Celebrating Progress… Don’t Wait!

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!