I believe... and ask myself...
My personal code of ethics applies to the way I interact with students, my colleagues, and the families in the school community and my vision for a school culture. I strive to treat people well through understanding, kindness, and integrity. My mom always said that I would be a good judge because as a child I was always working for justice and able to see multiple perspectives. I think the job of educational leader suits me well for the same reasons. Empathy and the ability to work with others are strong skills that need to be reflected on an constantly refined to suit the people and situations. Reflection is present in my code of ethics for this reason. Students come first and being committed to all students are at the top of the list because keeping the focus on students is what it is all about for me. Students provide the purpose and inspiration. As educational leaders, we need to nurture, include, inspire and protect each one. McKenzie and Scheurich article, Equity Traps, encouraged school leaders to dive into the work of discussing equity for all students. The remaining four bullet points are lists in no particular order, as they are all important to me personally and professionally. Everyone knows that school is for learning and I know that everyone in the building needs to be learning to make it the best place possible. I am a life-long learner for learnings sake, fulfilling my curiosities. I often lead books studies, share articles, participate in Twitter book chats and whatsapp friends and colleagues relevant quotes from books I am reading. I will be able to check myself by asking how I can see a result of my learning in action. I know that when adults are curious and excited to learn, students will emulate and internalize the practice. Respecting diversity is a good first step, but I dove in. Celebrating diversity, highlighting the difference and similarities amongst us is so important. Diversity exists in many ways around us through culture, ethnicity, thought, and more. Learning from each others’ various perspectives and experiences. Celebrating diversity reflects the idea that we are better together. Healthy relationships take intentionality. Speaking with people face to face, listening before forming the next thought and being open-minded to ideas. This communication takes practice, reflection and refinement. Marzano, Waters and McNulty’s meta analysis of the impact of principals showed that strong lines of communication had a direct positive correlation to student learning (2006, p. 42). Fostering a culture of shared beliefs was right behind communication on Marzano, Walters and McNulty’s list which hints at the idea that communication and culture are connected. When communication and culture are positive, then trust can be built. Trust allows for collaboration and feedback, positive and constructive, helping us all to improve ourselves and our professional practice. Acting with integrity is the underlying aspect that makes all the above ethics possible. Having strong moral principles that guide decision making about students, the staff and the community is of utmost importance so that trust can be built. Authenticity in a leaders actions and transparency, when possible, all lead to the community seeing a person of integrity helping in difficult situations. I want the people that I work with to be able to see my code of ethics in action in every interaction we have and the decisions we make together. What would you put on your personal code of ethics? Do you agree or disagree with something I wrote? Please share in the comments below. Resources Association of American Educators. Code of Ethics for Educators. Retrieved from https://www.aaeteachers.org/index.php/about-us/aae-code-of-ethics on September 11, 2018. Marzano, R. J., Waters, T., & McNulty, B. A. (2005). School leadership that works: From research to results. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. McKenzie, K and Scheurich, J. (2004). Equity Traps: A Useful Construct for Preparing Principals to Lead Schools That Are Successful With Racially Diverse Students. Educational Administration Quarterly, Vol. 40(5), pp. 601-632.
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63 parent meetings about classlists with anxiety ridden parents! Really?!?? No thank you! When I became principal in February, I knew I needed to shift the culture. I wanted the first day of school to be joyful and fun, to set the tone of learning for the year ahead...My vision was to have school = a place students want to learn and parents felt at ease. Buy HOW would I shift the culture? This question was in the back of my mind for months, I was reading, talking to other international school principals, talking to the staff, gathering ideas and I outlined a process clearly with dates and communication objectives. The process started in March and continued through to August! It seemed early to start but it was actually right on time. Shifting culture takes planning and communication. Teachers and the school counselor told me that the biggest parent concerns about class list assignments in the past were:
The message of the parents lacking trust was loud and clear. To enact the vision, we developed a plan that was clear, timely and intentional to address the two concerns. We needed to build trust with the families through ensuring their child had at least one friend in the class and a loving knowledgeable teacher. It all started in April, we communicated with families and students that we were going to ask the students to list four friends they wanted to learn with next school year. We guaranteed the child would be placed with at least one of the four friends they listed. We found a tool called Class Creator to help us enter all the friends and information about the students. On May 1st, we got Class Creator rolling! Student-generated friends lists were entered into the system as well as information about each child individually. Teachers loved working with this tool! No more sticky notes and name cards being shuffled around. This tool serves as everyone's’ collective memory and let us see the dynamics of a class (academic areas high, low, behavior, and more!). Class Creator remembers it all and visually represents the information for teachers to manipulate to get just the right balance per class. Even though school policy states that the school staff makes the classlists regardless of parent requests, as the principal I listened to parents that wanted to express concern or tell me more about their child. I documented each meeting. I had 27 meetings. This was DOWN from years past. Why? We think it was because of the friends list. We made a commitment to honor the friends list that the students generated. We were listening to students and that was the start of building parents’ trust. Generally our parent community distrusts teachers they do not know. By in large, they would prefer their child in a teacher’s class that has proven themselves the year before. Our challenge as an international school is that we always have a couple of new teachers each year. I wondered how can we build trust early, before they even meet the teacher? We made a three part plan to address the second point of concern, mistrust of new teachers.
Part 1- We decided to have each and every teacher write a short biography about themselves. The homeroom teachers were a little longer than the others and included a “fun” photograph to show their personality. The biographies were published in English and Portuguese then beautifully laid out with a PASB pride theme. Finally, the day came to email the class lists with biographies home 1 ½ days before the start of school. In the past, the school would post the list on paper at the school entrance at 4:00 pm the evening before school started. Parents would come to campus, anxiety ridden, to check the lists and Whatsapp them to all their friends thus spreading anxiety. Then the first day of school 63 parents would be lined up ready to complain as the staff tried to rush the students into the classrooms. NOT a great vibe…. So, emailing the class list with the photos and biographies a little earlier was the plan so parents did not have to Whatsapp eachother for the information. Imagine, getting a list of classmates and a PDF of ALL the people that plan to love and educate your child for the school year. Smiling faces, horseback riders, hikers, bungee jumpers, families with children and even a graphically enhanced photo with a teacher looking like Thor, were going to be the teachers….who wouldn’t want these friendly faces to teach their children?!?! We sent the classlists and biographies out by email at 4:00 exactly using the Google add on Boomerang and …. Silence… The next day I went to work braced for a list of emails requesting meetings...and...nothing. The secretary, school counselor and I were surprised, relieved and a little bit shocked. We were still holding our breath for the bomb to drop. A few parents did contact us, 8 to be exact, over the day and a half before the start of school. More on those parents a little later in the article. Part 2- The second part of the building parent trust plan was to host a fun filled first moment of the school year, from the time the children and parents walk on campus, August 1st. We hired a marching band to play in the front of school and at the right moment walk the families and students to the “Kick Off the Year” Assembly. This was a first of its kind first day of school. The band was fun, everyone was talking, smiling and bouncing around, the school mascot made an appearance greeting the community. We went to the gym for the assembly where year level teams, students support services and the specialist teachers presented themselves on the stage.
Disclosure: At first, some teachers were leerly of this idea...normally we put students on stage to present, why did they have to?!? Yes, they did because my vision was to build trust, have the students and parents see the teachers, as a team, who were fun, funny and interesting! I wanted the community to see that the teachers really know and love kids. The teachers came up with a variety of performances: a Brazilian percussion performance, an animated video of themselves, a choreographed dance with rewritten lyrics to “Happy”, a game show, and three silly skits where teachers were lost, fell off an invisible bench and were searching for “it”. The performances had the students engaged and laughing. After the teacher performances were complete, the teachers, students and parents went to the homeroom classes together. After about 20 minutes or so, it was finally time for parents to leave campus and children to start building their relationships in their classrooms. At this point, only two students cried….WAY fewer than the years before. The first day of school was a party with fun people who loved children! Mission accomplished. Part 3- We had to secure the deal, we had to finalize the parent trust-building plan. Open House was moved to after the third day of school, rather than third week. Parents were welcomed on campus again to meet and talk with the homeroom, Portuguese and specialist teachers. They also had a presentation from the administration. Our messages were all about communication, helpfulness and supporting students for success, “Our school professionals are here to support your child helping them be successful academically and socially.” During the question time, a parent took the microphone and congratulated the school for a great start! Again, mission accomplished. On August 6, I sit here typing this post and still only 8 class list complaints have been heard. The school counselor and I listened and helped parents understand their child’s placement. Of the eight complaints only three families mentioned they wanted to change classes and received more counseling and support. Only one family went to the superintendent who again did more counseling and as of now, zero families have formally requested to change classes. Part of me is still holding my breath waiting for the other shoe to drop, but the other part of me is celebrating because our team did it! Many people, including parents and staff, have commented that this year feels different, it feels joyful. We changed the culture of the first day of school from an anxiety ridden, mistrusting long line of complaining families to a culture of joyful, fun-loving excited students with more settled, calm trusting parents! School culture can be hard to change. Our process was long, well planned out and executed with professionalism from the entire team. Now, learning and more trusting parent relationships can commence. |
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