AVID Site Leaders News

Last September, I started as the new principal at my school following a principal who had been in the role for a dozen years with well established relationships. Coming into the building, I knew that maintaining the culture of a relationship-based community would be incredibly important to the work we all needed to accomplish. As we were in the first year of implementing AVID Schoolwide, I had the credibility of being involved with AVID since the beginning of my career in roles ranging from AVID Tutor to Staff Developer, but I knew I would need to establish strong relationships and positively impact school culture if we were to make the gains our kids needed us to make in the next several years.

The year started well, and I built relationships with my staff in the ways I knew best: one-on-one, in small groups, and through demonstrating my commitment with my words and my actions. This approach helped me but had to be adjusted once we were thrust into the new world of distance learning due to COVID-19. This fall we have continued in distance learning and will be in this mode until at least February—almost exactly a year since the sudden switch. At this point, I have spent more time as an online principal at my school than on the physical campus, and I can honestly say that after a decade in administration it has helped me grow in ways I could not have previously imagined. Some of the lessons I’ve learned and strategies used are shared here.

Be Genuine and Kind

This may sound simple, but it is such a key to being successful in caring for the social-emotional needs of your staff. Just like the kids, the adults can see through you when you’re being fake. If you cannot show genuine interest in a staff member then find someone who can, to set both parties up for success. I work to find something to connect with every staff member around— some sort of common interest or shared experience. When I can’t find something in common, I look for something that they are interested in that I can learn about, and I ask them questions to learn more. It can be challenging to connect on a deep level with every person on the campus, so I look for connections and established relationships to help me learn about the best approach for each staff member. I also give myself grace; I am not going to be able to connect with every person on a profound level; however, if I treat everyone with respect and am genuine in who I am each time I interact with them, I know that my warmth and kindness will come across.

Be Strategic

In the midst of the chaos of school closure last spring, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep track of all of the details I needed to in almost any aspect of my professional life and knew I would need a way to track regular contact with our staff. My team and I came up with the idea to keep a simple spreadsheet with each staff member’s name and main contact with the remaining weeks of the school year listed across the top. We simply marked an ‘X’ when we had contacted a particular staff member each week. Sometimes the contact was happenstance and other times it was an intentional check-in, but in every instance we took the time to ask how the staff member was doing, how their family was doing, and what they were doing to manage self-care. We learned a lot in these conversations and were able to provide support in many cases as well as inform the district office about areas where staff in general were struggling and we needed to build systems. While we were intentional in touching base, or attempting to, with each staff member, it never felt forced or uncomfortable because we remained genuine in our interactions. We each selected a mix of staff members we had established relationships with as well as those we wanted to strengthen and found that we grew closer as a staff and administrative team through these interactions.

Be Aware of Your Strengths and Areas of Growth

I realized pretty early in my administrative career that I am not the type of leader who is a center-of-attention, rah, rah, get everyone excited and laughing, life-of-the-party type. I am okay with this and have accepted that my leadership style is quieter. I have been very intentional about hiring and creating my team to make sure those around me have strengths that I do not. Early on I identified a couple of those people on my team and have worked to empower them to take the lead in this area. I had an administrative intern last year (who I am lucky enough to have again this year), and she has the ability to positively impact staff culture through running silly games. I leaned into her skills heavily last spring and this fall. She hosted Friday lunches on Zoom for the staff where we got to hang out and play a goofy game (scavenger hunts for items found around the house, guessing games, even a ‘find your match’ celebrity couples game shortly before we left school). I have incorporated these games and fun getting-to-know-you time into our staff meetings. I set aside 10–15 minutes in every staff meeting for games and fun time; staff feedback has been very positive and especially our new staff have appreciated getting to know their colleagues in a creative way. Something I am very conscientious about is making sure to give credit where credit is due and always acknowledge that our team is taking on the lift, not me alone as the principal.

Between last spring and this fall, we delivered care packages to every staff member where we took them on a ‘European Vacation’ with different snacks from different countries and included a detailed itinerary and a ‘ticket voucher’ for each. We have purchased school-themed face masks for every staff member. We held virtual baby showers, wedding showers, and retirement parties—collecting virtual donations to provide gift cards to the honorees. We have a digital ‘shout-out’ sheet making its way around the staff via a Google Doc that gets ‘secretly’ passed on from staff members who got the last shout-out. We also feature public, peer-to-peer shout-outs in our weekly staff blog. Our staff is big on affirmations, as we learned in a survey at the beginning of the year, so we have focused quite a bit of energy in that area. Oh, and don’t be afraid to borrow ideas from others! I joined a Facebook Principals’ Group (or four) to find good ideas, and I got several! Elementary principals are the most creative people on the planet!

Be Consistent and Honest

While this is of huge importance when in person, this has become of the utmost importance since moving to our distance learning model. Staff have been grateful when I simply say “I don’t know” or “I don’t know that yet, but I’ll find out and get back to you” and then I do. Or one of my team members gets back to them. People crave honesty and consistency, especially when dealing with so much uncertainty. They also crave consistency in academic programming, so we worked hard to maintain our focus on our AVID Implementation and building our MTSS systems; both processes we started pre-COVID and have re-focused on this fall. There seems to be hope in staying focused on what feels like ‘normal’ programming and plans because it signals that we will one day return to in-person instruction and that we will get to see our kids again. As I think about our eventual transition to a hybrid and then fully in-person model, I will strive to find consistencies to point out and cultivate in order to help maintain the grounding that is so needed.

Part of being consistent is also being consistently positive. That doesn’t mean I don’t acknowledge when things are tough, but it does mean that when I do, I remind our staff of the strength within each of us and our amazing ability to pull together and support our community no matter what. It also means that when I have a bad day I cannot make that everyone else’s bad day; this was a tough lesson to learn early on in my career, but the lesson stuck. I have a support system that allows me to complain about my bad days so that I do not negatively impact our staff culture with my tough stuff. Always remember that the staff take their cues from the building leader. If we stay positive, others will follow our lead, and that is what impacts staff culture. Never underestimate the impact we have as leaders—every comment is heard and every move is watched, and we shift the culture of our staff, intentionally or not.

I have grown so much and have gotten to know the folks I am privileged to work with, and we really do have a more positive culture today. We will continue to work to make our school a place where everyone belongs and feels supported. I have shared a few steps we have taken and would love to hear about the things going well on your campus (I’m always looking for good ideas to borrow!), so please share your ideas and successes in the comments below!