Planting the Seeds

Last month we celebrated my daughter's 10th birthday... it is a big deal when you turn double digits in case you didn't know.  In thinking about how big my little girl has gotten, I also found myself thinking that her birthday signals a decade of parenthood for my wife and I.

Now we will both be the first to tell you that what we now know about parenting is still far outweighed by what we still have to learn, but we do benefit from many lessons learned.  Additionally, we have had the distinct privilege of watching our beautiful (if I do say so myself) baby girl grow into the young lady she is today.  Only the passage of time has allowed us to look back and see how some of the decisions we made years ago have influenced who she is at ten.  We can now see how some of the seeds we planted when she was one, two and three have begun to blossom and support her independence, courage, caring and sense of self.  These seedlings of personality are likely to experience periods of drought and other challenges as she heads into puberty, but I feel confident that the roots are strong.

Where work and home meet

As the first four months of this school year come to a close, I can see many parallels to the experiences I had as a new father.  In many ways our school started brand new this year.  While almost all the staff in the school worked as a part of the district last year, this is the first time that they were all organized together in one school focused on students in grade PreK-2.  While this reorganization posed all sorts of logistical challenges, it also created an amazing opportunity to create new traditions, set a focused vision and develop a common set of governing values.

Just as I floundered through a sea of uncertainty as a new father, having no experience to draw from, I have felt equally uncertain about my decisions leading the staff through this change.  Ten years from now I will be able to look back and see how decisions I am making today will have impacted things yet to come. However, as I sit here today it is very hard for me to measure my impact as a school leader.

Sprouting some roots

Guiding me through my work as a principal have been some fundamental core beliefs about schooling along with my beliefs about leadership.  Among my beliefs as a leader is the notion that leaders play an integral role in establishing both the vision for the organization as well as fostering a culture that is both supportive and empowering.

If leaders are able to successfully articulate the school's vision through continuous messaging and through their decision making process while encouraging staff to take risks, stretch themselves professionally and be creative, then innovation is possible.  If innovation is possible, then the whole school can continue to grow and improve indefinitely.

In the past few months some pretty amazing things have started happening in the school.  Before our school year even began, a teacher approached me about creating a whole school project that would

BOKS Fitness Program

help to set the stage for developing our school community.  Through her leadership we know have over 30 classroom puzzles hanging in the school symbolizing how each student (individually decorated puzzle piece) comes together to form a classroom community and how those classroom communities form our school community.  In the fall a group of staff members in the building decided to start a before school club focused on physical fitness and positive peer to peer and adult/student interactions.  Later in the year, a staff member took it upon himself to revamp lunches at our school.  Now, under his leadership, students are treated to stories at lunch, sing Happy Birthday to each other and occasionally listen to musical numbers from their favorite Disney movies.

Dot Project

In another example, a grade one teacher organized all ten classes around a project inspired by the story The Dot by Peter Reynolds.  She used the story to articulate an important message in our mission statement about perseverance and maintaining a Growth Mindset towards learning.  Another group of grade one teachers invited parents and students to the school for a night event.  Students dressed in their pajamas and read with their parents as the teachers shared ways that the parents could support reading at home.

Holiday Gift Drive

As we approached the holiday season, a group of staff members organized a holiday gift drive.  The gift drive provided gifts for over 25 needy students in our school, supporting our mission to be "a family of learners."  This was in addition to a student and police department effort to raise toy donations for Toys for Tots.  Very recently our music teacher took our school's mission statement and used it to create a school song.  She taught the song to our grade two students and they sang it for the school at a recent whole school meeting.

The Right Climate

Each of the above occurrences were generated by staff members and their successful implementation was all staff driven.  They all support the overall vision and mission of our school, helping us to truly stand out as an early learning center focussed on educating children both as learners and citizens.

Leaders must foster an environment that encourages staff to try new things, take risks and dream big.  People in the organization need to know that their ideas are valued and that they will be supported when they take risks.  Additionally, leaders must be clear on the vision so that staff have the big picture and are able to hold their ideas up against it.  Lastly, leaders must have the courage to challenge the things that run against the school's vision and mission.

In this type of environment leadership is dispersed to anyone with a good idea.  The world's most successful organizations are not that way because one person is able to do all the innovating needed in the organization, lead each innovation project and ensure successful completion.  Rather, their successes are due to the collective work of a variety of members in the organization all moving towards the same goals in an environment that encourages them to contribute in meaningful ways.  Should school leadership be any different?

At the Core

Our staff today began the undertaking of developing our school's core values.  After doing a lot of reading around the development of organizational values, I learned that there are many conflicting theories on the best way to develop organizational values.  I struggled for months trying to identify the best path to follow in my attempt to lead the faculty through this work.

It was not until I had a chance encounter with a fellow principal that my eyes were opened to the path, a path that worked with where I am as a leader, where we are as a newly formed school and where we are on our journey as a learning organization.  Inspired by the advice I received from my colleague, I shared today with my teachers my three Core Values as a principal.  These are values that are foundational to who I am as a principal.  In addition to sharing them with the faculty, I felt I should share them publically and put them out for the world to see, so that I am held to my beliefs.  

We will work collaboratively over the coming months to add upon this foundation and develop a "default position" as coined in this article.  A set of beliefs that we will always fall back upon when decisions need to be made, conflict arises and the "stuff hits the fan."

I value ... 

Every child championed  

We are a school and we are here to serve children. We have needs and wants as adults here in the building and they need to be valued and respected; however, they should never subjugate the needs of a single child in this school. This does not mean that we cater to every whim or want of our students, but that each of us is committed to doing everything in our power to meet student needs. We believe that we have the power to change the course of a child’s life and know that we have the power to control our own adult actions in this effort. Therefore, we know it is a waste of our energies to blame the child, the family, the community or society; we look instead to the things we can control. We examine our practices as educators and look for adjustments we can make to meet the child where he/she is.

The video below from a TED talk by Rita Pierson does an amazing job of capturing the spirit of my belief and inspired my heading for this paragraph.

We are never done 

Excellence is something great schools always pursue, but never attain. Schools are learning institutions and as such the school as a whole and every member in it must be committed to learning. That means that we must all be committed to continued growth for our students and ourselves. Whatever bar we set for excellence, we must all know that the bar will move once we reach it, because there is always more to learn and we are never done. As Albert Einstein once said, “Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”

Safe and Happy

Our school should be a sanctuary. It should be a place that students and staff look forward to coming to. As a place where students are championed, everyone shares in a common belief that their work is meaningful, staff support each other, smiles are the norm and the future is bright. This positive energy is present in all we do; it is felt by visitors and lifts students’ spirits. We are a family that is always excited to add new members, build new relationships and deepen our existing relationships.