say more? What meeting hasn't been improved by the addition of food? There's not always money in the budget, but potlucks and staff sign-ups can play a role. Either way, caring for a belly is caring for a heart, and that goes a long way.

Working on a Smaller Scale

Sometimes it's hard to start with school-wide systems. Here are two successful smaller scale initiatives I've experienced.

Door banners: Who doesn't want to walk up to their classroom and see wonderful things written about them? At one of my schools, the leadership organized door banners. We put chart paper on the teachers' doors and organized times to visit each other and write celebratory notes.

Not only was this beneficial to teachers, but it was also valuable for students to see the adults participating in a healthy, collaborative culture.

Positive classroom observations: So often when teachers are visited by observers, they tense up as they feel they're being judged on what's not good enough. Additionally, in our professional desire to be better, we forget to pause and reflect on what's going well.

As an instructional coach, one way I alleviated these deficit-based approaches was to visit teachers specifically to note effective moves. During these observations, I would take notes about all the instructional decisions that were to be celebrated... and there were many! Classroom visits focused on strengths shift a school away from a deficit model to an assets-based model.

I want to end with the importance of hearing the staff's voices. The most important element of a strong adult culture is that staff never feel like things are being done to them, but rather with them. Some of the ideas here might work for your school and some might not. The only way to know is to ask. Use surveys to gather feedback about your school's adult culture, suggestions for improving it, reflections on PD sessions, and other creative community-building ideas.

After all, a school where teachers know, trust, and honor each other is a school where students learn best.

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Building a Positive Staff Culture Takes Work

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Administration & Leadership If schools want a strong collegial atmosphere, they need to foster it intentionally-both across the school and on smaller scales. Some of the best professional advice I've heard and keep returning to is "Designate time to what you want." If teachers want a stronger classroom community, they need to use instructional time to build it.

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Principals must apply efficient and effective communication everyday. The conversations have to be formal and informal. Typically, conversations must remain professional. There are a variety of strategies to use for communication such as understanding how the audience controls the type of interaction. As somebody in charge, Administrators need to focus on basic communication skills as well. The drive needs to be great at giving and receiving feedback along with listening to understand rather than listening with no intention to change our thought. Effective Communication is a must.

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In schools, Principals are attributed with leading the school to success. This article takes a closer look at why some principals find success and others do not. Principals that follow the process of enacting a plan of what their campus looks like and setting goals for the campus to work to find the results that are longed for. This concept of working to a goal needs to be the focus for our administrators along with being able to be willing to change. Principals need to understand that they need not to try to be a superhero rather be transformational of what they want their own teachers to become.

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When 93 teachers and staffers were fired from Rhode Island's Central Falls High School in 2010, it fueled a nationwide debate over how failing schools might be resurrected.

But of all the school's dismal statistics, and there were plenty to choose from - fewer than half of its students graduated within four years, and only seven percent of its juniors were proficient in math - issues of chronic instability loomed largest: In six years, it been led by nearly as many principals.

Of everything we've learned about the art and science of reforming a failing school in the past decade, school leadership is second only to teacher quality in terms of importance - and the more dire a school's predicament, the greater the need for strong leadership. Because of this, the emphasis is now less on the lone dynamic teacher and more on the whole school environment.

"Indeed, there are virtually no documented instances of troubled schools being turned around without intervention by a powerful leader," said Kenneth Leithwood, a professor at the University of Toronto who studies leadership.

While the topic of school reform is hardly a new one, we haven't always looked to school leaders as harbingers of change.

Since 1983, when A Nation At Risk warned Americans that its public schools were failing at an alarming rate, reform has taken on many different forms, with some experiments yielding more success than others. At both the local and federal levels, however, our slow progress hasn't been for a lack of ideas. Among them: stringent graduation requirements, national standards, new approaches to how reading and math are taught, smaller classes, smaller schools, greater accountability through increased testing, and a focus on recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers.
New thinking on leadership
More recently, research has emphasized the importance of school leadership in improving outcomes for a school and its students. But make no mistake: this is not the school leader as drill sergeant, or the charismatic leader whose skill-set is impossible to replicate. Instead, it is a school leader who is capable of transforming a school environment so that its students and teachers can flourish.

It is important to keep in mind that while school leadership is essential, consistent, strong leadership at the district level must not be overlooked. While principals create conditions that encourage great teaching, superintendents can create conditions that allow principals to become even better leaders.

In this way, superintendents can lay the groundwork for successful school leaders by setting a clear direction and tone, investing in professional development, setting up mentors for new principals, giving principals the authority to make key decisions and elevating the importance of academic achievement - sometimes even going so far as to making it a part of a principal's evaluation. And while many states have adopted standards for principals, Delaware is leading the charge by working on statewide evaluation systems for its principals.

One significant shift from the previous way of doing things is that principals, particularly at the elementary school level, are expected to be instructional leaders - meaning they must be skilled at making all of their teachers better educators. And while the concept has been around for quite some time, it's now a key element of the job description.

But how can one person have such a huge impact?

A 2009 study by New Leaders for New Schools found that more than half of a school's impact on student gains can be attributed to both principal and teacher effectiveness - with principals accounting for 25 percent and teachers 33 percent of the effect.

The report noted that schools making significant progress are often led by a principal whose role has been radically re-imagined. Not only is the principal attuned to classroom learning, but he or she is also able to create a climate of hard work and success while managing the vital human-capital pipeline.

Getting from here to there isn't about magic or one-size-fits-all solutions. According to Michael Fullan, author of Leading in a Culture of Change, leadership can take on many different forms in school turnarounds. While some leaders opt for transformational leadership or turning good organizations into great ones, other personalities are better suited for distributive leadership, or the sharing of responsibility among a few people such as an assistant principal or outstanding teacher.
Leaders who cope vs. leaders who transform
Leithwood has written that good leadership tends to follow three basic steps: first, setting a direction; second, developing people so that they can head in that direction; and, third, redesigning the institution around instruction. He says it's less about leaders possessing a compelling shared vision and more about helping "people figure out the shorter-term goals on the way to achieving that vision and then set[ting] high expectations for people in accomplishing those."

When it comes to school leadership, being willing to change is the name of the game - whether it's restructuring the school day so teachers are able to observe teaching of the highest order, or allocating enough money in the budget so that instructional coaches can be hired. Persistence, open-mindedness and optimism are helpful qualities, especially when facing tough decisions that result from statewide spending constraints or contract negotiations.

Public Agenda, a public opinion research organization based in New York City, conducted focus groups with principals in high-need school districts, focusing specifically on how leaders respond to the challenges that inevitably arise. Whether it's ensuring that buses run according to schedule or that loose-leaf paper is delivered on time, school leaders classified as "copers" versus "transformers" tackle problems in fundamentally different ways. Public Agenda found that transformers had an explicit vision for their school and did not get bogged down in the obstacles. The copers, on the other hand, became overwhelmed. Both types of leaders talked about the importance of instructional leadership. But the transformers actually did it, while copers merely talked about it. "The transformers knew teachers, knew kids, knew what they needed, and were on top of it," Jean Johnson of Public Agenda said. "Copers," she said, "never got to it. You'd hear the phrase, 'I was headed to the classroom, and then something happened.' "

But the school leader as superhero isn't a sustainable model - and copers can be taught to become transformative leaders. The focus is now on how to create conditions so that otherwise ordinary leaders might be trained to become extraordinary.
Preparing principals

Meanwhile, greater attention is being paid to the training of principals. A 2005 report by Arthur Levine, who at the time was president of Columbia University's Teachers College, noted that leadership programs at many education schools lacked rigor and were of low quality.

New models have been introduced to educate and train the next generation of school leaders. The most successful programs, according to Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond and her colleagues, tend to have the following key characteristics:

A focus on instruction, organizational development and change management.

Curricular coherence that links goals, learning activities and assessments around a set of shared values, beliefs and knowledge about effective organizational practice.

Field-based internships that enable principals-in-training to apply leadership knowledge and skills under the guidance of an expert practitioner.

Mentoring or coaching that supports modeling, questioning, observations of practice and feedback.

Problem-based learning strategies-such as case methods and projects-that support reflection and link theory to practice.

A structure that enables collaboration, teamwork and mutual support among principals-in-training.

Collaboration between universities and school districts to create coherence between training and practice, as well as pipelines for recruitment, preparation, hiring and induction.

Vigorous recruitment of high-quality candidates with experience as expert, dynamic teachers and a commitment to instructional improvement.

Financial support that enables principals-in-training to complete an intensive program with a full-time internship.

Both the Wallace Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation have invested in principal-training programs, in addition to New Leaders for New Schools, a national organization that trains principals in different districts. Cities like New York (with its Aspiring Principals Program) are also joining the effort, while states such as Iowa and Louisiana have shuttered weak programs.

Finally, Race to the Top, last year's federal competition for $3.4 billion in grants to support education reform, emphasized improving the training and evaluation of principals as much as it did the training and evaluation of teachers. Going forward, it's tough to imagine a 21st-century school being resurrected by a lackluster school leader. Instead, we are learning about ways to equip more school leaders with better tools, a set of skills that can transform not only a whole school building but also our perception of what it means to be a principal in the first place.

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Why school leadership matters - The Hechinger Report

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When 93 teachers and staffers were fired from Rhode Island's Central Falls High School in 2010, it fueled a nationwide debate over how failing schools might be resurrected. But of all the school's dismal statistics, and there were plenty to choose from - fewer than half of its students graduated within four years, and only ...

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Randy,

I throughly enjoyed reading your article. What the author spoke on in regards to  collaborative decision making has different perspectives is so true. So many people have different ideas and thoughts that the y believe are the best for school. However, when we come together as administrator we must put aside our own beliefs and do what is best for our school. By using data, school culture and even opportunities such as instructional rounds can help create collaborative decision making.

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Randy, I really enjoyed this article. When I first started reading it, I immediately thought about how collaboration in the decision making process leads to better buy in. Then, I realized there was a whole paragraph on just that. However, I hadn't previously thought of all the other positives of collaboration during decision making. This article really shows how it is beneficial for administrators/leaders and also how it is beneficial to other school staff.  I've always believed that collaboration was best, and this article really solidified that belief.  What are some effective and ineffective ways that you have seen decision making played out in the educational field?

Kylee Whipple

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Within schools, decisions have to be made. Everybody has an opinion about something. Administration tends to be either very relaxed about policies or too overbearing. The article talks about collaboration and the positive outcomes that usually follow by hearing every bodies opinion. Collaboration allows for teachers to work together lessening the load for one particular teacher to a team. The benefits this article discusses boil down to a simple concept that every thought and voice does indeed matter. In the end, collaboration leads to better decisions being made.

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Schools should continuously be striving to improve. Every school should have this as a central theme in their mission statement. Schools that are either stagnant or complacent are doing the students and communities that they serve a major disservice. If you are not progressing, you will ultimately fall behind and fail. Education, in general, is very progressive and trendy, sometimes to a fault, but you must always be seeking out something bigger and better.

School leaders who regularly include their constituents in the decision-making process find it advantageous in many different ways. They understand that involving stakeholders in the decision-making process can ultimately transform a school. Progressive transformation is continuous and ongoing. It must become a mindset and regular way of making decisions to maximize effectiveness. School leaders must actively invest in the opinions of others, understanding that they do not have all the answers themselves.

Varying Perspectives

One of the most beneficial aspects of bringing different people to the discussion is that you get several different perspectives or points of view. Every stakeholder is going to have a distinctly different point of view based on their individual affiliation with the school. It is important that school leaders bring together a varying range of constituents with their hands in different parts of the cookie jar so that perspective is maximized.

This is naturally beneficial as someone else may see a potential road block or benefit that someone else may not have thought of. Having multiple perspectives can only boost any decision-making effort and lead to healthy discussions that morph into growth and improvement.

Better Buy In

When decisions are made through a process that is genuinely inclusive and transparent people tend to buy in and support those decisions even when they are not directly involved.

There will likely be some that still disagree with the decisions, but they typically respect them because they understand the process and know that the decision was not made lightly or by a single person. Buy in is extremely important for a school because of all the moving parts. A school operates more efficiently when all the parts on the same page. This often translates to success which benefits everyone.

Less Resistance

Resistance is not necessarily a bad thing and offers some benefits. However, it can also totally destroy a school if it morphs into a resistance movement. By bringing varying perspectives to the table, you naturally negate much of the resistance. This is especially true when collaborative decision making becomes the norm and part of the expected culture of the school. People will trust a decision-making process that is inclusive, transparent, and holistic in nature. Resistance can be annoying, and it can definitely impede improvement referendum. As stated before this is not always a bad thing as some resistance minimally serves as a natural system of checks and balances.

Not Top Heavy

School leaders are ultimately responsible for their school's successes and failures.

When they make critical decisions by themselves, they shoulder 100% of the blame when things run amiss. Furthermore, many people question top heavy decision making and never fully buy in. Any time a single person makes a key decision without consulting others they are setting themselves up for ridicule and eventual failure. Even if that decision is the correct and best choice, it serves school leaders well to consult with others and seek their advice before the final say. When school leaders make too many individual decisions they eventually distance themselves from other stakeholders which is unhealthy at best.

Holistic, Inclusive Decisions

Collaborative decisions are typically well thought out, inclusive, and holistic. When a representative from each stakeholder group is brought to the table, it gives validity to the decision.

For example, parents feel they have a voice in a decision because there were other parents representing them in the decision-making group. This is especially true when those on a collaborative decision-making committee go out into the community and seek further feedback from like stakeholders. Furthermore, these decisions are holistic in nature meaning that research has been done, and both sides have been carefully examined.

Better Decisions

Collaborative decisions often lead to better decision making. When a group comes together with a common goal, they are able to explore all the options more in-depth. They can take their time, bounce ideas off one another, research the pros and cons of each option thoroughly, and ultimately make a decision that will produce the greatest outcomes with the least resistance. Better decisions yield better results. In a school environment, this is extremely important. A top priority for every school is to maximize student potential. You do this in part by making the correct, calculated decisions time and time again.

Shared Responsibility

One of the greatest aspects of collaborative decision making is that no single person can take the credit or the blame. The final decision lies with the majority on the committee. Though a school leader will likely take the lead in the process, the decision is not solely theirs. This also ensures that they are not doing all of the work. Instead, each member of the committee plays a critical role in the process that often extends beyond simple decision making into implementation and follow through.

Shared responsibility helps reduce the pressure of making a big decision. Those on the committee provide a natural support system because they truly understand the commitment and dedication to making the correct decisions.

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7 Ways Collaborative Decision Making Can Transform Your School

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Schools should continuously be striving to improve. Every school should have this as a central theme in their mission statement. Schools that are either stagnant or complacent are doing the students and communities that they serve a major disservice. If you are not progressing, you will ultimately fall behind and fail.

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Building a Positive Staff Takes Work Response

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Building a Positive Staff Takes Work Response

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I enjoyed this article a lot. I know I have seen teachers thrive when a positive, supportive school community develops. As a school counselor, we are taught the importance of self-care in our program, but this is something all educators needs to live by and principals should foster. How can educators be expected to keep giving their all when often they are on empty themselves. A few kind words and small gestures can go a long way to filling up educator's cups.

Thanks for sharing!
Craig Hubbard

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Hi Randy,
I found your article on organization (Week #4) right on target with its main points. Keeping up, relevancy, not missing out on anything and saving time are certainly important when juggling every day tasks. As a guidance counselor, organization is definitely key in ensuring that all reports, tasks and all other responsibilities are met on time.  Multi-tasking works hand in hand with organization as well.  I believe it is important to build up organizational skills with our students so that they are not only successful as high school students but college ready as well. Cornell note taking is one way that I ensured my students stayed organized when I taught history.  It kept them on track along with their universal binder which was mandatory.  Again, thanks for sharing!

Maricela Luna

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Understanding that organization plays an important role in education is critical in the classroom today. Being able to look at the relevance of the information to figure out what is important is a key strategy. Information is abundant today and organizing it becomes a necessity. Organizing also helps save time as well as not missing anything. There are many reasons to stay organized in education; just harnessing one sometimes can save a lot of time and effort.
Randy Sherwood

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After working diligently on a project, you don't want to get a failing grade because you couldn't find your work when it was due because you were disorganized. Not only does organization keep you on track so that you can earn the grades you deserve, it prepares you for the working world, where organizational skills ...

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This article presents a interesting side of how decisions are made. Looking through at our school's leadership, leaders have to look at certain reasons to make decisions. From looking at time to staff commitment, there are some important facts to consider when making decisions.

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Thanks to its partnership with publisher Eye on Education, Education World is pleased to present this administrator tip from School Leader Internship (4th Edition): Developing, Monitoring, and Evaluating Your Leadership Experience, by Gary E. Martin, Arnold B. Danzig, William F. Wright, Richard A. Flanary, and Fred Brown. This article provides school leaders with five factors to consider when making quality decisions.

Decision making is sine qua non to education administration because a school, like all formal organizations, is basically a decision-making structure (Hoy and Miskel, 2001). Decision making is a process that guides actions. Decisions are based on the beliefs, values and previous experiences of individuals. Leaders must know themselves, know why they choose particular paths, know whom to involve, and know which particular decision-making model to use. Today, researchers and theorists know that those at the top cannot accurately gather or predict all alternatives. They know that followers deserve to be involved and that input and collaboration result in better decisions. The first decision is to decide what level of involvement is most effective.

Leaders have at least four options of involvement in decisions: deciding alone, seeking participation and input, seeking collaboration, and letting others decide. These approaches are termed autocratic, participative, collaborative, and laissez fair, respectively. A wise leader uses participative and collaborative strategies for all important decisions. However, such an approach is not always possible, nor is it preferable in all situations. The leader must assess 5 factors to decide on the level of involvement:

Time

Urgency may require the leader to make his or her own decision without consulting others. Participative decisions, especially collaborative decisions, require more time than a decision made alone. If important decisions are at stake, the leader must schedule more time for involvement.

Staff Interest in the Decision

Barnard (1938) found that individuals have a "zone of indifference" in which they simply accept the leader's decision and are apathetic toward the decision. In these cases, the leader would not benefit from trying to gain participation or collaboration. At higher levels of interest, however, more participation or collaboration is appropriate. Leaders who desire more collaboration must generate interest in the decision.

Staff Expertise

Followers who have very low levels of expertise accept the decisions of leaders. Staff members who have higher levels of expertise require either participation or collaboration to arrive at successful decisions. The leader who desires collaboration must raise levels of expertise to successfully involve subordinates.

Importance or Need For a High-Quality Decision

Some decisions are much more important and carry significant consequences. This is usually the case for instruction and learning, whether directly or indirectly. For important questions that demand high-quality decisions, collaboration is the best model. If the decision is relatively unimportant, then the leader should simply make the decision.

Degree of Need for Buy-In or Support for the Decision

Many decisions in schools need staff support for successful implementation and results. A collaborative model often increases buy-in and support.

Education World®
Copyright © 2012, 2017 Education World

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Decision-Making for School Leaders: Five Tips | Education World

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Thanks to its partnership with publisher Eye on Education, Education World is pleased to present this administrator tip from School Leader Internship (4th Edition): Developing, Monitoring, and Evaluating Your Leadership Experience, by Gary E. Martin , Arnold B. Danzig , William F. Wright , Richard A. Flanary, and Fred Brown .

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In this article by Ryan Brusco, He examines what administrators need to do to help young teachers to be able to teach successfully. Through implementing ideas correctly, Brusco lays out a four step plan of how to help these teachers implement their idea. He starts with teachers needing to understand the why of completing their school mission. He continues with teachers needing to understand what mastery is through the schools eyes. Teachers then need to make lesson their own. Lastly, He explains that mentoring needs to become a priority.
Ideas said in this article encourage aspiring administrators to remember that students are not the only ones who need help sometimes. Sometimes the teachers need help too.

--Randy Sherwood

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Administration & Leadership

Technology can be an incredible resource in personalizing education, but it isn't sufficient-teachers need proper support to implement it.

As a second-year English teacher, I had a problem: I wanted to teach my sixth-grade students the wonders of English via a robust, recurring series of highly engaging grammar lessons designed to ensure that they would never conflate "their" with "they're," but their skill levels were in vastly different places. To be effective, my lessons needed to be personalized for each student.

Back in 2003, personalizing meant curating a library of individual lessons, developing a diagnostic assessment, and handwriting personalized pathways for each of my students. I spent the better part of a year putting my idea into action, assessing and reassessing students, refining lessons, and running around like a mad man during classes to reach all 96 students.

Since then, I've been lucky to be part of multiple personalized learning implementations using different platforms at a variety of schools. I've seen all angles of technology-based personalization-as a teacher, an administrator, a consultant, and a student.

Personalized learning at its best seeks to accelerate student learning by tailoring the instructional environment-what, when, how, and where students learn-to address the individual needs, skills, and interests of each student. Students can take ownership of their learning while also developing deep, personal connections with each other, their teachers, and other adults at school.

In short, personalized learning should free teachers to meaningfully connect with students because strong relationships with kids are the heart of teaching.

While technology has caught up with my aspirations for personalized instruction, a new challenge has emerged: Some administrators think that because technology is a big part of a particular program, it can mask challenges teachers have with management or expertise. This just isn't true. Strong tech needs strong teaching, and great teachers need great support.

4 Key Points for Administrators

1. Everyone needs to believe in the why: In a famous TED talk, Simon Sinek argued that everyone in a school or district has to understand the why of personalized learning. This should be a given with any new school initiative, but it's especially true with personalized learning because personalized instruction sounds like something teachers and leaders should already know-and on the surface it looks familiar to the instruction happening in traditional schools-but in practice it's radically different from traditional teaching.

To that end, it's imperative for administrators to go beyond their mission statement and dig deep into whatever foundational research underpins the personalized learning program so that teacher buy-in is based on a clear understanding of the magnitude of this shift.

2. Define mastery for teachers: Teachers need to know what student mastery looks like, but it's equally important to give them a clear picture of what their own mastery will look like. Without a clear definition of proficiency, teachers can either feel overly confident or-more likely-be overly critical of their own progress. Having a clear timeline with a flexible scope and sequence that allows for "just in time" training is key to articulating a vision for professional growth and avoiding burnout.

Good personalized learning requires just as much training for teachers as traditional teaching, but with different emphases: Planning and assessment are de-emphasized so that relationships, social and emotional learning, and context can be the focus.

3. Encourage teachers to make it their own: While a lot of personalized learning relies on a curated set of lessons and projects, it's still vital for teachers to leverage their experience within the platform to maximize student learning. This means incorporating best practices for teaching and learning into daily routines rather than simply using provided lessons as a script.

This includes marrying the overall school culture with the culture desired for the personalized learning space. The personalization program should not dictate the culture of the learning environment-the program needs to be flexible enough to enhance the mission and vision of the school. The best implementations are those where educators can say that their school has a specific vision for learning and the given program is an element of that vision. The weakest implementations are those that are reliant on the program to define or redefine the vision for learning at the site.

4. Prioritize mentoring: The single most important by-product of personalized learning is that it allows teachers to focus less on creating curriculum and assessments and more on the students themselves. Students who have an adult mentor on campus and meet with them regularly are far more likely to go to college and graduate.

Mentors can be cheerleaders who celebrate student success, sounding boards for student frustrations, guides who help students stay on track, counselors who keep students focused on long- and short-term goals, and most importantly companions on the learning journey. If you ask teachers why they wanted to teach in the first place, most will identify one of these roles as a driving force behind their desire to educate. In a traditional environment, however, it's challenging to balance these roles with concerns around planning and assessment.

Helping teachers leverage their time to prioritize mentoring work is vital. They aren't doing less work in this new space-they're doing different, and perhaps more important, work.

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Technology can be an incredible resource in personalizing education, but it isn't sufficient-teachers need proper support to implement it.

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Randy,

I enjoyed reading your article, Building a Positive Staff Takes Work, by Mary Davenport (2018). I liked that the article focused on developing a culture where teachers know, trust, and honor each other. Administrators can get caught up in the importance and desire to be recognized for high academics. Davenport recognizes the advantages to facilitating a positive school culture.

The article I chose focused on being a transformational leader. I appreciated how you took Davenport’s article and emphasized the need for a leader to create teachers who are able to be transformational. Davenport suggested many strategies to boost morale. Chris Brennan, a specialist in leadership and management reports in his article, Six Proven Ways to Promote a Positive Company Culture, that happy employees are more efficient, less absent, and continue in their position longer than their less happy colleagues. Cultivating happy teachers definitely impacts teachers’ engagement, retention, safety, and wellness (Ways to Promote Positive, nd.).

I was encouraged to read strategies that my school is already doing like gatherings involving food, sharing personal and professional successes, distributing thank-you’s to others and focusing on boosting morale in faculty meetings. I would love to see Davenport’s suggestion of positive classroom observations implemented. Our principals work very hard so I would not want to put more on their plate just like they are very considerate to the teachers at our school about their time and duties. However, if school leaders would take the time to compliment personally to the teachers and also give school-wide recognition of effective and positive classroom practices they observe, I do believe our school staff would feel newfound energy.

Thank you for sharing this article. I hope to be able to implement the many creative community-building ideas to help generate a strong adult culture with teachers. Ultimately, happy teachers produce happy students!

Debra Hiler

References

Davenport, M. (2018, May 17). Building a positive staff takes work. Retrieved from: https://www.edutopia.org/article/building-positive-staff-culture-takes-work

Brennan, C. (nd.). Six proven ways to promote a positive company culture. Retrieved from: https://www.insperity.com/blog/6-proven-ways-promote-positive-company-culture/

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Looking through this article allows teachers to reflect on what they are doing to take care of themselves. Through the fill my cup initiative, teachers take time to do things and activities that boost their own moral. When leading other teachers, We must take care of each other. Old mentalities of every teacher for themselves is a thing of the past. As a future leader, I want to create teachers who are transformational that change students mindsets to believe that they can be successful.

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Administration & Leadership

If schools want a strong collegial atmosphere, they need to foster it intentionally-both across the school and on smaller scales.

Some of the best professional advice I've heard and keep returning to is "Designate time to what you want." If teachers want a stronger classroom community, they need to use instructional time to build it. If leaders want more collaboration, they must allot time in the master schedule. The same idea holds if a school wants a strong adult culture.

Speaking from personal experience, the more I know and trust my colleagues, the better I work with them. I'm fortunate to have worked in several schools that allotted time to building a strong adult culture. Here are some of the best strategies I've seen.

School-wide Systems

Social and emotional professional development sessions: We've all experienced feeling tired, burnt out, or insecure about our efficacy. I know this from my experience to be especially true in schools serving at-risk populations.

In one of those schools, our leadership addressed these feelings directly through professional development sessions called Fill Your Cup, which incorporated social and emotional learning. We had staff members sign up to lead activities they enjoyed, such as yoga, cooking, running, biking, singing karaoke... really anything that brought them joy.

Then each staff member signed up for two of the sessions to "fill their cups." These sessions were always highly rated by our staff, and the next day the school always seemed to have a lightness in the air. The sessions provided a chance for staff to get to know each other in new ways, to blow off steam, to build stronger connections with each other, and to break down barriers of mistrust.

Public acknowledgements: Many schools start or end staff meetings with shout-outs, a beneficial practice. I've seen leadership go beyond this-one example is a practice I call "collective cards." My school's leaders had staff members with different roles sit together at tables. Each person wrote their name in the center of a card (a large index card or half sheet of paper will work), and passed it around the table so that each person there could offer a note of thanks or acknowledgement. This continued until everyone at a table had signed all the cards, and then they were returned to their owners.

This kind of practice allows people to offer a compliment they might not normally make the time for, and it also encourages staff to find the good in everybody they work with. A different approach is to end meetings by encouraging staff members to email a colleague a note of thanks.

Gatherings: We all know the cliché: the family that _____ together, stays together. This can apply to school communities as well. Create opportunities for social gatherings outside of the school day. Make sure they don't always include alcohol-find a variety of activities to meet the needs of many different types of people.

One person doesn't have to do all the work-try organizing a social committee. And offer opportunities for staff members' families to mingle as well.

Food: Need I say more? What meeting hasn't been improved by the addition of food? There's not always money in the budget, but potlucks and staff sign-ups can play a role. Either way, caring for a belly is caring for a heart, and that goes a long way.

Working on a Smaller Scale

Sometimes it's hard to start with school-wide systems. Here are two successful smaller scale initiatives I've experienced.

Door banners: Who doesn't want to walk up to their classroom and see wonderful things written about them? At one of my schools, the leadership organized door banners. We put chart paper on the teachers' doors and organized times to visit each other and write celebratory notes.

Not only was this beneficial to teachers, but it was also valuable for students to see the adults participating in a healthy, collaborative culture.

Positive classroom observations: So often when teachers are visited by observers, they tense up as they feel they're being judged on what's not good enough. Additionally, in our professional desire to be better, we forget to pause and reflect on what's going well.

As an instructional coach, one way I alleviated these deficit-based approaches was to visit teachers specifically to note effective moves. During these observations, I would take notes about all the instructional decisions that were to be celebrated... and there were many! Classroom visits focused on strengths shift a school away from a deficit model to an assets-based model.

I want to end with the importance of hearing the staff's voices. The most important element of a strong adult culture is that staff never feel like things are being done to them, but rather with them. Some of the ideas here might work for your school and some might not. The only way to know is to ask. Use surveys to gather feedback about your school's adult culture, suggestions for improving it, reflections on PD sessions, and other creative community-building ideas.

After all, a school where teachers know, trust, and honor each other is a school where students learn best.

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Building a Positive Staff Culture Takes Work

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Administration & Leadership If schools want a strong collegial atmosphere, they need to foster it intentionally-both across the school and on smaller scales. Some of the best professional advice I've heard and keep returning to is "Designate time to what you want." If teachers want a stronger classroom community, they need to use instructional time to build it.