Principal Induction Program

This week, I have been in our state's capitol, taking part in the week long Principal's Induction Program. This is a program established by the state department of education to help new principals and introduce new principals from around the state to each other. My cohort group has about 25 members from counties all around the state. Most of us began leading our schools on July 1st and this has been a difficult week to be away from school. With the opening of school just a couple of weeks away, many of us would prefer to be at school getting ready for the new school year.
We are in the process of learning a valuable lesson - leading while away from the school. We are learning to trust those that are at the school to get things done...
So far, it is very difficult to do. Emails and calls continue that make everything seem urgent, but many will have to wait until the end of the week to be answered. I was able to leave some specific tasks to those that would be at school, I have not inquired as to the completion of those tasks, but I will trust that they are being completed. I know that this is a valuable skill to learn...but the process feels a little painful!
On the bright side, today the cohort group worked on a number of team building activities. We had a great time with each other and got a chance to get to know each other better! I had never completed any of these activities as an adult, but I truly see the value of building teamwork and relationships with one another. The events we completed together were: The Spider Web (the most physically taxing), Team Tag (more mental, than physical), Pass the Hula Hoop in a circle, Chocolate River (a test of staying focused) and another game that taught communication, teamwork and cooperation. All the activities have their benefits. I definitely plan to use some staff development time to do some team building. I will probably do this in September after school has begun and some of the pressure has been lessened.
Two more days of the academy remain. Tomorrow should hold as a highlight because of the panel of 2nd year principals that will come back to hold a Q and A session.
Leading while away...is that possible so soon?

Fully Staffed...finally!

It is the end of my 4th official week as a principal and I have finally hired all teachers. If school started today, we would be ready to go. I thought that I had come to this point two weeks ago, but additional transfers and resignations continued to appear. With the start of school 3 weeks away, I am relieved to have this part of the process complete. There are still a couple of teacher assistants to hire, but that process is much easier to go through.
What have I learned through this journey? The greatest lesson is to not delay at all when an opening occurs! The longer one waits to hire teachers, the shallower the pool of candidates. I am extremely happy with the group of teachers that I have hired, 7 in all, and I believe that they will all be great for our staff. There are 3 brand new teachers in the group and the others have experience and came with great recommendations from their former principals. This reminds me of another lesson that I learned while an assistant principal. Always check references before making an offer of employment! At a previous school, we were burned by a candidate that was not thoroughly screened, and had to endure more trouble than was necessary.
I believe that God placed the right people in the right place at the exact time that I needed!
Next week, I will attend the state's new principal leadership seminar for the entire week. It will be a lesson on how to lead while I am not at the school because I know how much work there is still to be completed. I have been able to delegate some responsibilities to the folks who will be at school and I trust that everything will be done. I am looking forward to networking with other new principals as we travel through our first year together...

Hiring, again...

The one area that has consumed most of my time to this point is in personnel. I feel like all I have done for the past month is interview and worry about who to interview and find out that I need to interview more folks. When I began working, I knew that I would need to hire 2 new second grade teachers and one new 4th grade teacher. Through a variety of circumstances, from resignations to asking for transfers to be rescinded, I have hired 3 second grade teachers, 1 fourth grade teacher, and I still am in the process of hiring another fourth grade teacher and one more third grade teacher. To add to that mix, I need to hire 2 new teacher assistants and one new office staff member (because of a promotion to the district office)!
At this point, I still have five vacancies to fill and there are only 4 weeks until the beginning of school...so the race is on.
I guess that I have come to the point of exhaustion with interviewing because in my previous position, I helped to interview around 100 candidates to fill positions at my previous school.
I found a great set of interview questions from Mike Rutherford (http://www.rutherfordlg.com/) from a series of seminars that I attended at the Emerging Leadership Academy. There are only 12 questions, but I am able to thoroughly screen candidates that I want to bring back for a second round interview. I have been fortunate that my staff has been willing to sit it on the second round of interviews to give their impression of the candidates. Their opinions have helped to validate the beliefs that I have regarding the candidates. I also believe that it helps to make the team more cohesive when decisions regarding personnel are shared. I hope to have all positions filled by the end of the week. It is ambitious, but necessary so that I can attend the Principal's Induction Program next week and not go completely insane :O)

The First Month

It has been a little under a month since I have taken over as the principal at my school. We have moved a few hours from our hometown and left behind family and many friends to take on this new opportunity. Most of the first month has been spent attending district meetings, meeting individually with all staff members and hiring new staff to fill our needs. The greatest surpise in hiring has been the low number of candidates that are available to select from. Those that I have hired have been high quality, though. In my previous position, there would be 20-30 candidates looking at each opening, and here the numbers are far reduced. I am pleased at the folks that will be joining our staff. In total, when the new school year begins in a couple of weeks, we will have 12 new staff members - or about 15% of our staff will be new - including myself and my assistant principal. The challenges that lie ahead are great. Test scores have much room for growth. Upgrading technology and teacher's ability to integrate that into the daily curriculum remains a focus and goal of mine.
The returning staff members are enthusiastic and have welcomed me to their school "family". I am looking forward to school opening. There remains a great deal of work still to do to get ready for the school year. Writing and updating the handbooks, creating calendars and filling a few more vacancies are on my "To do list".
I was told by my previous principal that you would know you are fully immersed in the job when you start to wake up in the middle of the night and think about all that needs to be done...I must be fully immersed!