Procedures, Procedures, Procedures!

Happy New School Year!  After 14 years as a teacher and the last 18 as a principal I decided to retire in July!  I am on the circuit  consulting, coaching, and mentoring new and beginning principals.  I look forward to sharing with you this year some insights on the principalship that I hope will help not only new and beginning principals but veterans as well.  I welcome ideas, comments, and potential topics that would assist and help others.  The work of the principal has become increasingly complex and I hope that I will be able to provide some perspective, assistance, and help in making the work just a little bit easier.

By now, you have your schedules  put together and are waiting for the subsequent revisions that are inevitable.  Many of you are planning or have planned your professional development learning sessions and first faculty/staff meeting.  Remember that Todd Whitaker reminds us to Set Expectations at the Start of the Year.  He reminds us how fortunate we are to be able to start afresh each year.  Start it out right and find a way to focus on building culture and relationships instead of delivering administrivia.  Could you “flip the first meeting” and ensure that the sit and git stuff is shared via podcast, Google doc, or another method and focus on the important stuff of team building, sharing expectations and building  school pride?   Remember that we are the instructional leaders and our job is to model for our teachers outstanding and current teaching and learning methods and strategies.  Here is a link to a document that outlines my expectations and assumptions for staff in a Count on Me, Count on You format that I learned from Debbie McFalone.  Thanks to new principal, Ed Dickenson in Hartford who synthesized the information from an original three page document I used in the past that  outlined assumptions and expectations.  You are welcome to use this document as is or change it to fit your own needs, just remember in order to build relational trust, if you say you are going to do it, then you have to live it..  Count on me, I'll count on you!

The first week of school is always a celebration as we start a new year together.  We know from experience that the teachers who spend the most time on outlining clear procedures, teaching, practicing and reviewing them to mastery spend more time on academic learning  in a school year then behavioral responses.   Harry Wong in his legendary book, The First Days of School:  How to be an Effective Classroom Teacher  taught every educator the importance of discipline, routines, and procedures.  Every teacher must have a signal to get attention, have clearly defined procedures for every event that occurs in the classroom from pencil sharpening, how to go to the bathroom, lining-up, moving from small group instruction to large group, etc.  When teachers spend time focused on teaching, practicing, and reteaching procedures, well over 90% of  behavioral issues are alleviated.

As a first year principal, it didn't take me long to figure out that the job of a principal is similar to a classroom teacher, you just have a much larger class and the main focus is on the adults as well as the children.  By applying the same strategies I employed in the classroom I was able to create a successful school culture.  When we focus on the proactive quadrants of our work, we find ourselves spending less time in the reactive mode.

• Develop school-wide procedures together as a faculty/staff

Principals have to deal with discipline issues that occur in and around the building.  It is essential that as a school family, school wide procedures for entering the building, walking in the hallways, going to the bathroom, playing on the recess yard, eating in the lunchroom, school assemblies and dismissal  procedures have been clearly delineated and agreed upon by all members of the school community.  Randy Sprick furthered Wong's work through the information found in his book  CHAMPS:  A Proactive Approach to Classroom Management by ensuring that voice and body levels are applied to every procedural situation.  Quiet walking in the hallway is determined differently by each person.  Silent walking means absence of sound and means only one thing and can not be interpreted differently.

• Schedule practice for schoolwide procedure training

We can agree upon procedures, have them written out, posted in the hallways, printed in our handbooks, ensure that teachers  teach and remind students in the classroom and  review them with our students in our announcements,  but schoolwide procedures are our responsibility and we must ensure that they are taught and practiced ourselves.  Lunch procedures, recess procedure, and bus procedure practice  must be scheduled  for every student and we are the teacher for these events(with teachers present) or we delegate our trusted playground or lunch personnel to do the teaching,  but we are present at every teaching episode. 

• Set expectations with your students during classroom visits

Each year I would spend a week or two in September visiting every classroom for a half-hour and share my expectations for the year, review schoolwide procedures and model for my teachers that I am the instructional leader and know how to teach our kids!  I would always bring a book that matched my theme to share, sing a song,  and plug in my laptop to utilize technology if appropriate.  Do Unto Otters:  A Book About Manners by Laurie Keller is an excellent book that teaches the golden rule in a fun, responsible manner.  By personally sharing our school expectations, I could remind students later in my office about my visit if a student had forgotten the procedures and needed a reminder.  This is a great way to get to know the kids personally and begin the difficult process of learning every kid's name.

• Post schoolwide procedures visually

The children can write these for you on large chart paper and use pictures as reminders, they can be laminated and posted throughout the building.  Bathroom procedures can be posted above urinals and in stalls.  Visual pictures ensure that all students: non-readers, ASD students and readers can be reminded to understand and follow procedural expectations.

• Be extremely visible during every transition and schoolwide procedural episode

It is extremely exhausting, but we need to monitor every possbile transition, lunch episode, recess time, and bathroom episode that we can the first weeks of school.  Our presence to praise and ensure that students are following the procedures is essential.  Our presence ensures that teachers are applying  consistent application of hallway walking procedures, at doors to greet children, and on time to greet the children from recess, as well.  The time spent doing this in September will pay off for the rest of the year!

• Review, reteach and revisit schoolwide procedures often

We learned from Sprick that every time a student doesn't follow a procedure they need to review it and practice it immediately.  Technology has been helpful in this department.  Having students watch videos of procedures that have been taped and then demonstrating the ability to apply the proper procedure saves time.  We can also utilize these procedure  videos as review, during all-school announcements if you have presentation equipment in classrooms.  Sprick reminds us that teachers should reteach and practice  procedures before and after every vacation event.  As principals, we need to ensure that our support personnel and/or we do the same with schoolwide procedures.

The time we spend ensuring that schoolwide procedures are  taught, practiced, and implemented well can minimize many of the trivial behavioral concerns that arise because students don't know what it looks like and sounds like to follow the expectations that we have set as a school.  As the instructional leader, it is our job to model the importance of routines and procedures and create a caring, safe school culture.

Tip of the week:  Use a good picture book that follows your theme and read it to your staff to jump start a staff meeting.  Read the introduction from Philip Done's hilarious book 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny.  Every teacher will relate.  Read the chapter aloud about different types of teacher classrooms and the chapter when he gets his tie stuck in the laminating machine.  You won't want to stop reading and your teachers will find out that you can make learning engaging!  Have your favorite?  Send me the title, include the theme and I will make a list to share with all.  Until next time, happy trails to you!