Go see the principal, p.1
Go See the Principal, page 1
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by Gerry Brooks
Cover design by Andrew Brozyna
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Da Capo Press
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104
www.dacapopress.com
@DaCapoPress
First Edition: July 2019
Published by Da Capo Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBNs: 978-0-7382-8506-1 (paperback); 978-0-7382-8507-8 (ebook)
E3-20190314-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction: A Note from the Principal’s Desk
PART 1
Before the Bell Rings: Setting Up Teachers, Parents, and Administrators for a Great Year
1 “But I Don’t Want to Go Back to School!” Principal Tips for Motivating and Bonding Your Team
2 Classroom Placement: The Methods to Our Madness
3 School Supplies: Yes, We Really Need All That Stuff
4 Age-Appropriate Behavior: Finding Your Perfect Grade
5 Busing: How Parents, Teachers, and Administrators Can Keep Those Wheels Going ’Round
PART 2
Class Is in Session: How Administrators and Parents Can Let Teachers Teach
6 First Day of School: Lights, Cameras (So Many Cameras), Action!
7 Curriculum: Putting the “Can” in “Canned”
8 Assessments: A Necessary Evil, or So I Am Told
9 School Rankings: Look Beyond the Grade
PART 3
Meals, Snacks, and Other “Derlicious” Things
10 Lunchtime: Don’t Bring Me No Lunchable to Open. Just Don’t.
11 Allergies: Don’t Let a Kid Go to the Hospital Because You Couldn’t Come Up with a Peanut-Free Meal for Your Child
PART 4
Specials: Other Ways Kids Learn
12 Social Workers: Why Children and Parents Need Them More Than Ever
13 Social-Emotional Learning: Positive Culture Starts with the Grown-ups
14 Reading Intervention: Catching Kids Early to Set Them Up for Later Success
15 Technology and Social Media: A Double-Edged Sword
16 Gifted and Talented Programs: Be Careful What You Wish For, Parents
17 Body Growth and Development and School: When Private Parts Become Public
PART 5
The Principal’s Office: What Makes It Run and What Drives Us Crazy
18 The Principal Is Your Pal: Or Should Be, Anyway
19 School Office: The Brains of the Operation
20 The School Nurse: Administrating Band-Aids and Eyerolls
21 Professional Development: Teaching Teachers for as Long as Their Attention Spans Will Allow
PART 6
Notes Home: Strengthening the Parent/Teacher Connection
22 A Two-Way Street: How Parents and Teachers Can Better Communicate on an Ongoing Basis
23 Parent-Teacher Conferences: Some Basic Rules
24 Report Cards: Only Part of the Bigger Picture
PART 7
Extracurriculars: Fun at School
25 Sports: They’re Great (but Not That Great)
26 Holiday Parties: It’s the Most Exhausting Time of the Year
27 Gifts: Never Necessary, Always Appreciated
28 Goodie Table Day: Christmas for the Principal
PART 8
Code of Conduct—for Grownups
29 When Teachers Are Off the Clock: Somebody’s Always Watching
30 Cliques, Drama, and Temper Tantrums: Parent-Teacher Associations
31 Pickup and Drop-off: An Exercise in Humanity
32 Summer Break: For Some People, Anyway
PART 9
Extra Credit: Lessons for Life and School
33 Dismissal: Final Thoughts from the Principal
Discover More
Glossary
Answer Key: Teachers Teaching Teachers
With thanks to Claire Zulkey for the writing assistance.
Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.
Tap here to learn more.
Introduction
A Note from the Principal’s Desk
I’m an educator who has taught every elementary school grade, with the exception of kindergarten.* I’ve spent six years in the classroom, two years as an intervention specialist, and 12 years as an administrator, plus time as a youth minister. These days, I’m the principal of Liberty Elementary school in Lexington, Kentucky. I’m proud to say that since I arrived in 2014, the school has made great progress as we began to prioritize climate and culture throughout the building. When I came to the school, we were just below the middle of the pack when it came to state testing for our district. With an amazing staff, we quickly moved up the ranks into a proficient rating within one year.
We’ve steadily improved each year, gaining more knowledge of what our students need to grow both academically and emotionally. While I believe I helped set the stage for improvement, I do not in any way take credit for the high achievement at Liberty. That’s all due to the hard work of a dedicated staff.
I believe creating a culture of respect, support, and encouragement helps our staff focus on what’s more important: the students. When this happens, everything else falls into place.
Education was a natural career path for me. Growing up in Rockledge, Florida, I was an outgoing kid. I valued attention, having lots of friends, and involvement in school activities. When it came to summer jobs, I preferred to babysit, teach swim lessons, or work as a camp counselor rather than, say, bag groceries at Kroger. I enjoyed spending time with kids and thrived under the responsibilities and opportunities for leadership that come with those jobs. As an undergraduate at Troy University in Alabama figuring out what to do with my life, it was an easy decision to pursue a career in education. Unlike my father, a school coach who resented having to spend time as a teacher, I truly enjoyed my work.
However, teaching can be stressful, even when you love it. After a fantastic first year at Liberty, I noticed that the mood of the school and teachers changed radically in the spring of 2015. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what happened until I began to listen to conversations about an upcoming state assessment.
By far, the most stressful aspect of education is the pressure we feel from assessments—note the “s” on that word! Nonstop assessments are a regular part of education today. Teachers often have to sacrifice up to six weeks of daily instruction to cram required assessments into their school days. Confident, skilled teachers at Liberty were now in “What if I didn’t do enough?” mode, wondering (more like panicking) about how their students would perform. The staff was stressed in a way I hadn’t seen before.
I couldn’t figure out how to help. One day, as usual, I got to school at 5:00 a.m. because… well, basically because no one is there to bother me that early. In those days, I walked the building every morning for 30 minutes to get some much-needed exercise. As I paced through the halls that late April, I walked by blank walls and empty bulletin boards with no student work on them. That reminded me of how ridiculous our state assessment system had become—the state of Kentucky requires us to put away all instructional materials from our classrooms before state assessments, including things posted in the hallways, because, you know, we wouldn’t want a student to go to the bathroom during an assessment and suddenly learn how to add fractions because of a hallway display that might accidentally help him do better on the state assessment!
I decided a way to break the stress would be to create a short video for the staff where I’d pretend to call out the art teacher’s bulletin board in the hallway because she had left some staples in the corkboard. I stood in front of her bulletin board, which was completely blank aside from some purple background paper, a green border, and some offending staples, and lectured:
I know you aren’t used to this because you are an art teacher and all… but here at Liberty we don’t help students on state testing by leaving things on the walls. I have noticed you left some staples up, and when students see staples, they are going to begin to think, “I went to Staples to get a computer and there weren’t many there, so I had to push my way through the day so that’s an example of scarcity.” So, these staples need to come down.
I wanted to remind our staff how dumb the situation had become. I hoped the half-minute video would relieve the stress of testing and lighten the mood of a fantastic staff that had doubted how much they had accomplished in the previous eight months.
While videos like these were origi
Since I posted my first video, what started as a way to entertain my friends, family, and staff members has grown into a second career, as I’ve been invited to speak at a number of educational conferences and engagements around the country to commiserate with and motivate other educators.
I think the videos connect with people—teachers especially—not only because I use a funny accent but because behind each humorous topic is something real that affects educators. For instance, I made a video about teacher bathroom etiquette after the alarming experience of walking in on a substitute teacher on the toilet because she had neglected to lock the bathroom door.
Bathrooms are funny; that’s why there’s a whole genre of humor devoted to them. But when I show that film at educational conferences, I use it to illustrate the larger point of why it’s important for a school’s staff to get on the same page.
The stakes of our jobs are high, which is why I feel strongly that administrators, teachers, staff, and parents can more effectively create a positive atmosphere at school.
Kids rely on school staff in ways you wouldn’t even think of. We have a teacher at Liberty who matches everything she wears to her clothes: her shoes, her watch, her jewelry. Sometimes in the hallway she’ll run into a girl who dresses the same way. They’ve built a relationship even though they’re not in the same class. It may seem like a small thing, but that connection strengthens that young girl’s confidence, security, and attitude toward learning.
STAFF BATHROOM ETIQUETTE RULES
There is a lock on the door for a reason. Make sure you click the bathroom lock. If you don’t hear click, it’s not locked. It’s very traumatizing to walk in on a staff member in the bathroom.
When the toilet paper is gone, call the custodian. Don’t just leave and not tell anyone because the next person that comes in doesn’t realize there’s no toilet paper and it causes… some stress.
If you share a bathroom, and you have fluffied up that bathroom with lace and flowers and generic Longaberger baskets, put something manly in there so the men will feel welcome. Like a bobble head or a superhero poster.
If you happen to have bathrooms where there’s one for men’s and one for women’s, don’t yell at the men when there is a line at the women’s bathroom. That is not our fault. And stop trying to sneak into the men’s bathroom. If we snuck into the lady’s bathroom you would say “Gross.” So stop sneaking into the men’s bathroom. Gross.
Most important, air freshener don’t make the air fresher. Stop spraying 42 seconds worth of air freshener. It’s just making things worse.
If you have taco Tuesday at your house, Wednesday might be a good day for you get a doctor’s appointment, so you could be off school and bless everyone.
We make a difference in kids’ lives—and the lives of their parents—that we can see daily. When you’re negative, the kids are negative, and when you’re happy and work well together, the children and parents feed off that energy. These kids are all future adults in our community. What kind of people do we want to send out in the world? Positive people who work out their problems, or negative, angry young adults? What we model for them makes a big difference.
Administrators, teachers, and parents don’t always have to agree, but they need to reach an understanding through communication, compassion, and compromise.
It’s pretty simple.
When you communicate, school teams talk through every decision and everybody gets a say. Imagine five teachers trying to plan a Valentine’s Day party and four of them want to have cake, show a movie, and do a craft where all the kids decorate a box, but the fifth teacher says, “That’s not what I want to do in my classroom.” Instead of the other teachers steamrolling her, or that teacher getting passive-aggressive about it, the group needs to clarify, “This is exactly what I think. What do you all think? Why do we think this?”
When we have compassion toward one another, we consider the reasons for people’s opinions. Why doesn’t that teacher want to do the same party? Can she not afford the time? Will she not be able to get the same parent support other teachers get? Does she think it’s going be chaotic and overwhelming? We have to remember that there are valid reasons for people’s opinions.
When we compromise, we see a positive result. I think too often people forget that it’s okay to walk away disagreeing, as long as they’ve communicated and exercised compassion first. If the end result is, “My party will look like this and your party will look like that,” as long as everybody understands that, we’re good.
But even schools with great atmospheres have bad days—when lesson plans fall through, when parents call us irate because they don’t like the way something was handled at recess, when kids throw tantrums because they have to use the same spoon for their applesauce and mashed potatoes, and of course, assessments—when we need humor to get us through the week.
At my teacher events, I like to show the videos to get everyone laughing, and then I talk more seriously about how important it is to get everyone—parents, teachers, and administrators—on the same page. I hope to do the same here in this book—use humor to share what I’ve learned during my time in education and what I’ve learned from other educators—so we can all literally be on the same page.
There are many opportunities for improvement in a child’s educational life, so in this book I try to address each of them and call out how administrators can better support teachers, teachers can better communicate with parents, and parents can better understand their child’s teacher—all in the spirit of serving students.
My goal is to empower educators in order to empower all of us. I’m here to motivate and advocate, and I hope to inspire not just other teachers and administrators, but anyone who’s ever known a teacher—who has ever been positively impacted by a teacher—to do the same.
Suriously.
* Because I’m not insane. I love that kindergarteners all want to be your best friend, but the “um, um, um, um” that permeates their conversations is just one straw too many for me.
PART 1
BEFORE THE BELL RINGS
Setting Up Teachers, Parents, and Administrators for a Great Year
1
“BUT I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL!”
Principal Tips for Motivating and Bonding Your Team
The first day of school is always a momentous occasion for parents and kids. Teachers also get swept up the excitement—even though their first day occurs a few days earlier—without many “first day of school” photos and hardly any tears.
I think opening day for teachers should be as fun and exciting as humanly possible. It’s the first time your whole staff gathers together, which presents a tremendous opportunity to bolster personal relationships.
You don’t need to rent an escape room or order an expensive catered breakfast for a strong start to the year (although nobody would mind donuts and coffee). I’ve heard teachers complain, “We don’t want to spend three hours on games when we could be getting our classrooms ready,” so simplicity is key.
Principals, I’ve developed some simple icebreakers that you can try at your school. I like to spread these out throughout the meetings so there are little breaks for fellowship in between moments of actual work.
If you don’t have much time to prepare, an easy activity is to give the teachers little packages that contain items like a fun-sized pack of M&Ms or Starburst. I like to use cans of Vienna sausages because it’s funny and there are seven hot dogs per can, but your staff may prefer candy to processed meat. I ask everyone to open theirs and share one fact about themselves to go with each item. It also helps to put up a PowerPoint slide with prompts like “What did you do this summer?” “Where did you grow up?” “Do you have children?” “What’s your favorite movie?” That way people who might be shy or who blank when all eyes are on them will have something to say. With this activity, teachers who might not know each other are more likely to have topics to bond over while they’re on recess duty or bump into each other in the parking lot. They can say, “My mother is from California” or “I was at that concert this summer too!”
