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Congratulations on reaching the end of Module 2 of the Instructional Leadership Challenge. Before we move on to Module 3, I wanted to address some of the most common challenges and frequently asked questions about getting into classrooms, so nothing stands in your way as you get started.
The first question is, what if I’m in a very small school, and three visits a day gets me through my whole staff very quickly? You might be wondering, won’t teachers get sick of me if I visit their classes that often?
Our goal is to get around to each teacher about once every two weeks, and for most people, that means about three visits per day. But if you’re in a very small school, and have only, say, a dozen or so teachers, that means you’re going to see everyone at least once a week, and in some cases twice a week. That may be too much, so if that’s your situation, you can certainly adjust your number of visits per day so you stay on a two-week rotation. Whatever you do, visit teachers in the same order each time, and make sure you aren’t skipping anyone.
One of our participants in the High-Performance Instructional Leadership Certification Program was concerned about this, but decided to go ahead and make three visits a day every day, even though she only had ten teachers. Over the course of the year, she made 506 classroom visits, which means she saw each teacher more than once a week. And I can tell you – nothing bad happened. So do what works for you, but shoot for a two week rotation.
The second question is, what if my office staff needs me? How can I get into classrooms without making them feel like I’m not supporting them in case of emergencies, or irate parents, or whatever they have to deal with? Well, this isn’t too big a mystery, because they already manage somehow when you’re out of the building for meetings, or doing supervision duty, or otherwise unavailable.
What you might want to do is have a conversation, and talk about your goals for getting into classrooms, and when it’s OK to interrupt you and when it’s not. Your office staff is probably already used to the idea of not interrupting you when you’re doing a scheduled formal observation, since they know what a pain it is to reschedule, and visits are actually easier. If your visits are short, it’s easy for people to wait a few minutes while you make your way back to the office, and often, if you need to cut a visit short because something comes up in the office, it’s not a big deal. The office staff can still text you, or call you on the radio, or do whatever they usually do to contact you when you’re out of the office, and you can make a decision about whether to cut your visit short, or finish it before returning to the office.
Third, what about student discipline? Often, this is the biggest barrier to getting into classrooms consistently, because kids don’t always have meltdowns at convenient times. But here, again, a little flexibility goes a long way. If you’re in the middle of a visit when your office staff calls about a misbehaving student, you can use your professional judgment, together, and decide what to do.
Sometimes you’ll need to go and deal with the situation right away. For example, in my school, if a student with an IEP was having a meltdown, and I got a phone call, that was usually something that I’d drop everything to go and deal with, because I knew if they called me, which was unusual, it must be serious.
In other cases, though, kids get sent to the office for issues that may be serious, but not necessarily urgent. If they have to wait five or ten minutes while I finish up a classroom visit, that’s not a bad thing, and in fact, they may have a chance to calm down while they wait. It’s just a judgment call in the moment.
So even if you deal with discipline all day long, I want you to know that you can still get into classrooms every day. But it’s a mindset shift – instead of thinking, I’ll get into classrooms if nothing else comes up, tell yourself, I’m going to get into classrooms no matter what. And if you do, you’ll still take care of all the discipline and other issues you have to deal with.
In fact, the more you get into classrooms, the less discipline you’ll have to deal with in the office. One of our participants, a middle school assistant principal named Sam, decided he was going to get into classrooms every period of every day, and pretty soon, students realized there was no reason to act up in class, because there was a good chance Sam would drop by while they were acting up! Over the course of the school year, Sam made a total of one thousand, one hundred and seventy-three visits, and I had the chance to interview him about this experience for Principal Center Radio. There’s a link below this video if you’d like too listen to our conversation. As Sam described it, his classroom visits created a snowball effect in which more time in classrooms meant fewer discipline referrals, which meant more time to spend in classrooms.
Fourth, you might be wondering, what if teachers don’t like the idea of having me in their classrooms more often? What if they call the union, or complain to my boss or the school board?
A lot of how teachers react to your visits comes down to whether it’s a good experience or a bad experience, and for a lot of teachers, having administrators show up has always been a negative experience. So it’s your job, in the first three cycles, to get started on the right foot, and make sure that teachers are glad to see you most of the time. So hold off on the tough feedback, and don’t show up with a clipboard or forms, ever. And don’t bring a laptop or take notes until your third cycle of visits. Now, you may still have a few people who don’t want you in their classrooms no matter how positive you make your visits, but that’s why you’re the boss. So if you need to, you can always say, look, as an administrator, it’s my job to be in classrooms, and as your supervisor, I need to know how to best support you, so I’m going to be in classrooms. If you’re in a situation where your union is especially aggressive, or if you have a teacher who’s fighting you tooth and nail, you may want to talk to your supervisor and human resources, and take a close look at your teacher contract to be sure you’re on the same page.
Fifth, what about all that work that’s not getting done back in the office when you’re out visiting classrooms?
Well, as we explored in Module 1, the better you’re able to stay current with that work by keeping it organized, the less stress you’ll experience, and the faster you’ll be able to get it done. So if you feel like you’re falling behind because you’re in classrooms so much, focus first on getting yourself current – that is, caught up on getting your email, paperwork, and to-do list organized, before you dive into actually doing that work. The work never ends – there’s an infinite number of tasks you could be working on – and you’ll make the best decisions about what to focus on at any given time if you’re organized and on top of it.
If you’d like to go deeper on any of these topics, or if you’d like my full system for getting into classrooms and having feedback conversations that change teacher practice, check out my book Now We’re Talking! 21 Days to High-Performance Instructional Leadership.
That’s it for now. I’m Justin Baeder, and I’ll see you in Module 3, where we’ll talk about the conversations you have with each teacher as you visit classrooms. Thanks so much for being part of the Instructional Leadership Challenge.
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