MS/HS Principals Statewide Mentoring Meeting Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Outcomes:  Grow your professional network;  Process start of the year;  Explore goal-setting strategies and tools;  Consider strategies for dealing with difficult staff;  Increase awareness regarding legal issues;  Reflect on how to engage staff in effective professional learning; and  Identify strategies for improving individual leadership-life fit.

Grounding our work today… What items on your entry plan (or beginning of the year plan) have you successfully completed and where is your next area for focus? What barriers have you encountered? How might your colleagues at the table support you?

Developing our Learning Community Setting Goals and Supporting Professional Learning

Success Analysis Protocol 1. Groups of First person shares his/her goal-setting tool/strategy/article/etc., how it is used, why it’s successful, and/or what might need tweaked (4 minutes) 3. Group processes by asking questions and offering insights (4 minutes). 4. Repeat steps two and three until all six colleagues have shared.

NextNext Presenter

Group Processing  After everyone has shared, discuss what was learned by the analysis and the implications for your work as leaders. (5 minutes)  Debrief the protocol  How did the process work for your group?  How could it be improved?  How might you use this with your teachers and or other groups?

Break! Grow your professional network—choose a new table !

Working Productively with Difficult Staff School Administrators of Iowa Secondary Principal Statewide Mentoring Meeting Kirk Johnson, Principal Waukee High School

Guiding Questions-Leadership Here’s what leadership is not: having a moral conviction and then not acting on it because “the system” that created the very injustice you are fighting against won’t let you. Here’s what leadership is: standing courageously in the face of injustice until you bend the system to your moral conviction.

Guiding Questions-Leadership Here’s my encouragement to you today: Don’t waste your time, talent, and treasure on those not showing leadership regardless of the cause. Time is one thing they are not making more of. Redeem the time instead. Spend your time, talent and treasure on those (regardless of the cause) demonstrating real leadership. They are the ones we eventually name public buildings, churches, and our children after. -- Steve Deace (2013)

Guiding Questions-Relationships

(7) Habits of Attitude & Action 1.Being an assertive administrator 2.Being a character builder 3.Being a communicator 4.Nurturing a positive school culture 5.Being a contributor 6.Conducting assertive interventions 7.Doing it today

1. Being an Assertive Administrator ●Hesitant - Assertive ○ Self-reflect (1 being seldom, 5 being always) ●Do you... ○ Recognize the importance of boundaries and are you able to stay connected to others? ○ Acknowledge and learn from your successes and failures? ○ Make realistic promises and commitments to staff and are you able to keep them?

1. Being an Assertive Administrator (cont.) ●Can you? ○ Handle anger, hostility, put-downs and lies from staff without undue distress? ○ Say no to and stick to a position (while not needing to have your own way)? ○ Compromise and negotiate with staff in good faith? Caution: loss of perspective could classify you in aggressive category!

2. Being a Character Builder ●10 Commandments ○ Relationship between teaching & principalship and the (10) ●Opportunity will exist for the (10) to happen ○ Trustworthiness, integrity, authenticity, respect, generosity, and humility can guide you through.

3. Being a Communicator ●Communicate expectations, offer support, suggest options, and provide instructional resources. vs. ●Fixing dysfunctionality - counseling, therapy, conversation that leads to therapeutic tone.

4. Nurturing a Positive School Culture ●Culture: the norms and expectations for how things are done and people act in an organization. ●Climate: how members of the school community feel about the current status of a cultural norm.

4. Nurturing a Positive School Culture (cont.) ●How is culture and climate affected by us? By our decisions? By our lack of decisions? ●Process a situation where you have worked around a school leader that (+) or (-) impacted the school culture and climate. Do this in your pair. ○ How did this school leader positively impact culture or climate? ○ How did this school leader negatively impact culture of climate?

5. Being a Contributor ●Servant-leader, encourager, reflective, humble. Look in the mirror! ○ You are responsible and accountable for (x) number of students and (x) number of adults. ●Jim Collins: “Get the right people on board (in the right seats), confront of the brutal facts, and establish a culture of discipline in which doing the right thing is built into the culture.”

6. Conducting Assertive Interventions ●“If you never stepped on anybody’s toes, you never been for a walk.” Kingsolver

7. Doing it Today (3) Windows of opportunity to deal with most serious problems: 1.When you begin a new principalship. 2.During the induction of newly hired or transferred teachers. 3.The moment a new problem arises or you notice a recurrence of a previous problem.

LUNCH !

Reminders from the Legal Vortex Matt Carver, SAI

Discussion Panel: Engaging Staff in Professional Learning Jimmy Casas, Bettendorf Joel Beyenhof, Lewis Central Kevin Range, Spirit Lake Becky Hacker-Kluver, Webster City

Discussion Panel  What role do you play in planning for and/or providing/facilitating professional learning in your building?  How do you determine a focus for professional learning?  What structures/schedules do you have in place to support professional learning?  How do you monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of your professional learning?

Break! Grow your professional network--choose a new table !

Leadership-life Fit Dana Schon, SAI

By the end of this segment, participants will have…  Revisited the concept of balance as compared to fit  Identified strategies for reducing stress and creating an ebb and flow that works for you

Challenging the Notion of Work-life Balance M05yxs

The Notion of Balance…  Is discussed most frequently discussed in the negative  Keeps us focused on the problem rather than the solution  Assumes we are all the same  Infers there is a “right” answer  Leads us to judge  Results in unproductive guilt  Suggests the goal is a split between work and life  Leaves no room for periods where there is more work and less life and vice versa; and  Ignores the constantly changing reality of work and life

You are one person, so there is no need to try to separate your personal life from your work life.

Why a work-life fit?  Honors our unique situations throughout various points in our lives  Leads us to inspire  Recognizes multiple options based upon each person’s current circumstance  Acknowledges the ebb and flow of life’s events  Values flexibility

Strategies for a Better Fit  Schedule Your Life – both work and free time  Create Lists – Know what needs to be done and put it on your schedule  Set priorities – Complete the most important things first  Create Systems for anything you do more than twice  Know when to say No – Delegate and stop trying to do it all.

Keep working to find your leadership-life fit!!

Final Thoughts & Evaluation Next Meeting: January 30, 2014