Professional development opportunities are essential to your faculty's growth as educators and as members of the school community. During your meetings, make professional development the primary focus, and give your teachers the floor. As the leaders of the meeting, they can share their research, report on conferences they've attended, and share articles or other material they have read. This way, the meeting becomes more of a seminar … and raises the level of leadership among the faculty members.
Get rid of meeting drudgery by having a little fun, too! Plan time for stories, amusing anecdotes, ice-breakers, and celebrations—in general, sharing—that will boost your faculty's team spirit. And while this all can be light-hearted, it will also help your faculty renew their sense of purpose as teachers.
Always reinforce the school's mission at your meetings. Everything you do at the school should support the mission that you are delivering to your students. Use your all-faculty meeting to drive this home. "Mission talk" is a great way to start all your meetings since it provides a foundation for everything you cover. Your teachers will come to expect it, and ultimately come to each meeting prepared to share what they see and hear relating to your mission.
But how do you get the ball rolling? "Mission talk" will probably be new to your teachers, and may seem nebulous. Start by emphasizing that mission is often exemplified in small actions and events that happen every day, in and out of the classroom. Rather than tell your own stories, ask a teacher who has shared a story with you to tell the group. And it can be as "small" as a lower-school student who, without prompting, introduces a new student to others, showing that your school is "developing a caring individual"—possibly a tenet of your mission. You need to keep your own examples and comments to a minimum, simply have the faculty take ownership of this. But please encourage reports from teachers in all roles, such as adviser, coach, bus monitor, and others. Mission can be evident in the actions of students, staff, faculty, and parents.
Don't forget to share the school's strategic direction! The faculty needs to understand the strategic plan and strategic financial plan, and feel free to ask questions. After all, the faculty delivers the mission of the school directly to the students! Teachers need to know the plans for the school's future. Through regular updates, you can let them know of advances—and setbacks.
While your goal is to have your faculty take leadership roles during the meeting, that does not let you off the hook. You need to carefully plan and prepare—no off-the-cuff stuff.
- Set up a regular schedule of these meetings so faculty can plan around them.
- Prepare an agenda.
- Start and end on time, and limit the meeting to no more than 90 minutes.
- Set-up ground rules, like no cell phones, no unrelated side conversations, etc.
- Make the environment comfortable.
What about the necessary administrivia? If you can, remove it from the all-faculty meeting. Rather, make it a 15-minute stand-up session once or twice a week before the school day starts. Essential information is clearly bullet-pointed without becoming tedious. You only have time for the most important details. And between meetings, use the best way to share for your school—e-mail, mailbox notes, bulletin board, etc.
While you are working on turning your all-faculty meeting into a growth opportunity, make sure you don't unintentionally use motivation killers to dampen your effort! Download ISM's free PDF "10 Common Phrases That Kill Motivation—On The Spot!"
