Training day!

I am all about leading a school through Culture and Craft (Thanks @jkloczko for that line).  I try to make all meetings a mix of community building activities and reinforcing great teaching.  Today was the first day back for all staff, and we had to do active shooter training.  I was like..."NO!!!!"  It is my first all staff meeting at this school.  My school has been through so much.  The attendance area was completely burned the October 2017 tubbs fire.  Only the school survived.  However, the school was displaced for 3 months while repairs were made. Over 200 students lost their home and over a dozen staff did as well.  I also know that is not the way I want to introduce myself to the staff.  But, I was told...do it!

So, I had to do it Emily's way.  I had the spotify going when people walked in.  I had the room set up in collaborative tables with toys and supplies on them.  The lunch buffet table was already set up, so they knew that was coming.  Then I started with my google slides I set up.  The first slide was a great ice breaker.  It was the picture on the left with the ladies on the roller coaster.  I told the staff this is how I work, I always choose to live in the front row, even if I don't know what is coming. 

Then I gave prizes to the first row folks!

Next was the 5 word activity.  I stole this from Lead Like a Pirate. It was an interview question the book suggested.  I totally used it while interviewing for new teachers this year.  What insight it gave me on their classroom culture and thought process.  I decided to use it with the whole staff to start them thinking on what they wanted kids to think about them.  Of course, I showed off my 5 words first.  They were able to work collaboratively in their choice of table groups to think of words and be creative.  The room was buzzing and the conversations about kids and culture were flowing.

Then it was time for Active Shooter training.  Such a heavy topic.  I used the slides in the show linked above to move through the run, hide, fight protocol.  I also had some videos to show staff what it would look like.  You will find slides in there as well with Scenarios.  I posted these around the room and had random groups made with Flippity. The groups spent 5 minutes at each scenario discussing what they would do.  They had the opportunity to work in collaborative mixed groups of classified and certificated folks.  After the activity, we went over the scenarios again and shared any ah-has that the small groups had. 

I had the staff do a "fist to five" for how things were going so far.  I had mostly 3-4s.  I feel like that was a win!

I needed to have a fun activity at the end.  Active shooter is a heavy topic, and I needed energize, excited staff for the first day of school.  I had set up an amazing race around the school.  I used Flippity again to make 6 teams.  I had stations set up already around the school with tasks for them to do.  They had a blast.  The feedback has been amazing.  They feel excited for the new year!  They want students to come.  They had fun together.  It was great.

Today, the next day, I am still hearing about the positive energy, fun and how they loved everyone being there. 

Plan, Plan and then Plan some more.

Staff meetings... we have all seen these Memes

I remember back to teaching, we all dreaded that Wednesday meeting.  Two hours of being talked to, getting information I could have read in a memo.  Sitting in a chair thinking about all the things we could be doing instead of this.

I also get it, the principal's job is busy.  To organize a staff meeting correctly, you need to plan.  Just like a great teachers plan for amazing lessons.  It is hard work and takes time.

I set a goal for myself this year, to plan awesome (hopefully) staff meetings.  I don't want to waste people times.  I want staff to value the time, learn together, build community and have fun.

I had my first staff meeting last Wednesday.  I spent 3 hours planning for 1 and 1/2 hours.  One thing that works for me is having a presentation to show.  It helps me stay on time and kept us moving.  Here is the one I used at my last staff meeting.

We started the meeting with writing postcards to students.  Each teacher wrote at least 2 students a "great work" postcard.  After the meeting, I spent 30 minutes addressing and stamping all the postcard.

Next was a district presentation.  It was boring, but I could not do anything about it.  So, I followed it up with a game.  I used Popsicle sticks to make groups for my staff.  After grouping the staff and passing out paper, I told them the rules.  "Here are the rules, there is only one.  Figure out the game and you have 5 minutes."  They flipped over the paper and started the YouTube timer video. They were collaborating.  They were using tech to look up things.  They were inferring information based on a picture.  They were laughing and building relationships.

After we played the game, I set the tone with a quote.

Rotations were next.  We had some information to gather and new people for them to meet.  I hit play on the time YouTube video and I was able to move around/listen to conversations.  The video would beep after 5 minutes and the staff would rotate.

Next was some quick announcements by staff for staff.

We end with this amazing Ted Talk by Rita Pierson: Every Kid needs a Champion.  It is a funny and very uplifting video.  

Of course, we needed a new staff picture.  So, we took care of that too.  What a hard working, great looking, fun group of colleagues!!!

When a staff meeting goes well...

Wednesday was our staff meeting.  I was so nervous that day.  I kept saying to my Assistant Principal, "This is either going to be amazing or it is going to suck!"

A lot of planning went into the 90 minute meeting.  I had three teachers come with me to attend a presentation by David Jakes (@djakes).  He walked us through a design thinking challenge around 21st century learning.

We came back from this experience jazzed!  I had this group meet many times and discuss how we wanted to work the staff through a similar activity to start thinking about what learning needs to look like and how the set-up of the classroom is important to make this happen. We planned, created, thought about and worked out all the details of the meeting.

We began the meeting with assigned groups.  We tried to mix up the staff to break them out of their department groups.  It was interesting watching the walk in and say, "Really?" or make a funny face when they saw the assigned seating. I responded with "Is this how our kids feel when you move them around?"  We had the AC/DC going on the speakers, snacks on the tables, post it notes and sharpies were everywhere.

We started off the meeting with a few slides about mindset for design.  We then presented the guiding question "What constitutes a 21st century learning experience?" Staff worked in pairs to dig deep into what the looks, sounds, feels like for students, staff, parents and community.  They wrote big ideas onto post it notes with sharpies.

After working in pairs, the groups got back together and
looked at all of their post-its.  They found trends within all the data collected.  From there, the groups wrote up 5 statements that reflect the guiding questions.  They wrote these statements on large post-its. Each teacher was given 5 stickers.
 They were directed to move around the room, read their colleagues' ideas, and put a sticker next to their 5 favorite.

They came up with some great phrases that we will use as our guide for next year.

We decided to use post-its, sharpies and poster paper for this meeting and this was an intentional decision.  We did not want this experience to be about the technology.  We are not making these changes to our teaching and classroom environments because we are going 1:1 with iPads.  We are redoing how and what we teach because that is what is good for students.  The technology we are providing is only a tool to help with the learning.  There are lots of tools in our toolbox, and we need to create spaces where students and TEACHERS are inspired to learn and create and use all the tools we have.

Here are all 6 posters:

We ended the presentation with this video.  

Thanks to Eric Saibel (@ecsaibel) for telling me about it. It was the perfect end to our discussion.

I arrived at work today to an email from a teacher that said "By the way, great staff meeting.  Left with some great ideas.  I did create my first floor plan this afternoon and I would not mind sharing it with you. " Another staff member sent me a vox that said "A productive staff meeting!"  That's what you want to hear!