Wanted: Amazing Administrators

My View:  Wanted:  Amazing Administrators
By Megan Allen, Special to CNN
Editor’s Note: Megan Allen is a National Board Certified Teacher, 2010 Department of Education/Macy’s Teacher of the Year and a finalist for 2010 National Teacher of the Year. She is also a member of the Hillsborough County New Millennium Initiative, an initiative of the Center for Teaching Quality.
As a professional educator and a teacher leader involved in dialogue about effective education reform, one thing is blaringly evident: At the school level, administration makes all the difference in the world.
When you walk through the doors, you can feel it. You observe how the teachers walk with a lilt in their step, you witness it in the priceless faces of the students. But it’s left me wondering, why all this talk about teacher evaluation? It seems that a much more efficient first move would be to focus on the administrators. Great administrators have the ability to inspire the faculty to push themselves to greatness, finding time and support to do so. A great administrator can build even stronger teachers, while a not-so-hot administrator can make a staff of amazing teachers wilt.
That being said, I’m placing a want ad for an administrator. I’m currently accepting applications. Please read the requirements below:

1. Be visible. In our classrooms, in the hallway, in the community. Shake hands–get out there. Be the lifeblood of our school and the first welcoming face children see as they stroll into our halls.
2. Put people first. We may need to think outside the box, err, office on this one. Let’s hire office administrators from outside education to take care of office-related duties that principals are swamped with. This will free time for you to focus on the people in your building.
3. Make our school comfortable and inviting. Don’t be afraid to make our workplace a home environment. Make people feel welcome. How about a staff member right at the door, greeting all who enter? Or students who open the door for students and families in the morning? These little touches will make us all want to be there even more.
4. Show appreciation. Make your faculty and students feel valued, and not just based on successes with student test scores. I’m talking about celebrating all students’ moments, like “Johnny learned how to button his jacket on his own today.” There are so many precious moments of small and mighty victories. Our students need to be celebrated for these, as does our staff.
5. Forge creative partnerships. We need schools that are true centers of the community, that offer social structures that will support our students’ needs for medical and dental care, food, after-school programs, training for parents on how to advocate for their children, and other services so we can get down to the business of teaching in our classrooms.
6. Be bold. Let’s try out innovative programs and ideas. Trust and support your faculty when they come to you with out-of-the-box thinking. Let’s take some calculated and student-centered chances, believing that we must try something different if we are going to help all children succeed.
7. Be trusting. Let your teachers do their jobs. We don’t need a scripted set of expensive books to teach students how to read - we are professionals who can use classroom data to make decisions. Let us be the professionals that we are. Give us autonomy to make our own decisions based on the standards and our deep knowledge of our students.
8. Love your job. Love kids. A school is not a business. There are so many more layers, and it is much more complex. Our focus is changing students’ lives with the power of education. You must love kids and be willing to fight for them.
9. Give us time. We want to fine-tune our craft as teachers so we can be better for our students. But we need time away from kids. I know this seems counterintuitive, but we need collaborative time to peer coach, lesson plan, lesson study and grow as learners. In Finland, teachers have time to do this, to focus on the craft of teaching. Educators in this top-performing country are in the classroom 600 hours a year, compared to our average in the United States of 1,000. I crave time to grow.
10. Join us in our classrooms. I’m looking for a principal who will jump into my classroom and co-teach with me, who offers to teach on occasion so I can focus on professional development with my peers. I want an instructional leader who yearns to be with students and doesn’t want to lose touch with the reason we all do what we do: children.
11. Inspire me. This is a biggie for me, the most important. I want someone who will push me to get better and who will provide support to help me get there. I want someone who is so passionate it spills over into every classroom in the school.
As I read over my want ad, a smile spreads across my freckled face. I know you’re out there. I can’t wait to work with you. I look forward to our time together with OUR children, where we work hand-in-hand and change lives, one student at a time.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Megan Allen.

Sharing the Same Skin Color

On Thursday, September 29, 2011 The Washington Times had an article about a major new study from the University of Missouri that found that sharing skin color with their principal makes life better for many American teachers. Although the study was focused on black teachers I feel that the findings could also apply to other ethnicities and cultures.

The study found that teachers who shared the same skin color with their principals felt they received more support, encouragement, and recognition from their superiors and were therefore, less likely to leave. The bottom line was that people feel more comfortable with people who look like themselves.

We want to be sensitive to this at Esperanza. Even perceptions are important. Therefore, we want to continually monitor our thinking and our behavior so that all Esperanza eduators feel "invited."

School Air Quality

Received my September/October 2011 copy of Principal yesterday. One of the articles "A Breath of Fresh Air" by Rachel Belew was extremely interesting. It stated in the article that schools with poor indoor air quality experience increased absenteeism (students and staff), decreased student concentration and productivity, and lower student test scores. The greatest offender of air quality is found in the janitor's closet--cleaning products used to disinfect and deodorize schools can emit extremely high levels of potentially harmful chemicals.

The author went on to give 10 principles that would help improve the air quality of a school:

1. Institute a regular green cleaning maintenance and training for administrators, teachers, and staff as well as janitors.
2. Require that walk-off mats be installed in front of every school entrance. They need to be at least 16-18 feet to allow room for about six footsteps.
3. Advise janitorial staff and teachers to avoid cleaning products with added fragrances.
4. Reserve cleaning activities for after-school hours when the building is unoccupied and keep all interior doors open after cleaning.
5. Avoid running the air conditioning system while the windows are open.
6. Instruct teachers to avoid blocking the air returns in their classrooms with furniture or supplies.
7. Instruct your facility manager to install the highest rated MERV (Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value) air filter.
8. Have your facility manager make sure that all indoor air intakes are located away from potential pollution sources such as idling vehicles.
9. Instruct your facility manager to keep relative humidity in the school below 65 percent.
10. Consider TAB (testing and balancing) commissioning for your new or renovated school.

Because no other feature of a school single-handedly touches so many critical issues as indoor air quality does we want to make sure we keep all these things in mind as we starting building Esperanza.

Birthdays Are for Celebrating

Because today is my husband's birthday I have been thinking about birthdays...and how we want to celebrate birthdays at Esperanza. A birthday is special because it is the day to specifically celebrate someone.

For Esperanza students we might want to consider doing the following to celebrate:

• When making the morning announcements the principal can wish students a Happy Birthday who are celebrating their birthday that day.



• One day each week the principal can have lunch with all the students who had a birthday that week. The principal would give each student a small gift, preferably a book that maybe a business partner could help sponsor. Each student would also get a birthday cupcake.

Note #1: For students who have birthdays in the summer their 1/2 birthdays could be celebrated.

Note #2: Teachers would be encouraged to find ways to celebrate birthdays in the classroom.

Note #3: Parents would be encouraged not to bring birthday treats as it disrupts the classroom and it could make students feel left out whose parents don't bring birthday treats.

Birthdays of teachers and staff members also need to be celebrated. Esperanza's social committee could be responsible for how this is to be done. Over and above this the principal might want to find ways she can celebrate the birthdays of staff members.

Finding ways to celebrate birthdays is one way to give inviting "blue cards" to others and thus help make Esperanza Elementary the most inviting place in town.