Entry Plan - Principals

ENTRY PLAN - PRINCIPALS

1. Learn the data about your building/district, e.g. student and faculty demographics, test scores, class sizes, teacher turnover, faculty tenure/experience, support staff, etc, and how these data compare to other buildings in the district (if applicable).

2. Send a letter to students, parents and staff telling them how happy you are to be here and that you are looking forward to getting to know them and to having a great year.

3. Meet with Superintendent and other central office staff, if relevant, to ask questions, seek to understand the district, know their expectations, what they think the school needs.

4. Sit down with your secretary and mutually develop some working rules for the office. Then meet with any other office support staff and go over the rules and ask for suggestions on how they can be improved.

5. During the first 2- 3 weeks, sit down with every single person in your building individually in a non-stressful setting, e.g. do not sit behind your desk. In fact you might meet them at their desk or for lunch. The conversation should be casual but with an agenda. First, to get to know them as a person, and second, to get to know what they do. You may want to have your assistant principal or secretary sit in as observers in these meetings.

Examples of Questions to ask in these meetings: 1. Tell me about yourself, e.g. where were you born, went to school, etc. 2. What hobbies do you have or other strategies for “unwinding” when you have time off? 3. Tell me about your job i.e. “What do you see as your role? (You even ask this of teachers just to see how they respond). 4. What would need to happen by June for you to see this as a successful year? 5. What goals did you establish for your class, department, etc, at the beginning of this past year? 6. What process did you use to establish those goals? 7. How successful have you been in reaching your goals i.e. what are your indicators of success? 8. If you did not meet all of your goals from last year, what, if anything, is hindering you from reaching your objectives/goals? 9. Based on your progress for this past year, what adjustments are you planning to make (new objectives) for this next year? 10. How can I help you reach your objectives/goals for this next year? 11. Tell me about the people, equipment, facilities, etc. with which you have to work. 12. Describe the other administrators, teachers, and support people in this building – what do they do well and where I could help them to improve? 13. Who in the building has untapped potential? In what way? 14. If you could wave your magic wand and make a change (other than the type of kids and parents in our school) what would that change be? 15. (Add other questions that are pertinent to you getting up to speed in a hurry). Note: Remember, do not tell them your goals or make any general observations in this meeting. That information will spread like wildfire and anyone you interview after that will likely give answers in line with what they have heard.

6. Plan to share what you have learned from your interviews with your staff by analyzing the data you’ve collected for trends and themes:

7. Have a casual retreat with your administrative team. It might even be in your back yard with spouses and kids over hamburgers. But your team should retire to a private place to have your meeting. The purposes of the meeting are to:  Get to know your team and their families.  Get to know each other.  Share the results of your meetings with staff.  Review district data and the state of the building (that you compiled from your interviews and other data).  Get their ideas about how the building can be improved.

8. Eavesdrop to hear what people are saying about the district or your building by going to local coffee shop, ball games, PTO meetings, church and other venues to listen to find out what is going on with the schools.

9. Take time to meet with students, to hang out with them, get to know them. Visibility!

10. Meet with PTO or PTA, booster clubs and whatever other parent groups the campus has.

11. Meet with community groups – example – “Keep Our City Beautiful Committee”, the local volunteer fire department, etc.

12. Take a good look at the school – what simple needs are obvious, e.g. basic cleanliness and neatness.

13. Review processes/procedures in place, policies that are building and district wide.

14. Solve at least one major problem the first year. 15. Budget operations and how it was done in the past. Understand it in general.

16. Office procedures and expectations for office etiquette.

17. Do something special with the staff, e.g. a celebration of the opening of school and invite all employees and their families to come and bring a covered dish. There should be no agenda other than to get to know each other and to celebrate the beginning of the new year.

18. Get building/district faculty handbook organized and streamlined.

Adapted from Bob Thompson