(by Amber Dembowski)
The first meeting of the year with teachers sets the tone for everything else to follow. It puts your values and beliefs on display. It either establishes trust or skepticism. It might generate a lot of positive energy or fuel boredom and discouragement.
You get to decide. As the school leader, it’s your responsibility to set the stage and create the space for your teachers to feel inspired and energized.
There’s always a mix of emotions from the teachers when they return from summer break. Some are ready to be back, while others are yearning for a few more days of sleepy mornings and worry free nights. And ALL of them are thinking about their class lists, setting up their classrooms, lesson planning, and communicating with their future families – and NOT thinking about any message you want to share.
But, there are surefire ways to engage their hearts and minds, even through all the noise. Simplifying your message will help you connect with your teachers in meaningful ways, and the vision for the year will become a living loving beautiful creature that will gradually grow with the teachers.
But, before we dive into the steps of simplifying your message, there are a few other things to consider prior to your kick-off meeting. They may seem obvious, but are just as important:
Be Prepared
Do you value teachers being prepared for each lesson? I bet your bottom dollar this is a big YES. Don’t just tell them you value this. Show them.
Email your teachers about your excitement to see them, sharing the agenda and any items they may need to bring with them.
Before the teachers walk in, have the slideshow, chart paper, and any displays ready to go. Make sure their handouts and extra pens are set out on the tables. For good measure, set up a nice arrangement of snacks – and sprinkle the tables with bite-size candy or mints, and add a few simple decorations.
Being prepared not only helps you feel more confident about your time with the teachers, but it also sends the message that your time together is important.
Be Approachable
Do you value teachers welcoming visitors and new students into their classrooms in positive and hospitable ways? Of course you do. Well then, make sure you’re showing up and doing the same for them.
Flash a smile. Before the meeting gets started, greet them. If possible, visit with them about things that are important in their life. Be enthusiastic about the time together as a staff and the new school year. Mix and mingle.
Build Community
Do you value a strong sense of community and belonging in each of your classrooms? Duh. Yea you do. Well, how are you creating that for your teachers? We can’t assume there is mutual respect, trust, and support amongst those who teach at your school – or that it will work itself out. We need to demonstrate that we value each person by intentionally making room for activities/collaborations that build community.
You may get some push back from the teachers about ice breaker activities. It’s common for teachers to think, “I could be in my classroom getting work done instead of building a tower out of toothpicks right now.” So, here’s the trick: align the activities with the message so that it doesn’t seem to be a waste of anyone’s time. There’s meaning behind the cooperative activity that gives everyone a voice. Yes, ice breaker activities are good and all, but activities that engage the hearts and minds of the teacher, and align with your message, are better.
Is this a hard one? Start thinking about your strongest teachers that incorporate incredible cooperative learning activities into their lessons, and then do that.
Now, we’re rockin’ and ready for the good stuff …
Steps to Simplifying Your Message So That Your Teachers Get It
When sharing the vision you want to create for this school year, you want your message to be easy to take in and make sense of. Because, quite honestly, no teacher showing up with a gazillion other things on their mind, really cares what you have to say. That is, unless you establish and build trust in the vision right away.
Below are the steps to sharing the message. Keep in mind, when planning the message, you’ll need to work backwards.
Here we go …
#1 - Develop Connection
When simplifying your message, that doesn’t mean you just get right to the point. Although there is some power in getting down to the brass tacks, you first have to take some time to notice what’s important to the teachers and highlight that. To speak to their heart. Give it some meaning. I wrote a blog that highlighted the role of stories within the school improvement process, and that works here too. Check it out.
This is a good opportunity to Build Community. Incorporate some talking points that create a space for vulnerability and develop psychological safety among your teachers. This should never be whole-group. You can open it up to the group on a volunteer basis if that makes sense for you, but a safe space comes from table or partner talk – with multiple different people. Diff.er.ent.
That’s right. I’m talking about actually interacting with people other than where you sat. And I know to some teachers, this sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard. But really, it’s more like putting on sunscreen, exercising, or drinking tequila. It may feel pointless or yucky at first, but then you get into the flow of it, and feel much better for doing so (okay, maybe not the tequila – you may feel worse after that).
Bottom line, it's a step that can’t be missed, and opening up to multiple different people is the key, otherwise everyone stays in their own bubble, their own group think, their own circle of trust. It’s our job to extend their strengths and beliefs to others, creating a sense of belonging beyond their immediate sphere of influence.
Questions/Prompts that may work for you may include something like: Did you ever have a teacher you didn’t like? How did that teacher make you feel? Or, what do you love most about your job? What are you looking forward to the most this year? What fueled your positive energy at school last year? How do you plan to recreate that this year?
Create questions that align with the message of your time together and will tickle the mind – getting everyone into the right headspace.
#2 - Direct Attention to What Separates Your School from Everyone Else
After Developing Connection, it’s important to share your school’s story of constraint. How is your school unique? What makes your school hard? Where does it zig where everyone else zags? How are the pressures different? This is an important piece that is often forgotten. But it’s important to include because it gives the teachers something to grab onto. It gets their attention and creates a sense of comradery.
I remember when I worked on the leadership team at an elementary building that served a very challenging population. The principal stood up and said, “This is a tough place to be. We serve a community of 87% poverty. Many of our students are coming to us with extreme challenges outside of school. The disparities in their life are incredible. We can only have the best teachers here, and that’s why we hired you.”
I was in awe. How could you be a teacher hearing that and not be willing to give your best everyday? Every teacher would want to be part of a school that needed their best. And THIS. This is what I’m talking about, friends.
So channel your inner army marketing self: I want YOU to be all you can be, except personalize it for your school.
Maybe your school is affluent but students aren’t performing as expected. You need teachers who are willing to dig into the reasons why and be a change-maker for that community. The teachers are there to help the students live up to their potential.
Maybe your school has a high chronic absentee rate. You need teachers who care deeply about each student individually and create an environment where students want to be and hate missing school.
Maybe your school is the smallest in the district and often goes unnoticed. You need teachers who are willing to try new things, put themselves out there, and publicly celebrate the school’s successes.
What makes your school unique, and whatever your story is, you need the best teachers because of it. Tell them that.
What’s critical is to not make it a sob story. Don’t marinade in the negative. Just state the facts and then highlight the power of the teachers. Let them know you have the best of the best to take on this challenge. Your school will rise above, and this is how you know …
Boom. You’ve set it up. Now …
#3 – Stay Focused
During your kick-off meeting it’s important to prioritize what’s important and strip away everything else. This is your opportunity to share the vision for the year, and Step 2, Directing Attention to What Separates You, just set the stage. The message about the vision should feed into what makes your school unique, or the challenges that present themselves year after year, and how you collectively will fuel or combat that – leaning into everyone’s strengths.
Along the way, you’ll give a little tease of what’s to come, the strategies and the game plan, which will leave teachers feeling excited and anticipating a great year ahead. They’ll know the vision, recognize that they have a part in it, and be proud to contribute to the cause.
Keep it simple. But don’t kid yourself. Keeping your message to the point doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. It takes more work to pull together something concise than it does to share something long and extremely detailed. So plan accordingly.
Now it’s time for it all to just simmer. Let it sit in the mind and heart for a while. Everyone’s back-to-school professional learning calendar looks a little different, so you have to make it work for you – but some kind of mental break needs to be included. It could be a lunch break, or it could be until you meet you again the following day, week, or month. However it’s structured for you, give their mind some time to revel in the excitement and process through the vision you shared.
Everything else you want to cram into your time with the teachers will need to come later. Come up with a plan for that. There’s nothing worse than immediately following up an inspirational message with a firehose of information that extinguishes the fire in the belly.
It’s your responsibility to connect with your teachers. To help them see the urgency and importance of their role at the school. To motivate them and create the vision.
And you CAN do it. Don’t let yourself get bogged down with everything you need to stuff into this time with them. That will all play out. THIS is what is important right now.
Now go create the best kick-off meeting ever for your teachers!
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