Principals

One of the things Dr. Closen prompted us to think about is why principals don't do the things that they've been trained to do. I've begun to wonder how personal fears play into this. Are administrators afraid of failure, conflict with students, parents, teachers, central office, of taking risks, or of being disliked or judged? Do successful administrators simply deal with their fear or are they fearless? As I've thought about these things I've wondered how I'm going to combat my personal fears when the stress is high.

For those of you who are near the end of the program, do you have any advice for the rest of us? Those of you who are already in more administrative like positions, how do you combat those fears? Do you have any advice for future administrators?

IIRC

I thought using the Illinois Interactive Report Card on Sunday was very helpful. Each time I use that website in class I learn about a new feature it has. It was interesting to look up all the different information in regards to districts. Obviously the ability to be able to do this will come in handy in the future.

Hiring Personnel

Creating the questions for hiring a person for a specific position was eye opening. I have been interviewed many times for positions and never thought the questions were designed for a specific position. It does make sense to create these type of questions. I don't think any of my interviews have been tailored to the position. As far as creating the questions that was more difficult than I imagined. Trying to create questions that deal specifically with the position and also covering the "generic" areas was difficult. Having a bank of questions that specifically target positions in your building would be a very productive and useful project. I, also, have not thought of the 2nd or 3rd level of references. That is a tremendous idea because possibly the first or second contact may not divulge all the info. while the 3rd may not feel any obligation to the individual and provide info. that is necessary that will "make or break" that candidate's chance of getting the position and assist the principal or H.R. in making a decision that benefits the district, school and students. Hiring the right people that "fit" into the building culture and that the principal has confidence in to meet the goals of the school and district is essential to providing a positive and productive atmosphere within the school.

Hiring Process

I think most principals have a standard set of interview questions that they ask. They ask the same questions no matter what position the teacher is interviewing for. This weekend helped me find ways for developing interview questions that relate to the subject being taught. Also another thing that sticks out from the weekend is the statement "follow your gut feeling".

Black and White

I am a believer! Since I have taken on the role as Dean of Students at Canton High School, I have seen the grey in education. Grey is everywhere. I have also seen others try to be black and white with discipline and their educational philosophy. Those individuals can turn students away in a heartbeat and get little results. I have learned so much in past 4 months. I have also realized the number of people involved in an issue directly relates to how grey the issue becomes. For example, the facebook “hate” page issue dealt with a middle school student, 3 high school students, county deputy, school resource officer, high school administration, and the off-campus college faculty and administration. This incident took around 11-12 hours of discussion, phone calls, and paperwork before it was finally over. It was very difficult to get anything else accomplished over a 3-day span. During this time, I realized that one of my areas to work on is how to prioritize my job duties.

I enjoyed discussing interview questions on Sunday. There were several things I had seen aministrators do in interviews that I had questions about. I also enjoyed working with my group on open ended questions. I recently sat in on an interview and I was wondering about the types of questions asked, now I have a much better idea of what types of questions are appropriate and most effective. I also thought the conversation about interviews not being used to compare candidates was interesting. Overall I think the experience of creating interview questions and have the student teacher interviews will be very beneficial.

Saturday October 23, 2010 Class Discussion

I enjoyed learning about other districts across the Quad Cities and how much interaction/involvement comes from central office. I entered the class with a formed opinion on how much involvement central office should have within the school building. I have gained some practice in the role of teacher-in-charge in our building. In this role I have had experiences dealing with several different discipline problems within our small elementary student body. From these experiences I have learned that our central office does a lot of decision making; as well as follow-through when it comes to student discipline. I have a strong feeling that a principal should have the right to discipline students as they see fit for the culture and climate of the particular school building. After all isn't our main role to keep our students and staff safe? I did however change my opinion about curriculum and instruction and the role of central office. I can now understand why in a district as large as Davenport there is a need for a "pacing guide". I understand the idea of a uniformed curriculum to maintain the high rate of mobility in our district. Unfortunately I do not think a solution can be made for an effective "uniformed" implementation of the curriculum.
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Hiring Process

I did not realize how hard it is to develop questions that will try to elicit enough of a response that you can make a good judgement on whether to hire the candidate or not.  I agree with many of the others in that it is such an important task to hire the right person; unfortunately, depending on the size, location, pay, etc., it is not always easy to select from a large number of applicants.

I would like to think positively that administrators and school boards select a candidate based on their credentials, experience, etc., but I think knowing the right people plays a lot into the selection process as well.

Hiring Process

I believe that the hiring process can improve/hamper your school district in hurry. The wrong decision or not following your gut could lead to big problems. It's important to have the questions ready and do your homework and check ALL references. In my recent experiences it seems that we hire new teachers and don't mentor them properly. We have sent teachers to mentor training but I don't see any improvements to helping our new teachers. I am looking forward to our mock interviews next class and would like to talk about what happens after the hiring process. What happens next and what about mentoring? How often does the principal perform walkthroughs and informal observations and evaluations. I could relate to the "spillover" effect. You see this on many professional teams where they bring in the "wrong" guy and the team goes the wrong way.

Hiring on Paper

The hiring process is the most crucial aspect of success. It really does not matter if it is administrators, teachers, coaches, support staff, etc. If you do not have the right person for the job you will not reach the level of success desired. The job model really makes you think about what you want accomplished as well as who you want to help reach those accomplishments. If proper time is not spent doing this you will end up settling for less. Putting it on paper helps you figure out what it will take to be successful. The other problem though is that some people can really look good on paper and fail in person. That is where the "gut Feeling" comes in. The combination should get you the best options.

need for networking

I think some of the collaborative things we did this weekend strengthened the idea of networking. If an administrator had to do things like job models and forecast the future effects of a community change by him/herself they could be in trouble just to accomplish the task. I found it quite difficult at times to come up with any idea at all when others around me were throwing them out one after the other. I work for a principal that wants to do everything by himself and in turn gets little completed.

Hiring Process

I enjoyed collaborating with team members and identifying appropriate interview questions for the case study. The hiring process is so critical for buildings and discussing scenarios in class and reading chapter six really opened my eyes on how to get to know someone so you can find the right person for a building.

IIRC

I really like the IIRC website. It was so informative. I was amazed with how much info I could find on that website. I wonder how many teachers actually look at this website before applying for a job. It would be useful for the candidates because they can impress the interviewers.

I also like chapter 6 info too. It covered very detailed info for the job selection. As you said, staffing is the most expensive cost in the budget. We the school doesn't do it right, it can cause the school a lot of time and money in the long run. It is better to do it right the first time.

10-24

I really liked the interview preparation, and think that this is something that in the future I will defiantly be using.  I have been involved in interviews before and was uncomfortable with the process.  We walked in with the district checklist, but there were not standard questions to be asked, each person individually came up with some questions before the interview.  There was also no discussion before the interview process of exactly what type of person that we were looking for and what skills they needed.  I consider us to have been lucky that one time we ended up getting a top notch person and another time we got burned, thankfully we were able to get rid of that person quickly. 

Hiring with a Gut Feeling.

I think its amazing how instinctly the human body works with knowing if something is wrong or right based on the vibe one gets from the situation. I hope that in the future I will listen better to my gut feeling when it comes to making decision especially when my decisions will affect the future of so many individuals. Its true what they say about hindsight being 20/20. I can see how being in the trenches may cause a leader to not be able to see the big picture or make hassened decisions. At the same time, I think it will be a really interesting challenge for me to be able to have those opportunities to change lives in a positive manner, I can only hope for right now. I will definitely use these techniques in the book as a resource for my future hiring and inquiring endeavors.

Sunday, October 24th

The hiring process is a facinating one to me. As much as we can prepare by knowing what we are looking for and asking all of the right questions, if the candidate is not honest, the system will not work- unless that is we check references everytime.
I am amazed by administrators who do not check references. The amount of time if takes to check them is so minimal compared to the amount of time, money, and energy necessary to fire someone. We know the information- if kids are our priority- and we know that personnel can make or break their educational experience-then we need to take our future responsibility seriously! There will be many factors that will try to steal our focus away from our top priorities so we need to encourage one another to act on what we know to be our primary commitment- the education of the students.

10-24 Interview process

Forming the right committee for interviews should not be overlooked or taken lightly as a principal. The committee should understand the type of candidate that is needed for the open position but also identify candidates that will fit into the vision and mission of the school. Finding a great candidate for a position is often hard but putting together committees that can identify what is best for your organization sometimes may be difficult. As the leader of the organization the hiring process will ultimately determined your success over time.

interview process

Administrators can make quick changes that can impact a school building success by the hiring of new staff. As part of my internship, I was part of the interviewing process for 3 teaching positions and 1 support staff position. This was a great experience during my internship. I actually didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. After sifting through tons and tons of resumes, I found around 6 candidates that I really liked. I actually felt guilty for disguarding some of the resumes and not giving some people an opportunity to get an interview. I had a hard time picking people to interview based solely on words on a paper. Those words are not a true indicator of who will be a great teacher or not. I just had to trust my judgement and go with that gut feeling on who to interview.

Character 10-23-10

When I think about the "rock star" teachers in my building, they each possess good character.  They don't create or contribute to drama.  They are serious about learning and are well-grounded individuals.  They work toward improving ways of doing business in our building.  They also seek help and admit to not "having all the answers".  They collaborate with ALL other staff members and are not ones to complain about things they don't understand like decisions from Central Office.  How do you identify these qualities in an interview?  I have been on many interview committees and been part of bad and good hires.  The last committee I was part of hired what turned out to be a difficult person.  She does not do the things she said she did in her interview.  She refuses to work with certain populations of students.  She tries to give orders to people who are in higher positions than she.  I thought during her interview that she was too good to be true.  It turned out to be true.  I feel sorry for that principal and all the energy he has had to put into her existence. 

Hiring (10-24-10)

If hiring the right person is THE  most important thing a principal can do, I wish there was an interview system that guaranteed a good hire.  It sounds like following your gut is the best gauge we have to hiring the right person.  As I saw in the ppt today, there are models to help with the selection process, but it still boils down to how you feel about the candidate.  That's a lot of pressure.  I wonder if superintendents ever follow the hires of principals to see if there is a pattern of good or bad hires.  Also, I want to learn more about the contents of the HUMANeX "assessment" for hiring great people.  

Oct. 24th-Session 2

I found today's topic of the hiring of personnel process to be of value.  I thought the activity for researching your school needs, developing a job model and developing interview questions was helpful for me as a future principal.  The process that we used was helpful to target specific needs, and to develop questions based on your needs/wants.  I think we get so busy sometime that we throw things together BUT with personnel being your biggest asset, this is an area that you would want to spend the time to get it right!

interviewing procedures

I thought it was interesting to put ourselves in the chair of the building principal as an interviewer.  It was difficult but helpful to have to create a mock opening. The job description listing was the hardest, but I thought it was fun to be able to choose my top 15 questions to ask in an interview.

Pressure to get better

Posting test scores by teacher.


I think that with the idea of posting test scores by teacher is an interesting idea. It's sort of "put up or shut up." However, I teach music and I don't have to prepare kids for testing.

My other thought is what are these teachers afraid of? If you think you can teach then your kids should be learning. The days are over where you can walk into the school, close your door, and teach your kids. You are expected to ensure your kids are learning. I don't know that I would  be opposed to posting scores, but again, I teach music.

The hiring process...

Whoa, baby. There is a ton of prep to do for an interview. I think that if you spend the time to prepare correctly you are going to get a good person. It could be true that if you prepare you will get a good person and if you just walk in with out thinking about who you are looking for you will find yourself getting a person who's lousy.

I wish there was a good resource for interview questions. You have your standard questions, but eh, they can get stale.


Dane Barner

October 23, 2010

I thought the iirc question/job model assignment today was taxing on the brain. However, I did find it helpful to look at the data from a specific school to come up with legitimate elements to focus on for the hiring of new staff. I'm interested to find out if my building administrators actually use a model like this as thier approach to determining staffing needs. My guess is, that even though they have a pretty good idea of the needs, it's more of a nebulous "feeling" about the needs and qualifications, versus a planned description of need based on data. This project was taxing and time-consuming, but I do believe it is a strategy I will use as an administrator because it uses data to support or defy a "hunch" and the building ends up with a much more specific hiring target and questions than I've seen in the hiring committees in which I've been involved.

Personnel Day 2

I really enjoyed putting together the job model and questions. I didn't realize just how difficult it would be to create a job model until we started it. I felt like this was a good experience working on this because I'm sure we'll have to do it in the future.
I'm really looking forward to the actual interview process. I've never been the interviewer before, and I can't wait!

10/24

The group activity was very in lighting but also exhausting. I went into more depth into the IRRC website than I had in the past. This was a good practice for us to create interview questions and the answering process.

Job Model vs. Job Description

In previous classes I have had to review job descriptions, but I have never looked at a job model before. I think the job model is a much more effective tool in identifying the specific needs of the school in relation to the position available. I really liked the idea of working with a group or team of teachers and administrators to create the job model. I also thought that starting with the school demographics, achievement data, and recent trends was an essential first step in creating the job model.

today, i learned something new when using iirc, which will make future data analysis much quicker. i enjoyed working with the other three people to develop the interview questions, job model, etc. overall, a good day.

Decentralized by Default

Coming from a very small school the issue of decentralization is really a moot point for me. With only one school, site-based management is a given, and as the only social studies teacher in the middle school I don't have to worry about pacing or department heads. However hearing the discussion from the larger districts made me think about many issues that a building principal would have to manage in a larger districts to ensure students received a similar education.

Change-webby-circle thing

Change Wheel!

That's what it's called.

I very much like the change wheel we did in class today. I think it can be used in many ways. What you can do is two fold.

1. You can identify things you are going to need or changes you need to make.
2. If you want to go further you can take those threads to a solution.

If you take the change web all the way to a solution, you can start to see the forest for the trees. I can see a group sitting down and writing down all the challenges becoming very negative. But if you instruct the team to follow all of the challenges to a solution they can leave the meeting with a sense that everything might be okay.

Dane Barner

10/23

I liked looking at the standards and webbing of the pork plant. I liked chapter one reading of comparison of both principals and pastors helping people discover their purpose in life, support them, and offer advice. That effective leader helps personnel discover their purpose in life, develop their personal skills, and own the school's vision.

Weekend 1, Day 2

Mentoring?
The article from Education Week, titled "Effective Teachers Found to Improve Peers' Performance," very closely relates to my current position as Instructional Coach. I've been in my new position for a week, and as I understand my role, my responsibilities include facilitating conversations, staff development, and data analysis among the reading teachers to increase student achievement. Having taught for 11 years, I do have some insight into best practice in my subject area, and now I'm working with teachers to raise student test scores.


I've moved from a suburban school back to where I started my teaching career - an urban building with a completely different student population. The teachers here are extremely dedicated first and second-year teachers who are doing "whatever it takes" to help students learn and achieve. They are surprisingly open to suggestions and value conversations about student learning. It's been a wonderful experience for me. I'm excited to continue on this journey and see where it takes me.

6th Sense

It has been described as a gut feeling, an ability to see the future. Whatever you call it in some way shape or form it is a gift to know who the right person to hire is. After sitting in on some interviews it was clear that quality experienced professionals leaders had this "6th" sense of being able to meet, greet, interview, and understand whether that person was going to fit the mold of the staff personal they were looking for.

Saturday, October 23

I found that today, in beginning my last class in the program---holla!----the six standards so many others responded to tonight are very much reinforced throughout the EDL program. While sometimes the terms used to refer to the standards are different, essentially there is a great deal of consistency in the expectations WIU has for developing these standards in its students. The more I learn from profs and other students, the more I value the perspective I gain from class discussions of situations likely to pop up in our adminstrative roles. If nothing else, this perspective gives me a better appreciation for the complexity of the decision-making required of both building and district administrators.

I enjoyed the activity where we used the futures wheel. This is definitely an activity that could be put to use in many different situations.

10/23 Reflection

I find looking at the six ISLLC standards very intriguing and enjoyed the discussion over the concepts of each standard. Often times too many we find ourselves working in environments where these six standards are not consistently followed. I enjoyed the small group discussion, filling in the chart and discussing real-life scenarios relevant to these standards.

10/23

I enjoyed looking at the standards and thinking about how all of these topics work together.  Sometimes we forget that there is a bigger picture than what is right in front of us.  It's not just the school/local community, but the global community that we have to be able to prepare our students for.

I also enjoyed the futures wheel exercise.  This helps us to remember to be proactive, I'm seeing that the futures wheel is a good tool to have when preparing for changes that are coming to our schools.   

Oct. 23rd Reflection

Learning about the standards has created an awareness of what an administrator's responsibilities are. As with the common core standards that teachers need to know to be able to provide meaningful instruction administrators need standards to guide their decisions and actions. With so much tied to student achievement it is necessary to have guidelines that a teacher or administrator have to use to determine if they are going down the right path. I am still amazed at the knowledge and expertice that an administrator needs to be effective. Teachers and administrators truly need to be life long learners to increase student achievement and provide instruction that is effective for students of the 21st century.

standards

I like learning about the standards. They would serve as a good guide for every admin. The one that I think is very important is the Ethics. It is true for everyone, not just administrators. Sometimes, doing a right thing is a hard choice to make but I think in the long run, it is always better to stick with the integrity. Because if we are not ethical, we will lose respect from everyone including ourselves.

I enjoy listening to how others would handle administrative situations. It is easy to second guess the decisions made in my building. When you have time to listen and collaborate with peers, it is beneficial for future use. I got a lot out of the exercise with the administrative standards: vision, learning, environment, community, ethics, and global. I like the small group work and discussion since our class is so large during class discussion.

10/23/2010

I think that the futures wheel was very helpful because it is a real-life scenario activity that allows us to role play from an administrative position.  I also think that the futures wheel can be applied to many other situations which is extremely useful.

Saturday 10/23

The future's wheel I also found beneficial. I think this is a great tool to look at the inner-connectivity of issues and to look at the issues from other angles. By having staff members also perform this process on potential school change, we could have a greater understanding of perspectives.

Sat 10/23

The future wheel is a great brainstorming activity that I can use at athletic staff meetings. Our athletic program is going through some tough times and this activity may identify common problems which may not be so obvious. It will also give some ownership to all the coaches to come up with a plan to address the issues.



Standard 4 the community brought up a good point that I have been considering but have not done up to this point. I need to join a local community group such as the kiwanis. I believe it will help answer some question about our athletic program but will also allow me to develop relationships for when i want to start a fundraiser for a future athletic facility.

Session 1

I really liked the idea of mapping out the change process, the "Future Wheel". I think this really gives you a way to think about the situation and write it out.  I would do this with a group of people in order to generate the most ideas and be able to narrow the ideas down.  It is amazing to me how much alike our future wheels were when we shared ideas.  It was also amazing to me the things that our group didn't come up with that seemed so obvious.  This is a tool you could take to your board so they can see the impact on your school.  It will also help the board to back the decisions you make, based upon the wheel, since they can visualize the full impacts that the change will have on their school/community. 
     I can also see this wheel being used for smaller changes.  I don't think the change has to be large in order to use this tool.

i really benefited from the future wheel activity. for me, it is a great tool to help brainstorm. i also liked working in the small group and with a partner. it is nice to hear ideas from another point of view.

Sat. week 1

I feel that the future wheel activity was effective.  It was beneficial to work with a partner to brain storm issues with a pork plant moving to your school district.  I enjoyed being able to listent to classmates' stories and perspectives.

10/23/10

I enjoy the personal stories shared in class. The experiences shared by Dr. Closen and the class provide examples of "real" administrative problems that involve many of the districts we know of. Reading about problems experienced in books tends to make them fictional and harder to believe. The in-class wheel assignment was helpful. It was unbelievable how many potential problems a district could face that we came up with in just a few short minutes. I imagine the problems would be significantly more substantial with some real research.

Personnel Day 1

Today was very interesting to me. I feel that having a good relationship with school personnel is a HUGE part of being a principal. This effects the climate and success of the building. It's important for teachers to be praised and feel that they're needed and appreciated.
The activity/assignment I'm looking forward to practicing interviews with students who are about to go out into the 'real world.'
--Sarah (with an H, not G) :-)

I really enjoyed the "pork plant" futures map. I grew up in and teach in a district that was definitely a more gradual change but the situation you brought up is essentially what happened in my town. It really makes me wonder if our administration took the time to sort out and consider each of the major changes and decisions that needed to be made. I was young enough at the time that I wasn't too interested in the process, but it would definitely be interesting to look into now. I am certain that it was probably impossible to anticipate every detail of the change but if they started considering the issues it could create early it would have prevented a lot of headaches! I'll have to ask around and look into it and see what I can find out.

Weekend 1 Saturday

I enjoyed the conversations today regarding Human Resources Management. There are so many aspects of HR that are the responsibility of a building administrator. The list we developed in class today was staggering. I hope to take much away from this class, (my last in the program,) but at this point, a key piece seems to be this: Forming critical relationships that allow for transparent conversation and reflection on effective teaching and student achievement is crucial to managing and developing staff members in your building. While difficult in nature, these conversations will be necessary to actively lead change.