Advancing the Vision - Leaders of Learning

In my last post, we saw examples of how teachers advanced the vision of helping all students feel loved and safe by building the foundation of safety in their classrooms through teaching and practicing procedures and expectations.  This is exactly what it takes to build the school we want to work in!  It takes every person, moment by moment, intentionally making decisions that align with our goals and mission. This personal leadership is key.  In my email greetings to you, I often write Dear Leaders.   This is not by accident.  You ALL are the leaders of the school. You lead through your attitude, your actions, and your collaboration with colleagues.

In addition to teachers leading independently within the 4 walls of their classrooms, to advance our vision, teachers must lead in the conference room.   According to Dufour and Marzano in Leaders of Learning, leadership in schools is a group activity linked to our teaching practice.  It's having critical conversations together in which brainstorm ways to meet a child's needs. It's an RTI meeting in which we put heads together to figure out which intervention we should try. Leadership is a PLC team setting goals for attendance or proficiency. Dufour and Marzano write that leadership is not an individual activity linked to a person.  The results we are seeking as a school cannot possibly be achieved by your own efforts alone.  It's not a solo act.  it's a team performance.

The importance of having team instructional conversations cannot be overstated.  We talked about how on opening day that the principals of the most successful schools have an average of 14 instructional conversations a day.  As we began our PLC meetings this week, it was amazing and awesome to begin these conversations with you and I look forward to more opportunities in the future!  I'll be setting up a "formal" opportunity for one-on-one instructional conversations after labor day,  so we can talk about your goals for the year, your baseline iready data, and anything else that might be on your hearts or minds.  (I'll give you the information you will need to be prepared for those conversations at our PLC meetings this week). 

Please be sure the conversations you have this weekend ARE NOT instructional! Take some time to rest and renew and spend time with those you love.  Have a fantastic weekend, Panthers!