Are you ready to level up your school leadership skills? Brace yourself for an immersive educational experience with Dr. Carrie Hepburn. She tackles the key areas district leaders must master for a successful school year: calendar management, efficient communication, intelligent budgeting, and strategic data usage. Dr. Hepburn shares her wealth of knowledge on maximizing classroom visits, forging meaningful connections with administrators, coaches, and teachers, and championing the wonders of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).
But wait, there's more! Let's demystify data and its role in decision-making. We dissect everything from qualitative to quantitative, from screening data to statewide assessments. Learn how to interpret historical trends, make informed assumptions, and goal-set for the next round of screenings effectively. Furthermore, she delves into the exciting world of the Compass PD Podcast, exploring how it aids in setting up classroom routines, planning, and setting goals. Find out how our dedicated team collaborates with coaches, teachers, and school leaders to attain their ambitious goals.
Together, help us embark on this journey towards impacting the learning of one million students. Join us, subscribe, follow, and leave us a review. Let's make this school year count!
Are you ready to level up your school leadership skills? Brace yourself for an immersive educational experience with Dr. Carrie Hepburn. She tackles the key areas district leaders must master for a successful school year: calendar management, efficient communication, intelligent budgeting, and strategic data usage. Dr. Hepburn shares her wealth of knowledge on maximizing classroom visits, forging meaningful connections with administrators, coaches, and teachers, and championing the wonders of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).
But wait, there's more! Let's demystify data and its role in decision-making. We dissect everything from qualitative to quantitative, from screening data to statewide assessments. Learn how to interpret historical trends, make informed assumptions, and goal-set for the next round of screenings effectively. Furthermore, she delves into the exciting world of the Compass PD Podcast, exploring how it aids in setting up classroom routines, planning, and setting goals. Find out how our dedicated team collaborates with coaches, teachers, and school leaders to attain their ambitious goals.
Together, help us embark on this journey towards impacting the learning of one million students. Join us, subscribe, follow, and leave us a review. Let's make this school year count!
Hello, hello, hello. Dr Carrie Hepburn here from the Compass PD podcast, and it's just me today. If you've been listening to the podcast the last couple of months, you'll notice that we've been thinking about the school district as a system and working to create a podcast that delivers information that is important for each stakeholder within that system. Our goal is to prepare educators so that they can be proactive rather than reactive. Today I'm excited because I get to share some information with district leaders district leaders in the curriculum, instruction and professional development department. In some districts that might be multiple people who fill those roles. I was really blessed that I worked in a district that we had several people in our curriculum department and many of us worked in curriculum instruction and assessment and the professional development. But there are lots of us so that we could bounce ideas off of each other and work to make our programming even better for those that we served. But in other districts it's not like that. Sometimes it's the same person that fulfills both roles or multiple roles. Other times we walk in and the principal is also the curriculum director and the assessment person, the professional development or the superintendent leads all of the work independently on top of being principal of a high school. So I'm hoping that this, that I'm able to share with you some tips that can be beneficial to you, regardless of how you're serving in this role. And if you just try one or two, be good with that this year and then maybe the next year try some more, and it really is going to look for everyone just a little bit differently. So here we are in September and many of you are in the first month of the school year. Some of the districts that we serve they just started school early in September. As a district leader who facilitates curriculum and professional learning, it could be people in the CIA department what needs to be on your radar right now?
Speaker 1:Now, well, I'm going to go back to my first episode for you, which was episode 20, leading the organization, the essential skills for curriculum and professional learning leaders, and I want to remind you of the four big topics that I'm going to be revisiting month after month with you, one being calendar, the other being communication, budget and data, because those four areas are a huge part of your job and within that, we can talk about curriculum, we can talk about professional development, we can talk about assessments, but these four big buckets are going to be things that will just if you can get these under control they'll be really helpful for you throughout the school year. So the first thing that I want to talk about is your calendar, and I talked about this in episode 20, when I talked about using your calendar to highlight what you value relationships, balance in your life and staying connected to those you serve. Hopefully, school started, students are in the building and everyone has all of their things, because that can be overwhelming at the beginning of the school year, and I want to take a minute to briefly remind you of the importance of scheduling building and class visits, making sure those are in your calendar. Those are oftentimes the first thing that comes off of the list and I'm going to urge you not to let that happen. Building and classroom visits are going to do a few things for you. They're going to help you build relationships. People are going to see you and they're going to see that you care. They see that you care about their building. They see you care about the students. They see that you care about them.
Speaker 1:When you're doing these building and class visits, take a few moments to connect with the administrators, the coaches and some of the teachers within the building, just check in, say, hey, you know what's going well, what are some challenges that you face, and if you have a minute, this is a game changer Leave like just a little positive note. I love to leave post-it notes, so I post it notes on me all the time, post it notes in a pen or marker and I'll just leave, like I loved how you did this for your students. Or I noticed some of the conversations in your class were so powerful. Or just a positive, encouraging note for the administrator can go a long way. Starting right now, leave as many compliments as you can so that people know that you see the hard work that they're doing and it makes it easier down the road to have some difficult conversations because it's not like you've only seen the things that aren't going well. You're seeing the things that are going well.
Speaker 1:Try to get into some PLCs. Depending on the size of your district, it's going to get tricky. I know so for me. I was in a large school district and I could hit one a year Based on the amount of PLCs that I served. So do your best to try to start getting into some and just be listening, and I want you to be in buildings and schools, not only to build those relationships, but to begin collecting data. Some of the work that I'm going to talk you through with, starting now, may not even be used for this this year, but I'm going to do my best to set you up for success for next year. So I was in the CIA department. I was in curriculum, instruction and assessment for almost a decade, and this habit of collecting data will serve you well later down the line.
Speaker 1:So let's move now into communication. So when I do a quick reminder from our last time together, one reminder is that it takes five to seven times to be for something to be communicated, for it to be fully understood. In education, you cannot over communicate. Stakeholders have so much information coming at them. They have it coming at them from the district, from parents, from students, from colleagues, people in their building, the community. Your job and your communication plan should set them up for success. So make sure that you're communicating regularly and often. By now, I want you to have sent at least one newsletter, and if newsletters are overwhelming for you when you think of monthly, then just think of quarterly newsletters. A newsletter from your level right now needs to include the following things Expectations, expectations for curriculum instruction, what instruction looks like, and assessment and how they can locate anything that they need in order to do those things.
Speaker 1:Something I found helpful was our district had like a simple Google document that we called the assessment calendar, and it was literally just a document on Google that listed out all of the expected required district assessments, the dates for those delivery, for the delivery of those assessments, for them to be given and a location where the data should be housed after they're given and scored, and that document was only a few people could edit that document, so that's really important. You don't want just anyone to be able to get in there. But that document was always shared in the newsletter and sometimes I would just take snippets like pictures of the document of what was vital to them for that quarter. So they weren't looking at the whole document and overwhelmed, they were seeing just what was important to them in that moment. So that is a tip that I really would recommend.
Speaker 1:When it comes to your newsletter and expectations, we also found that an instruction expectations document was helpful, where it kind of laid out what was expected regarding instruction in our school district. So an example could be if your district has done PDE on instructional strategies and you expect objectives in every lesson or for students to be working in the bulk of their time practicing and doing the work, versus a teacher lecturing, you need to explicitly state that. What does that look like? You can't expect people just to know that throughout osmosis. It's not fair. It's also not fair if you expect somebody to do something that you haven't taught yet. If you, as a district, have done your due diligence and provided 50 hours of high quality PDE to your staff on a specific topic, you should see transference in the classroom. If you've given less than those 50 hours, you should start to see some approximation of them trying it out, and you know that you need to provide additional professional learning coaching support so that you can see that full transparency mastery in the classroom.
Speaker 1:Another expectation that we had that was in a document was instructional minutes, and that's really more something for elementary, because they have so many things on their plate that they're teaching that they don't go hour by hour or period by period. They're teaching all of it, and so we would have an instructional guidelines expectation document that laid it out for them. Some other things I'd like to see in your newsletter would be dates for the quarter. What are the dates for your scope and sequence? When are assessments given, those required assessments? What are upcoming professional development days, including those locations, if this is new to you? If this is new, I recommend doing it quarterly. But I also had you know yearly overviews that people could access those documents. So, just like I talked about an assessment document and an expectation, instructional expectation document and instructional minutes document, people did appreciate to see the outline of what professional developments would be happening throughout the school year the locations, the dates, the requirements, who would be going where. That was really helpful. But if it's new doing this newsletter, then just share with them what's happening that quarter and it allows them to plan accordingly.
Speaker 1:In your newsletter any updates regarding curriculum should be included and I loved having like a technology cheat sheet inside my newsletter. I worked with our tech department and we created a bookmark that could be printed out and it had all of the subscriptions that we subscribe to as a district and how to log into those resources. It was a big game changer and reduce my emails by, I bet, 25%. But you know, at your level, reducing email anything that reduces email is a good day, right? Right, if you have instructional supports in your classroom, like coaches, they could offer more specific newsletters to those that they serve. So if you have reading coaches or literacy coaches or math coaches, they could include information around priority power, essential standards, instructional strategies that would be helpful in teaching those standards, how to intervene on those standards. All of that doesn't have to fall on you. You should delegate some of that out and have them be using their newsletter as an opportunity to support curriculum and professional development, as it aligns with those that they serve.
Speaker 1:A reminder, too, to you that you are sitting in a ton of meetings. I know it, and you're receiving a bazillion emails. I know that too. I want you to notice those trends and the questions and things that you're being asked or that people seem to be confused about. That's feedback to you. That's a feedback that there's misunderstanding somewhere. It hasn't been communicated well enough. Answer those questions in your newsletter. Then every time somebody emails you and asks you, you can say great question, check that out. I've got that in my newsletter it's the third paragraph down and email that with the link to your newsletter so they can go to that. And what you're doing is when you're sitting in principal meetings you're like, oh, let's pull up my newsletter and you can see that it's right here so that you can show your teachers. You're training your people to start checking your newsletter for important information before they come to you. That again will reduce email. It clarifies things, reduces stress. It makes everyone feel just a lot better knowing that we're doing things to be proactive, versus having to react all the time. Okay, so we've talked about calendar, we've talked about communication.
Speaker 1:Let's go into budget. Good news Budget's pretty easy this month. Don't forget to stay on top of your budget. Make sure that you have a system in place that you're regularly updating and knowing what you have left in your budget. Sometimes around this time, surprise funds come in. Believe it or not, they do. I was just sitting in a district this week that they just found out that they had won a grant and there were more grant opportunities coming, or ESSER funds, any of those things.
Speaker 1:So remember in my first podcast with you in episode 20, I talked about you're going to be collecting data. You're going to be gathering information. One of those things is who hasn't been served, whose budgets been cut again and again and again, who doesn't have the things that they need to be able to implement their curriculum and improve instruction. Those are the things that you will have data on that. You have a list. On that you can say, okay, we have some things, and here's the data that I have to support that. I tried not to purchase just additional resources or technology, because that's always going to be something like just stuff. When people are asking for stuff, that means there's confusion or they need help with something. So I try to make sure it's an area that there really is a need and they don't have what they need to do their job really well or they have outdated resources, or I try to spend it on professional development, because you make a better impact on student achievement when you impact through professional development. So keep those things in mind.
Speaker 1:Data let's go to data now. I talked with you last month about collecting data or data, because it will help you make wise decisions for the following year, and I just talked to you about your budget. Even for this year. You're spending money or making big changes to curriculum, professional development, district wide initiatives. Having data is critical because that helps you build your. Why we need to do this. Nobody likes something just happening to them, but when you have a strong why and data can help with that, it's an easier pillar swallow, as some people say. So hopefully by now you have some ideas about the types of data that you want to collect. You can hear more of my ideas in episode 20 leading the organization, essential skills for curriculum and professional learning leaders.
Speaker 1:But if right now you're like, okay, I'm kind of new to this, these are some things that I would start with immediately. First of all, you have plenty of quantitative data. You have screening data coming in and you have probably statewide data from the end of the year high stakes assessments. So I'm going to talk with you about qualitative data. If I were you, I would be in classrooms and buildings and noticing our structures and routines in place in my classrooms. As I visit buildings and grade levels, I'm going to notice are there pockets or areas where there aren't structures and routines in place? If I notice this, I know I need to intervene immediately. So I need to make sure that the building or the principal or the coach or myself are providing additional learning and coaching on how to get structures and routines in place. If we don't get that in place now, then we're going to have issues with teaching curriculum, not to mention behaviors. So this is vital. If you're seeing that you have areas that this isn't happening or an area now, there's no time to waste. You need to take care of that now.
Speaker 1:I also look at pacing. I'm thinking scope and sequence. I know you're about a month into school, but if you have a team that's behind right now, a month into school, it's going to impact their ability to teach all of the expected curricula for the rest of the year and that automatically causes difficulties for next year's teachers and that's unfair. So you cannot ignore it. I will tell you that a story that really I really upset people a couple of times, but I had gone in and saw that people had. We had a resource that was part of our curriculum and we're supposed to be. Through that resource. I found out a kindergarten class team was using teachers, pay teachers and it and, like I, went into their PLC. I went to their principal in the first month of school. Our kids were already behind in kindergarten, and so if we were already behind the first four weeks of school, what was it going to look like by the end of the school year and kids were already hearing different vocabulary that they wouldn't be exposed to the following year because in the following year they were using the resource that had been adopted to implement the curriculum.
Speaker 1:And so these are things that you, as the district leader, need to be keeping an eye on and keeping a gauge on, and if it's not happening, it has to be helped, like supported. It has to be addressed and helped. So is it that we're not doing it because we need more help, we need more support? We don't understand and that's up to you to help provide that support or is it that we just don't like it and we need to dig more into why we're doing these things, the why the district chose this resource or why we believe in these instructional strategies? It's really important for you to have a gauge on that. And then something else that I look at is am I seeing evidence of professional learning from the summer professional learning or beginning of the school year? Am I seeing there's mastery or that teachers are approximating, and how can I continue to support their learning so that we can get towards that mastery level? Dr Brenner talked with instructional coaches in her last podcast about data coming in, the screening and the information from the state. And then Dr Fowler spoke with teachers about having students set mastery goals based on some of the data that they're seeing from their screening data and some of the learning that they're doing From your level.
Speaker 1:I want you to think about this. What is the data from the state saying? Are you noticing historical trends? What are some of your assumptions? What is the data from the screening saying? How does it align with what you've seen historically on your screening data? Are you seeing trends? Do you see pockets, certain grades or certain buildings? Do you see, maybe, certain areas of your screener that maybe are having more issues than others? This is all important for you to notice and to study. I want you to consider these things, this quantitative data, as you consider. What should I be looking for qualitatively that could be leading to this data that we're seeing quantitatively? Then consider how am I gonna share this information with administrators, with higher ups, with my team, and set goals for next time for your screening and assessments along the way, so that you can see improvement as the school year goes on.
Speaker 1:It's really important for you to have all of these things on your radar and I know that it's a lot. So, as I think about these things, you're going to run into a couple predictable problems. One is going to be pop up expectations and meetings, and this is gonna suck your time and steer you away from these important things of keeping your calendar, thinking about communication, budget and data, because I know all those things take a lot of time. So you're going to have to find a way to have some buffer in your schedule and you're going to have to have some really strong boundaries, all right. And then another thing that you're going to hear.
Speaker 1:Another predictable problem is the school year. At the beginning of the school year, there's a lot of stress, so people feel overwhelmed. I want you to listen, ask questions, dig deep into what's causing that emotion and thank them for trusting you. And you don't have to fix it right then, but start to notice. If you're seeing trends or if you agree with them, or if you need to dig deeper into seeing, like, what is happening or is this just an isolated situation, then you can address it. But don't feel like you have to fix the problem or fix all of the problems. Give it some time and see, kind of what you're noticing, what you're hearing, what you're seeing.
Speaker 1:And if I had one big tip for you right now, at this time of the year, I would say get a hold of your calendar. I know I've said it a lot and I'm going to say it as often as possible because I want you to stay in your role for a really long time. We need you and we need your passion, we need your knowledge, we need your expertise, but you also deserve to have time during the week work week and work hours to actually work on the things that come up in your meeting, and you deserve to have moments in your life that you aren't thinking about work. So, set some boundaries, plan with your family and you're going to find that you can be more productive and enjoy your job even more. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope that you found this information helpful and I would love your feedback. If there's something that you want to hear about or you'd love for us to do a bonus episode on, let me know. Couple things I want to highlight for you as a district leader.
Speaker 1:Dr Needringhouse has a podcast out for principles or her podcast is in our Compass PD podcast. Episodes 17 and episode 22 are two great podcasts to check out right now about kicking off the school year. As an administrator, we also have time for instructional coaches, for supporting for your instructional coaches. Episodes 16 and episodes 20, dr Brenner talks about kicking off the school year, navigating it well and then thinking through the data that they're getting right now and the amount of data and what to do with that data. So here I am. I'm telling you free PD, use it, please. That's what we want to do.
Speaker 1:And then Dr Fowler has some really great episodes out there about setting up classroom routines and planning. Oh my gosh, it's so good so you need to listen to episodes 18 and 19 for that. And then episode 24, she talks about setting goals in classrooms, and that's a really great one to kick off the school year. So, if you did not know, compass PD has a big goal of impacting the learning of one million students, and one way you can help us meet that goal is by sharing this podcast with a fellow educator and hit that subscribe, follow, like whatever button and please, please, we would love for you to give us a review if you enjoy our podcast and if you find this learning helpful. Our team works with readers and teachers and school districts every single day. Reach out to us and let us know we'd be happy to talk with you and how we can help you reach your ambitious goal. Have a great day.