You work closely with your faculty and staff every day within your school. You trust their judgement in the classroom, their desire to further your mission, and their dedication to helping your students succeed.
But sometimes a teacher in your school doesn’t quite fit the mold. Their actions aren’t always in line with the school's mission or the needs of the students. They negatively influence the faculty culture, spreading gossip in the teacher’s lounge or complaining during meetings.
Consider Your Calendar: How Many Teaching Days Does Your School Really Have?
One role of an academic administrator is to help educators maximize their teaching time in the classroom. We therefore recommend that every team review the amount of actual teaching days allotted in your school year calendar.
4 Ways to Ensure a Successful Community Service Program
Many schools have incorporated community service into their mission to show their students how to become global citizens with hearts for helping others. An integral part of delivering this value is an ongoing focus on service learning.
Scheduling Supports Advisory Program Success
The advisory program can be a distinguishing feature among your school’s offerings, and a source of multiple benefits to your students and their families. Of course, it must be well-planned and effectively implemented. There’s also the question of how advisory activities will be scheduled. The success of your advisory program depends, in part, on how it is incorporated into the school day, week, and year. As the School Head, meet with your scheduler to go over your expectations and ensure the schedule supports the scope and excellence of the program.
Recommended Resources for Academic Leaders
It’s always important to continue pursuing your professional development initiatives. That could mean diving into a good book, listening to a podcast on your way to school, or watching a video between meetings or other tasks.
5 Strategies for Your Professional Development Initiatives
It’s critical for Division Heads to help faculty members increase their knowledge and sharpen their approaches through professional development. Your school’s professional initiatives must be designed to help teachers navigate the rapidly evolving world of education to meet the needs of today’s students.
Set the Tone for a Successful School Year With Faculty Appreciation
A new school year is full of excitement and possibilities. As your teachers settle into their classrooms and kick off the fall semester, why not show appreciation for all that they do at your school?
What to Know About Google for Education
Many private-independent schools continue to increase the use of technology in their programs. We’ve heard a few questions about the Google for Education program lately. Google for Education helps educators understand how to use Google’s online tools—such as Docs, Calendars, and Hangouts—to collaborate online inside and outside of the classroom.
Essential Expectations of Senior Administrators
In a previous article, we listed observable behaviors that collectively form an action premise from which each Headship develops. In this article, we consider the senior administrator position—those who report directly to the Head and collectively form the Leadership Team.
The essential expectations list is one of two criteria for administrator evaluation. The other criteria are objectives created from the annual administrative agenda. This agenda’s objectives change each year as the strategic needs of the school continue to evolve, as articulated through the Board’s strategic plan/strategic financial plan. The essential expectations, on the other hand, are a constant reflecting the observable behaviors that the School Head expects each member the Leadership Team to exhibit and the Head evaluates.
The Toxic Teacher: Identification
For you as a School Head, Human Resources Director, or an academic administrator, toxic teachers can be a puzzling phenomenon. Teachers, at the beginning of their careers, are typically:
full of hope;
excited about changing the world one child at a time;
interested in—or even obsessive about—their subject material; and
prone to moving every conversation (even those outside the school) to “what happened at school today.”