ACCOMPLISHMENTS & PUBLICATIONS
PUBLICATION--April, 2019
FROM FIREFIGHTER MANAGER TO BUILDING LEADER Learn how to develop an AP, promote mentoring skills, and create a high-performing leadership team. By Mary Cooper and Martin Chafee Communicator April 2019, Volume 42, Issue 8 I had just been handed one of the best gifts an elementary school principal could receive—an assistant principal. Upon meeting Jamar Humphrey, newly named assistant principal of Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, asked what his hopes and dreams were for his new position. He said he was short for the world of assistant principal and a principal role was his next destination. I thought, This is good news, because I know how to be a principal, but in truth, I have no idea how to be an assistant principal. Like many elementary school principals, I never served as an assistant principal, and, as a teacher, I never worked in an environment that had both roles. I realized my responsibilities had grown, from leading 510 students, 68 teachers and staff, 1,000-plus parents to also leading Jamar. To perform at a level commensurate from which someone else can learn and “replicate” requires the best version of yourself every day. I needed to be intentional about my intentionality. So I asked myself: How do we shift from the firefighter manager (reactive) to the instructional building leader (proactive)? Seeking Expert Advice While searching for “expert” advice, the information was limited. District direction was limited, as well. “Start with discipline” was the common message. Oh, great!While I aspire to be a Level 5 Leader, all of the support I received said my assistant principal should be a “firefighter.” He’ll take care of tussles, name calling, and the occasional playground fist fight. On one hand, this would simplify my life, but it also will leave both of us unsatisfied and not optimized for the school. For a couple of months, Jamar performed the role of the “firefighter.” It gave him a sense of accomplishment. It was tangible to help two kids together who had a disagreement identify the problem, a solution, and alternative behaviors; apologize to each other; and reach closure. As a mentor, it was easy for me to stay attentive to what Jamar was doing and how he was doing it. Basically, I remained a manager myself, keeping my attention on the “what” and “how” of the role and responsibilities of the assistant principal. But I knew we both wanted more. We needed to shift to the disposition of leadership, the “why” of school leadership if we were both going to maximize this new partnership. Focusing on Leadership Leaders recognize that each day is filled with learning. Because of this, we focused our attention to our leadership by meeting a few times a week. Our quick 10-minute (or less) daily meetings serve three purposes:
We held our check-in meetings in the hallways during or immediately after greeting the students and parents in the morning. There was one agenda item: What’s on your plate today? If something needed more time and attention, we always pulled out our calendars and scheduled a time to meet. Life tends to repeat itself. Lessons learned in one role or district are transferable to other situations. Jamar needed to see that challenges we encounter now would likely be the same ones he will face as a principal in the future. When we processed our time for learning, we used the following questions to grow our leadership:
This pattern of discovering who we were in this new partnership and who we wanted to be went on for a few months. Then, as I had hoped, Jamar became anxious for more. We used three resources to dive more deeply into our work—the school district’s rubric for evaluating principals, based on the nine Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards; New Principal’s Fieldbook: Strategies for Success by Pamela Robbins and Harvey Alvy; and NAESP’s Leading Learning Communities: Standards for What Principals Should Know and Be Able to Do. Jamar began to shift his perspective from “How good am I at fighting fires?” to “Where do I need to grow to be an effective building leader?” Using the above-mentioned resources helped us identify next steps for Jamar as an assistant principal, me as a mentor, and us as a leadership team. Being an assistant principal should never be considered the end of a career progression for an educator. It should always be a means to other leadership positions. Jamar and I agreed. If either of us saw the assistant principal position as a career end, we would have short-changed each other, our students, our staff, and our community. We would also sub-optimize a critical role that should be used exclusively for learning, development, and succession planning for future principals. After several months, Jamar and I looked at all the roles of the building instructional leader and delegated them between us. We focused not just on our individual strengths but also on our needed and desired growth areas. His shift went from lunchroom, student drop-off/pick-up, and discipline to sharing observations, creating meeting agendas, and facilitating professional development. As this shared leadership took hold, new questions arose in our meetings together. Jamar started asking more questions that began with “why,” which led me to become clearer and more intentional in my practice as a mentor and principal. The goal is clear: Do not leave your assistant principal in the “fire truck;” instead be deliberate about growing a future leader. Mary Cooper is the principal of Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Ann Arbor Public Schools in Ann Arbor Michigan. Martin Chaffee is a leadership consultant at Oakland Schools in Waterford, Michigan. --- Copyright © 2019. National Association of Elementary School Principals. No part of the articles in NAESP magazines, newsletters, or website may be reproduced in any medium without the permission of the National Association of Elementary School Principals. For more information, view NAESP's reprint policy. Center for Creative Leadership Training
During the Summer of 2012, a team of Dexter educators and I were gifted with the opportunity to study at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We were learning with teams from across the United States, and even from other countries. Data Wise is a framework for using data to examine our school improvement work. It was a rich learning experience that we were able to bring back to Dexter.
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International Baccalaureate (IB) Training
In August of 2010, I was a part of a group of educators from Dexter who were provided the opportunity to be International Baccalaureate (IB) trained at Princeton University. The necessity of creating integrated units of study was reinforced throughout the IB training. Personally, the learner profiles resonated with me, and teaching them to our Wylie students was an easy starting place. Unfortunately, due of funding difficulties, Dexter decided to suspend our IB work at the elementary level.
Read and Be Well
Six years ago I had a vision that combined my students' love for writing, kindness and kids who were hurting. Read and Be Well is a service program involving more than 2,500 Novi students writing, illustrating, publishing and then donating their books to children across the state. Some of the recipients of the books are homeless and others are in pediatric care facilities. Now in its third year, all the funded has been covered by the Novi Educational Foundation.
This program has been written about in Pockets Magazine (see below) and received an Education Excellence Award from the Michigan Association of School Boards in April, 2010.
This program has been written about in Pockets Magazine (see below) and received an Education Excellence Award from the Michigan Association of School Boards in April, 2010.
Write Start: From envisioning and creating to implementing and refining an innovative, sustained professional development. September, 2007- June, 2010.
Writing is often considered the "Neglected R". In the district where I teach, our writing scores were inferior to of math and reading scores. I took the initiative to design and implement a sustained, high quality professional development for teachers to enhance their writing instruction. Working with thirty teachers a year, I facilitate learning by through release days and job-embedded work. Write Start has brought systemic change to our district from kindergarten through sixth grade.
The Write Start program was just awarded the Education Excellence Award from the Michigan Association of School Boards in April, 2010.
The Write Start program was just awarded the Education Excellence Award from the Michigan Association of School Boards in April, 2010.
PUBLICATION:
"Sing the Write Song: Collaborating to Bring Systemic Change to Writing" Article published in the Language Arts Journal of Michigan. Written with Connie Dye, Marianne Malarkey and Jenifer Michos. Winter, 2010.
Read article posted below.
Parents and Kids' Writing Nights
Each year hundreds of parents and children attended the "Parents and Kids Writing Nights." Parents come to learn writing strategies and how writing is taught today. Kids come because they love to write! Seeing parents and their children writing, sharing and laughing together is the goal of these evenings. The more fun people have writing the more they will invest in it.
Authors' Adventure Writing Camp
Our writing camp was so popular that we had to turn kids away!