The Assistant Principal Podcast

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of September 19-23, 2022. If you already get my daily leadership emails, then I hope you’ll find some added value here and if you don’t already subscribe you can find a link on my home page at frederickbuskey.com. Many readers like to begin their mornings by reading the email and setting a leadership intention for the day, but please don’t feel any pressure to subscribe. You are already doing more to grow yourself than many others out there, simply by listening to the podcast.

This weeks theme revolves around a single quote uttered by a friend at a party we had a couple weeks ago. It was later in the evening and most people had gone home and my friend said, “Everyone who’s not here has left.” Of course, my head went to leadership, and to thinking about the people who had left.

Monday:

I began the week by telling the story and simply asked readers to sit with the statement and to think about it. In your organization, what does it mean when we state, “Everyone who’s not here has left.”

Tuesday

If people have left, think about where they have gone?

·      If they aren’t with you, are they with someone else?

·      Are they next door (with another organization) or far away (different profession)?

·      Are they gone for the moment, or forever?

Wednesday

Are the absent people missing good stuff, or bad stuff?

This could go two ways. They could be missing the good stuff:

·      Your presence,

·      Growth opportunities

·      Opportunities to develop their own leadership skills

·      To serve others

OR

·      Loneliness when leaders are too busy to be present

·      Being told what to learn without any help to learn it

·      Being overwhelmed by inits that will be gone in 12-24 mionths

·      Always fighting a system that makes it harder to do the good work

Conclusion: leadership matters

Thursday

There is a magic bullet for leadership

The second most important question for us to ask about those who have left is this: Why did they leave?

·      Missing good stuff v missing bad stuff

Art teacher story…

Because she worked for a principal who cared for her. When the teacher had broken her ankle while coaching softball, the principal had been there for her. But just as importantly, that principal was there helping the teacher grow and get better at her craft. And she impowered this young teacher to practice her leadership.

There are many reasons why people leave, but there is one overriding factor in why they stay – YOU!

You can be a leader who people walk away from, or you can be a leader who people make sacrifices to remain with.

Being the second one is hard work, but it is also simple work!

●      Be present

●      Care and build relationships.

●      Help people get better at what they do!

This is the magic bullet.

Friday

The most important question we can ask about those who aren’t here is “how do we call them back?”

·      Physically gone but also mentally and emotionally

The secret?

●      Be present

●      Care and build relationships.

●      Help people get better at what they do!

Be present, even if it feels like they don’t want you there.

Care. Truly care. How tragic is it that somebody is working for or with you and they hate their job? What a lost opportunity to shuffle in every day, just waiting until you can leave again.

Build the relationship by learning the stories the person has. Who were they? How did they become who they are now? What dreams did they have? What dreams do they still hold?

Help them grow! 

Reflect:

●      Are you too busy to invest time in growing your people?

●      Were you too busy to attend Thursday’s webinar on how to not be so busy?

●      Will it ever change?

Takeaway

·      Leadership matters

·      People stay because of you, because they know you value them and you help them grow.

·      Distill leadership into one magic bullet:

• Be present
• Care and build relationships.
• Help people get better at what they do!

This wraps up this week’s Five for Friday rendition of The Assistant Principal Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s show, please subscribe and rate this podcast. Rating the podcast really does help other people to find it.

I’m always trying to improve the show, so if you have feedback please email me at [email protected]. If you’d like to find out more about what I’m doing to support assistant principals, you can head over to my website at frederickbuskey.com/theassistantprincipal.

I’m Frederick Buskey and I hope you’ll join me next time for the Assistant Principal Podcast. 

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline

Show title and release date: 9/20/22

Show Description:

Everything has a cost. That cost can be easily measured in time, money, and attention. But the larger and more important cost is opportunity cost. Opportunity cost reflects what we could have done with the time, money, and attention that we spent on doing whatever we did. Because our schools have unlimited needs, everything we do displaces something else that we could have done. The key to being a strategic leader is to be intentional in our efforts, not by asking “can we do this?” but instead asking “what else could we do with this time, this money, and this attention?”

Show Intro

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. This is a content-focused episode. Actually, it might be a soapbox focused episode because today I am going to interrogate our propensity for mandates.

Celebrations:

·      I’ve begun writing my book again, which, as a quadrant 2 activity, have been pushed off multiple times. It feels good.

·      The FREE webinar – I hope you will join me

o   Thursday Sept 22, 2022, 7-8:30 EDT

o   Time is not the problem – the real problem

o   Shift your perspective and the way you look at your day

o   Five tips for being strategically reactive

o   Three practices for being proactive.

o   Reg ends tonight. If you don’t have time, then this is definitely for you!

o   Listening to the pod is like living in the same neighborhood. We pass each other on Tuesdays and Fridays and wave hello. Attending the webinar will be like hanging out on my front porch, a safe place where we can get to know each other a bit better.

o   Web link

The Big Idea

·      Opportunity cost

The Why

·      Inspired by recent conversations with school leaders

o   New curriculum

o   New math programs

o   New testing support programs

o   NC LETRS roll out of ELA program.

The what (MVP version)

Here’s why I struggle with this:

1.     We are coming off two years of a pandemic – as optimistic as we are about this year, we are also exhausted.

2.     I am a foundationalist, and the foundation of classrooms is solid procedures and great teacher-student relationships. In my view, everything else is secondary. The problem is that the majority of classrooms like one or both of these, and early career teachers need extra support.

3.     The opportunity cost of every initiative is individualized teacher support

4.     Teachers should be in charge of their own growth goals, with few exceptions. Initiatives remove teacher agency and prevent us from being there to support them.

Checking your own pulse

These are my observations and takeaways from the research and my own and other leaders’ experiences. It doesn’t matter how good a new program is if:

·      It cannot be implemented with fidelity

·      It cannot be followed up with adequate school support

·      It cannot be sustained over time

I have seen nothing to convince me that today’s big push or flavor of the month will be done with any of those things.

What do you think?

·      What have I said that you agree with?

·      What have I said that you disagree with, and why does it not ring true for you?

·      In reflecting on the initiatives you have been a part of, how many of them had a lasting impact?

·      What could your school look like if all the time, money, and attention spent on these initiatives over the past five years had instead been invested into personalized support of early career teachers?

I think there are alternatives.

Leading v. bleeding

Four simple thoughts:

1.     Slow play, stall, drag your feet, ignore if possible (lack of follow up)

2.     Pick one thing that fits with what you are already doing and implement that one thing with fidelity!Collect the implementation data and brag to everyone about what a great job you’ve done.

3.     Negotiate. If there are multiple initiatives, talk with your DO. They want what’s best so work with them to identify priorities based on the needs and capacity of your staff and students

4.     Present a coherent PD plan of what you will be doing that addresses the building and district priorities. Back the plan up with data.

Leaders don’t just lead those they are responsible for, they also need to lead up and help grow the people who are serving them. District and state ed jobs can be a grind and filled with pressure and conflict. Everyone is doing the best they can, and as leaders we need to have the discussions that help us to stay grounded and pull our heads out of the weeds long enough to see the forest. I think I’m mixing metaphors, but you get what I mean.

The final takeaway:

Don’t just jump through the hoops. Consider the opportunity cost of every investment. Make decisions with your teachers that will meet their most important growth needs.

Show Outro

That wraps up today’s content focused episode. We’ll be back next week with the amazing Dr. Mary Hemphill in an episode in which we will be playing with the idea of productive disruption. This was a remarkable conversation so I hope you will treat yourself and listen. I guarantee you will be inspired. That’s next Tuesday, September 22, 2022. 

If you enjoyed today’s show, please subscribe and rate this podcast. Ratings really help raise the profile of the podcast. When we first started, even though we were the only podcast that focused exclusively on aps, a search in Apple Podcasts for “ap” would not even show us. Now, we are first show that pops up, thanks to you listeners and especially thanks to those who have let reviews. Even the person who left the one star review – if you are still listening please send me some feedback so I can make the show better.

We have snuck into the top 20 for principals but haven’t cracked it for “school leadership.” If you enjoy the show, please help people find it by subscribing AND leaving a review.

You can ask questions, make requests, and give us feedback at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you. And if you’d like to come onto my front porch and sit a spell, please sign up for our webinar, Escaping the Black Hole of Urgency. It airs Thursday from 7-8:30 EDT, its free, and you can find the sign-up link at https://event.webinarjam.com/register/2/532gpun .

That ...

Webinar registration: https://event.webinarjam.com/register/2/532gpun

Show Notes, Episode 58: Supporting New Teachers with John Schembari

About this show:

We all know how critical it is to support new teachers, but do we actually know how to support them? Today we answer four questions:

1. What do we mean when we say “new teacher?”
2. How can APs build collaborative relationships with new teachers?
3. What specific actions can we take to meet the personal and professional needs of early career teachers and 
4. How do we fit those actions into the crazy days of the assistant principalship?

Between the podcast and our monthly micro-journal – Quadrant2, we’ve been investing a lot of time on new teacher support and for good reason. Today we will go another layer deeper with our special guest Dr. John Schembari.

Notable Quotes

John Schembari: 

“You don't need to be a friend but you do need to care and understand what the emotional needs of our students are”

“”You really gotta know your students'' is what I am saying, and to know your students, you really have to have a relationship with them. You can’t stay behind your desk, so to speak, at a removed distance”

“I get concerned when schools say “Oh, this new teacher can’t handle that yet””

“I think administrators need to practice what they preach so teachers have models of the ways that they can develop these relationships with the various stakeholders”

“How can we even expect our assistant principles to get into classrooms on a regular basis if the understanding for the need for that is not throughout the entire district administration”

“New teachers, like all teachers, need support. And the number one way administrators can be showing support is to be present in classrooms beyond the formal evaluation”

Frederick:

“We really have to approach it in education that we are on the job training, that we are not bringing in finished products. and we always know that but i think we need to be doubled down on that and really be mindful about what is that 5-year process for nurturing and developing and helping our early career teachers”

“New teachers, thankfully, don’t carry that attitude; they want administrators in the classroom, so the first way to build that relationship is just to be in the classroom, not to evaluate, not to correct, but to be there and be present. And you just investing that time, being in the classroom, shows that you care.”

“When we observe, we’re collecting data. We’re collecting that data to support the teacher’s growth, that data is a tool for that teacher. So we can collect data and then go to the teacher and say “hey let's talk about what is happening. Here's what I am seeing, what are you seeing, what do you want to work on?””

“I have never seen anybody leave a job in which they were growing, they were becoming more skilled, they saw themselves on a ladder developing and growing and had support around them to do that. People don’t leave jobs like that because those kinds of jobs are satisfying”

Links:

John Schembari’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnaschembari

My email: [email protected] 

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html 

Sign up for the daily leadership email: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition 

Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

Blog: www.frederickbuskey.com/blog (reposts of the daily email)

Monday:

Relationships in the workplace take three basic forms:

·      Congenial: people share a social bond

·      Pragmatic: people share a professional bond

·      Collegial: people share professional and social bonds

The problem with congenial relationships is that while they make people happy, they don’t help us achieve the organizational purpose.

The problem with pragmatic relationships is that they only work well for some people. 

Collegial relationships thus have two elements – professional and social. The ratios of each will vary, but both are present. 

COVID laid bare the idea that work and life were separate, and if we don’t have a connection at both levels than we are missing something.

Tuesday

The prerequisite is to actually care.

We each have a story

Three steps to caring:

1.     Recognize your own imperfections

2.     Appreciate diverse perspectives

3.     Learn the stories behind those perspectives

Wednesday

(Scott) The early steps of building a relationship are to be fully present, ask good questions, and listen.

Thursday

Being vulnerable isn’t safe, but here are a couple meaningful ways that you can share vulnerabilities:

·      Show that you are human but don’t complain

·      Ask for help that the listener can give

·      Share your dreams and what you are trying to get better at.

Friday

My goal this week was not to educate you on relationships, but instead to give you some simple things that you can think about and act upon.

·      From this week, what is one thing you can act on?

·      Bonus: What have you done this week to build relationships with each of your ECTs?

·      What will you do next week?

Takeaway

·      Building relationships should be intentional

·      Learn people’s stories by being present, asking, and listening

·      Be human, be vulnerable

Two dangers:

·      Pragmatic (tasks over people)

·      Congenial (single dimensional)

As leaders, we have an ethical obligation to serve our teachers, to help them grow, and to help them find joy in their work. We can do all those things better when we know their story and when they trust us.

This wraps up this week’s Five for Friday rendition of The Assistant Principal Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s show, please subscribe and rate this podcast. Rating the podcast really does help other people to find it.

If you have questions, ideas, or stories you’d like to share, please email me at [email protected]. 

If you’d like to find out more about what I’m doing to support assistant principals, you can head over to my website at frederickbuskey.com/theassistantprincipal.

I’m Frederick Buskey and I hope you’ll join me next time for the Assistant Principal Podcast. Cheers!

On September 22, from 7-8:30 EDT, I will take you on a space trip that will lead us out of the black hole of urgency.

In 90 minutes:

·      You will understand how the gravitational pull of gravity really works, which will allow you to use more effective strategies to escape it.

·      You will think differently, which will allow you to invest more energy into what you care about.

·      You will learn five strategies, which will help you achieve more by doing less.

·      You will learn one proactive practice, which will help you grow the people around you. 

This webinar is FREE to Quadrant2 subscribers and registration opens today!

You can subscribe to Quadrant2 here.

Show Notes, Episode 55: The Black Hole of Urgency

For many of us, our goals – our dreams – of leadership revolve around helping others:

·       By helping them gain skills,

·       By aligning systems so their work is easier and less frustrating, 

·       By increasing opportunities, 

·       And by building powerful collegial relationships.

But those goals, dreams, intentions, slip away from us as we get sucked into the pull of the urgent.

You are working harder trying to manage your time and be more efficient, but it's not working because time and efficiency are not the problem!

Notables

On September 22, from 7-8:30 EDT, I will take you on a space trip that will lead us out of the black hole of urgency.

In 90 minutes:

·      You will understand how the gravitational pull of gravity really works, which will allow you to use more effective strategies to escape it.

·      You will think differently, which will allow you to invest more energy into what you care about.

·      You will learn five strategies, which will help you achieve more by doing less.

·      You will learn one proactive practice, which will help you grow the people around you. 

This webinar is FREE to Quadrant2 subscribers.

You can subscribe to Quadrant2 here.

We will send Q2 subscribers the webinar registration link on September 9, 2022.

Links:

My email: [email protected]

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html

Sign up for the daily leadership email: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition

Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

Looking forward to episode 56: The Black Hole of Urgency!

Assistant Principal Podcast Five for Friday

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of August 29-September 2, 2022. If you already get my daily leadership emails, then I hope you’ll find some added value here and if you don’t already subscribe you can find a link on my home page at frederickbuskey.com. 

We have many new subscribers, so I want to take a minute to emphasize a few points about how to get the most value from the daily email:

1.     Don’t feel like you need to read them every day. Putting pressure on yourself to read every day leads to associating the email with negative emotions and that is counterproductive.

2.     If you are short on time, look at the MVP and think about it on your morning commute (if you aren’t listening to this podcast!)

3.     The ideal way to use the emails:

a.     Make your coffee or drink. 

b.     When you first open your email, find the daily message.

c.     Give yourself five minutes. 

d.     Read the message. 

e.     Reflect on it. 

f.      Most importantly, think about how you can apply the message to your leadership during the day.

4.     I try to write the daily message so that there is something you can use each day.

5.     Bonus: If something really resonates, and you have a few extra moments, hit reply and share with me. The hardest thing about the email is not getting feedback, so if you appreciate what I’m doing, consider connecting with me. If you are consuming this podcast on our YouTube channel, consider leaving a comment.

Recap…

Stories that drove this weeks emails…

Monday:

Good leadership matters. Your leadership matters!

Six dimensions (refer back to episode 1 of the podcast)

Tuesday

MVP: Support new people by building a strong relationship.

What new teachers need

Begin with relationships

Wednesday

MVP: “When a good person is in a bad system, the system will always win.”

·      Don’t stay

·      Aply somewhere else

·      Insulate yourself and unit

Thursday

MVP: Leadership feeling complicated? The essential things are being purpose driven and building relationships.

Friday

Let’s reflect:

·      If you strip everything away, what are the essential elements of your leadership?

·      Do you have a concrete strategy for getting better at any of them?

·      Are you being intentional about growing other leaders?

Takeaway

·      Leadership matters and leadership at every level of the organization matters.

·      Leadership is really hard.

·      But it is also simple: relationships and purpose. Everything else follows from that.

This wraps up this week’s Five for Friday rendition of The Assistant Principal Podcast. Next week we are going to dig into this idea of building relationships, so I hope you’ll join me each day by reading the email or at least listening to this podcast summary.

If you enjoyed today’s show, please subscribe and rate this podcast. 

If you have feedback email me at [email protected]. If you want to learn about what I’m doing to support assistant principals, you can head over to my website at frederickbuskey.com/theassistantprincipal.

I’m Frederick Buskey and I hope you’ll join me next time for the Assistant Principal Podcast. 

Cheers!

Show Notes, Episode 53: Supporting New Teachers, August 30, 2022

About this show:

In my teacher education program at The Ohio State University, I had two professors who literally wrote the book on managing students and spaces in physical education. Some of our student teaching lessons were taped, and the video was analyzed in six-second increments. Time was coded based on what a specific student was doing and the codes, as I remember them, were: Listening to content, listening to instructions, waiting, off task, and active learning time, or ALT. The goal was to have close to 80% of ALT time. In other words, students would be actively engaged in performing a task for 32 minutes during a 40-minute lesson. This required us as teachers to run highly managed spaces using concrete procedures.

Notable Quotes and Content

“The holy grail was ALT, active learning time. The goal was to run very tight lessons and have an extremely well-managed classroom with strong and effective procedures in order to maximize active learning time. This was my teacher ed preparation program.”

“The problem is that very, very few beginning teachers went through a program like I did. 

The Big Idea: Three big rocks:

·      Classroom management

·      Curriculum management

·      Building relationships with school leaders

Based on our collective experiences and in the literature

The Why

Great teachers = great schools

Can’t have great teachers if you can’t keep them and can’t develop them

Ethical obligation to support and grow the people we serve

***Almost universally, teachers wanted more contact with their administrators***

“With your lowest performing teachers, the place to start might be making sure that they are putting the time into planning.”

Challenges

·      Not having time is a false excuse (deal with them on front end or back end)

·      Having a clear game plan 

o   What do you want to do?

o   Management, curriculum, relationships and presence

·      Taking a team approach

Checking your own pulse

We are 1-3 weeks into the school year

·      Could you categorize your early career teachers?

·      More importantly, can you define what puts them into those categories and determine what they need most from you?

·      Are you supporting them and being directive, or are you making suggestions that are lost on overwhelmed 22-year-olds?

·      Do you have a team approach that is prioritizing ECT support?

Next steps

1.     Build a relationship with your ECTs

2.     Have the courage to be more directive in supporting them

3.     Drive conversations with your ILT

Summarizing (The big takeaway)

·      YOU need to support ECT, don’t put it all on your mentors

·      ECTs want you to be present and direct

·      Investing time is not an option – front or back

Some help:

·      10 Ways in 10 Days is a set of ten 10-minute activities to use with your new teachers in the first two weeks of school. If you aren’t sure of where to start with your new teachers, you can use these activities to start building relationships and providing procedural and curricular support. Even if you are a few weeks into the year, you can easily adapt these activities. In about the time it will take you to process three discipline referrals, you can help a new teacher get off to a much better start! Get a copy at https://mailchi.mp/9af27e09bca4/10waysin10days. Downloading will also sign you up for Qudrant2, our free bi-monthly micro-journal. 

Links:

My email: [email protected]

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html

Sign up for the daily leadership email: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition

Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

Blog: www.frederickbuskey.com/blog (reposts of the daily email)

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of August 22-26, 202. If you already get my daily leadership emails, then I hope you’ll find some added value here and if you don’t already subscribe you can find a link on my home page at frederickbuskey.com. Many readers like to begin their mornings by reading the email and setting a leadership intention for the day, but please don’t feel any pressure to subscribe. You are already doing more to grow yourself than many others out there, simply by listening to the podcast.

Recap…

Monday:

·      Backpacking story

·      What do we mean when we say we can’t do something?

o   Don’t want to

o   It is physically impossible

o   It is not a priority

·      I’m going to monitor my “I can’t” statements, I hope you will as well.

Tuesday

Interview of Craig Martin Executive Director of the Bridge Boston Charter School in Roxbury (Boston) Massachusetts.

The one takeaway - Play quote

We put our heads down – need to reflect on who we are and to be kind to ourselves even when our actions don’t produce out intentions.

Wednesday

Water tanks capture excess capacity to use when needed. How do we do that in leadership?

·      Building the leadership capacity of others adds extra capacity to the system.

·      Creating standard operating processes allows us to do more accurately in high demand times.

·      Investing time in identifying root problems allows us to focus our energies more efficiently.

Thursday

Another podcast quote from Leigh Ann Alford-Keith who leads in Charlotte-Mecklenburg system her in NC.

“It is a both-and, not either-or. You don’t have to think of engaging families or supporting your teachers. You can think of ‘how will engaging families support my teachers.’”

Opposition is a sign of mis-alignment

Friday

Beautiful hike into the Blue Ridge Mountains, foggy hike out

·      I knew the view even though I couldn’t see

·      I trusted that I knew the path

·      But as leaders, how do we navigate?

Takeaway

The tensions of leadership:

·      How do we build, increase, and then sustain our leadership capacity?

·      How do we know when to trust our knowledge and experience, and when to pause and be cautious?

·      How do we maintain clarity, not only of our own mission, but of the school’s mission, and the roles of all the people that make up our school community?

While daunting, this week’s messages also offer us hope. The consistent message is that the power lies with us. We get to choose, and when we understand ourselves, we are better able to make choices that sustain not only our schools, but ourselves as well. 

This wraps up this week’s Five for Friday rendition of The Assistant Principal Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s show, please subscribe and rate this podcast. Rating the podcast really does help other people to find it.

I’m always trying to improve the show, so if you have feedback please email me at [email protected]. If you’d like to find out more about what I’m doing to support assistant principals, you can head over to my website at frederickbuskey.com/theassistantprincipal.

I’m Frederick Buskey and I hope you’ll join me next time for the Assistant Principal Podcast.