Building up a school requires a lot; to start with, it requires the principal to make sure that the students that attend that school, that their wellbeing is always a priority. That wellbeing includes growth in academics, social, and even self-growth. One of the things that comes with the student’s growth is the teacher growth. Teacher growth includes, planning, changing teaching styles based on student needs, analyzing different data to help students grow, teamwork, collaboration with other schools or school coworkers, and self-reflecting. “Great school leaders know that they are not running a one-man show; that they cannot do it all alone” (Lathan, 2019)
However, sometimes it is a struggle for teachers to complete all the tasks, and still have time to do any extras, this is where the team lead or grade level leader can help. For example, as a team leader when there is a teacher struggling, not meeting standards, one thing the team leader can do is offer observation help. The team leader can observe the teacher during a lesson, observe the students during independent learning, and reflect with the teacher. What worked? What didn’t? What can change? Another responsibility of the leader is a harder one, but it is reporting to the principal when a teacher isn’t meeting the expectations set. For example, if the teacher is not participating in team meetings, the students are falling behind, and there is no effort being made, the principal and team leader can meet and reflect on why? Why are all these things happening, and then there can be a plan put in place. During this conversation, a principal should include the team leader and the title/lap teacher, as these are teachers that most likely work with the students and the teacher more than anyone else is in the school.
As a leader, before making any decisions, meeting with the teacher, including other stakeholders, or any decisions that have you as a leader intervene, you need to make sure that there are no district policies that effect the decisions. For example, a policy that might affect you is the observation policy. If you are supposed to observe a teacher a certain number of times, and you have done that and have not noticed an issue, then the teacher can bring that up into discussion when questioning the leader’s motives. Once everything is clear, the principal needs to gather more information, and this being observations, data, goals that have been made, or a document for goals to be made, and anything that can relate to student and teacher growth ( teacher attendance, professional developments done, community participation). Once all the information is gathered, it really is beneficial for the principal to reflect once more on the outcomes of any meeting that is going to happen. For example, if the principal reflects and decides to do nothing, a positive outcome would be that the teacher in question would grow on their own, will become independent and seek their own resources to help her students. However, a negative can be the total opposite and students will continue to get behind and not grow in any aspects of the school life. On the other hand, if after reflecting the principal decides to continue with an action plan, a positive effect will be that the teacher will work as a team, will grow and learn from mistakes, and will seek out help when needed from her team members. A negative can be that the teacher may feel attacked, may feel singled out, and will adapt a very negative outlook overall process.
After reflecting on all of the positive and negative outcomes, it is time to take action into helping the teacher. The first thing that the principal should do is meet with the teacher and let them know the concerns, let them know the plans, set goals, basically, have a very open, honest meeting with the teacher. It is important that this meeting is honest and open and not a meeting where the teacher feels that she is in trouble because no matter what you still want to promote support and trust. Following the initial meeting, inform the teacher that for the next planning and goal-setting meeting let the teacher know that there will be others joining the team; those other includes the grade level leader and the title/lap teacher. One important thing is that the teacher is not blindsided with all people who are there to help her, the more honest you can be the more the teacher is going to be accepting of the help. “In order to meet our goals of increased student achievement across the board, we’ve got to engage in practices that support the ongoing growth and development of our teaching corps.” (ASCD, 2014) This is one of the biggest challenges that the principal can face, is that the teacher will not be receptive, and will find that working with anyone else is not a choice. Another challenge can be motivation; the teacher may start motivated, but not fulfill the expectations halfway through. This is where the ongoing support is crucial. The principal needs provide different meetings although out the year to check on goals that where set, as well as data meetings every time there data to review. Having these teams is going to not only hold the teacher accountable, but also do helpful check-ins with the teacher. With all the steps included, there needs to be a timeline, which for the benefit of the school and teacher, should be a year. During this timeline, as a principal schedule the necessary meetings, observations, and final goal-setting meeting. This final goal setting meeting is where the principal can reflect the different things that worked based on observations, the teachers efforts, the team members efforts, and how to proceed for the next year, if that is even necessary.
ASCD. (2014). How to Build Teachers’ Capacity for Success. Retrieved from ASCD EventsInstitutes: https://inservice.ascd.org/how-to-build-teachers-capacity-for-success/
Lathan, J. (2019). 10 Traits of Successful School Leaders. Retrieved from University of San Diego .