Archives for September 2015

How To Deal With An Upset Parent (or teacher, etc…)

Upset Parent. Upset Parents. Upset students. Upset teacher. Upset staff member. Upset central office staff. All this can equal an upset stomach!  How can you deal with the inevitable negative issues that arise and keep them from becoming truly negative situations (or at least minimizing the negativity).

First of all, the biggest advice I could give you is to truly LISTEN. When you hear about a concern, if at all possible, try to see that parent (or teacher) ASAP. When problems have time to fester, they begin to seem worse to parents or teachers and they begin to run all kinds of conspiracy scenarios in their heads. The issues become magnified when they think no one cares.

As author and leader John C. Maxwell stated, “People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude”.

I used to want to solve everyone’s problem right away. I would start thinking about how to fix the problem before they were even finished telling me about the issue. I would interrupt when they said something that was incorrect. I was more worried about being right than their feelings.

I learned.  People want to be listened to. They want to believe people care. They want to connect. They want to feel valued. They want their input to count. and yes, they want the situation to be addressed.

Even if you can’t fix a situation right away, just knowing that you have listened to their concerns solves a lot of things. People are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, if they trust you.

How do you gain trust?  Listen… yes, it’s a big circle. I now try to listen to people who are upset until they almost “wind down”.  If you don’t get past that stage, it’s hard for them to hear you and the steps you’re going to take to address the situation.

Ask the parent if it’s okay to take notes while they’re explaining the situation. After they’ve finished explaining what has happened, ask any questions you have. Don’t try to solve the problem right then and there. Let the person you know that you will gather all the information needed. Above all, I repeat, LET THEM KNOW YOU CARE AND THAT THEIR CONCERN IS IMPORTANT TO YOU!  

And lastly, follow-up on their concern. All of the good will that you have built up by being empathetic and caring will be lost if you don’t follow through on what you said you were going to do. Do your best to address the situation quickly and let the person know of the outcome. Even if they don’t agree with you.  In the long-term, this policy will pay off for you and for everyone involved with your school.

What has been the best or worst way that you have handled a negative situation? What did you learn from that?

Communication with your staff – Is there such a thing as too much?

How do I communicate with thee? Let me count the ways?  (okay, bad joke there…) Seriously though, how do you communicate with your staff? And is it really possible to communicate too much. Before I answer that, I’m almost positive that most schools are NOT hotbeds of communication. One of the most constant complaints I heard from teachers in schools where I’ve worked is that they never know what’s going on. When they do find out what’s happening, then it’s usually at the last minute.     Where is that “sweet spot” regarding the information flow in your building?

Let’s go through the different possibilities without passing judgement at this time (All of these have been used in schools where I’ve worked at one time or other):

• Newsletters  in mailboxes once a week – Some of these newsletters have been at the end of the week and have reviewed the highlights of things that happened that week. Other newsletters came out on Fridays for the following week (not bad), others were in our mailboxes Monday morning (not quite as helpful).
• Messages posted on whiteboards in teacher mailroom.  – Great for daily reminders or if things were changed for that day only!
• Faculty meetings – some schools had them weekly, some had them twice a month and others once a month
• E-mail – One principal I had lived with her IPad in her hands all the time. She never stopped checking it and she was typing all the time. She expected everyone to check their e-mail consistently throughout the day. You shouldn’t expect your staff to check their e-mail during their classtime. Teachers need to be focused on their students and their instruction.
• Announcements over the loudspeaker
• Phone calls to rooms
• Sending student aides or other staff members to a classroom with a message for the teacher or paraprofessional
• Using the intercom
• The infamous “phone tree”
• Dept. meetings
• Grade level meetings
• Leadership Team meetings (or some equivalent name)
• Text messaging
• Calendars – I’ve seen printed ones once a month. I’ve seen weekly calendars printed and/or e-mailed once a week. Also shared calendars on an intranet. Lastly, I’ll mention Google shared calendar.
• Committee meetings.
• subject level meetings

You need to be like Goldilocks – Not too much and not too little information. Just right.  I’ll post more about the meeting portion of the schedule in a coming post. It’s no good having meetings just to have them. There has to be a purpose that ALL understand for having the meetings.

Here’s a sample communication schedule. I will post about a very effective meeting schedule in the near future. Stay tuned for that one. It can say you a lot of headaches!  I would suggest before implementing anything that you run it by a few of your most discerning staff members to give you their feedback.

1. Set up a Google Calendar that is shared with ALL school faculty and staff.
2. ALL events should be on this calendar. If it takes several people sharing responsibility for this, then you’ve got to do it. Having ONE place to go for the answer is what needs to happen. When parents call the front office, or anyone else at the school, they should get the same answer about when and where an event is taking place.
3. Weekly, I printed out the coming week’s schedule and have it in everyone’s box on Thursday before they go home so they can plan accordingly. A lot of schools have lesson plans due on Fridays for the following week.
4. E-mail is great for “breaking action” news or changes to the weekly schedule. It shouldn’t be sent out more than twice a day, if at all possible. Teachers should check their e-mail BEFORE class begins and AFTER school ends before they go home. If you have to scroll down, then usually that means the e-mail is too long.
5. Lastly, I liked to reinforce the e-mails (or late breaking news) with written messages in a central place where all staff members check-in at least twice daily (the mailbox room usually serves that purpose)

It is hard to emphasize how important information flow is to your school. Constantly search for and solicit input as to how you’re doing in this area. If you don’t ask, you won’t know… until it comes back and bites you in the rear… So people, let’s get out there and communicate!

What are your thoughts on this communication plan?  Too much, too little?  What should YOU do?

Goals. Objectives. Timelines. Accreditation. Scores. Comparisons, Whispering. Talking. Pointing. Snickering.    “Oh, you’re at THAT school.”

“Well, we’re just the Red-headed step child” (please excuse me if you’re a redhead… just quoting the saying), “It’s always been this way”, “Good luck with that”, etc…

“Welcome…”   You can almost hear them thinking “we’ll see how long you stay”.

“Oh, we’re reorganizing the schedule again.  Greaaaaaaaat…..” (with eye roll)

Your first faculty meeting and all of the faces look like this:

X  X          X  X          X X

 0               0               0

If you’re the new principal (or even a principal who’s been there for awhile) and your school is not fully accredited or making the progress that standardized testing says you should be. (that’s another story for another post) then we need to talk about how to deal with that.

First of all, everyone know that the school is not accredited. Parents, teachers, central office, and even students know that the school is not fully accredited. That doesn’t mean that they don’t care. Actually, in the students’ case, they may not fully comprehend accreditation, so they may not care. However, that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to do well. It’s our job to make sure that we provide engaging quality lessons and build relationships with our students. If we do that, full accreditation won’t be far behind, and even more importantly, we will have a school full of students who are happy and learning.

Parents are the same way. They may hear that their child’s school is not fully accredited, but much more important to them is if they feel that their child is learning, getting a quality education and that their child is having a good experience. They care about their child’s happiness.

The people who feel the “monkey on their back” the most is the teachers. They feel they are constantly being lectured, “professionally developed”, monitored, harassed, tortured,etc…   Only a little of that may be true, but the fact remains that in a lot of places you may be working at a school that is not fully accredited. What does that mean to you, as the leader of this school?

If you are the leader of a school that is not fully accredited, you need to celebrate ALL success. Not just wait until the BIG goal of full accreditation is reached. People need to feel like they’re making progress. People don’t need to feel beaten down. I always like to have some good points to talk about at each faculty meeting. I like to point out positive things that I’ve seen happening in classes as I’ve walked around. Positive e-mails of good things happening are great. Having a bulletin board in the mailroom where teachers and staff can post positive notes about their colleagues and their work or help is also a great way to motivate people. Of couse, if you’re REALLY into it, the ol’ “let-the-kids-build-an-ice cream-sundae-on-your-head” trick works wonders. I should know, I’ve done it… and yes, it’s a mess and sticky.

I’ve learned that celebrating the positive is a motivating force! People want to improve and be their best. It’s your job to show them the way, give them the steps, help them along the way. Be positive and celebrate those “baby steps” of improvement. Pretty soon, the trickle of improvement becomes a tidal wave of quality!  People who feel good about their jobs, I believe, do a better job than those who go to work feeling down about their school.

What ways can you add to my list of how to celebrate improvement? Come on, post and share!