Reflection on Weekend 1

The discussion on planning for staffing needs was interesting to me. In the disritct I am in the growth is one of the more "difficult" areas facing our administration. Dr. Closen mentioned also that there are formulas that can be used to project future student population. He discussed finding the number of births in one year and then comparing that to 6 years later as to how many students are in kindergarten. This information was very intriguing to me as we are in the process of building a new middle school and another elementary school is being discussed. The one concern the administration and board have is that we "may" overbuild so they are very conservative. The issue of enrollment in turn causes an additional "concern" about planning for staffing allocations. We have four feeder elementary schools that are K-5 buildings, so your attnedance at each building is based on where you live. The different growth cells continue to be in different areas throughout the district and as new people move in we have to determine whether there is room at the elementary they should be attending. We have actually had to have students attend a different elementary school than their neighbors. Quite controversial, yes! Our motto is that our growth is "a good problem to have".

The other very important topic that we discussed this weekend was hiring and firing of staff. No doubt this is one of the principals most important jobs. The teachers you hire are a reflection of you as a principal. The strategies Dr. Closen gave were very helpful. It can be difficult in a 30 minute interview to get the best snapshot of that person. I know of a situation where references were not checked and they should have been. The principal who was losing that teacher was not disappointed at all but was never contacted regarding their thoughts. I like the idea also of having your mission statement be a part of the interview and weeding out process. One thing that has been a reoccurring theme in the EDL program has been the mission statement and it is easy to see how useful that could be.

Finally, I thought that the discussion and activities on the future wheel and issues brief was OUTSTANDING! It is much better than the typical pros and cons list. I found these strategies to be useful in so many ways...with students, with teams of teachers, with parents, with student / parent or student / teacher issues. I look forward to using these strategies in a variety of ways in my current position and am looking forward to many more useful ideas that Dr. Closen will be presenting.