Send This Article to a Friend Meeting Expectations
Turn staff gatherings into learning opportunities
By Joan Richardson
Tools for Schools, Dec/Jan. 2002
Copyright, National Staff Development Council, 2002. All rights reserved.
When you look out over a sea of tired faces, you know something’s not quite right," said Greig Christian, a principal in Alberta, Canada.
Christian undoubtedly speaks for hundreds of principals who’ve experienced similar feelings as they stood before a weary staff at the end of a long school day. Increasingly, principals are moving away from traditional staff meetings and shaping their student-free staff time into professional learning opportunities. Districts are supporting those efforts by arranging early release days and by allowing schools more flexibility in determining their schedules.
Although teachers are often initially resistant or, at least, apprehensive about such changes, principals say teachers warm to the idea after just a few weeks of experiencing the difference. "Our teachers love this. They have a great time with each other and they are learning,’’ said Linda Ballow, a principal in the Adams Twelve Five Star District in suburban Denver.
Communication key
One of the first steps in transforming staff meeting time is figuring out how to ensure that teachers continue to receive information that traditionally has been shared during those meetings.
The form of the communication depends on the culture of the building. Some principals designate a central bulletin board for required information. Middle and high schools often disseminate information through department chairs.
Ballow, principal of North Star Elementary School in Thornton, Colo., works in a school where the staff is accustomed to checking e-mail several times a day. So she distributes a weekly e-mail newsletter to her staff. Teachers know they are expected to read the newsletter online. "They understand that if they don’t want meetings or longer meetings, they have to read their e-mail,’’ Ballow said.
Christian does a similar newsletter but prints copies and places them in every teachers’ mailbox because his staff is not quite as reliant on e-mail yet. "That way, someone can read a hard copy while they’re walking down the hall or at home, if they want,’’ he said.
In a similar way, Marilyn Jerde, principal of Arapahoe Ridge Elementary School in Westminster, Colo., begins each week with a Monday message sent to teachers via e-mail. On Friday afternoons, she distributes a calendar of upcoming events to ensure that teachers know what lies ahead.
Jerde’s school also has other structures that have replaced the traditional staff meeting and assist with ensuring good communication. (These structures were put in place by Jerde’s predecessor, Carol Kiernan.) Arapahoe Ridge has a coordinating council composed of teachers who deal with various issues that might previously have been discussed in staff meetings. About half of the 25 teachers in the school have volunteered to serve on the council. The coordinating council deals with only one or two issues during a meeting and meets every other week. For example, a recent coordinating council meeting addressed plans for the school’s literacy night. Once the issue had been discussed, Jerde shared the information with other teachers through her Monday message, although with so many teachers involved in reaching the decision, the news spreads quickly by word of mouth, she said.
"We don’t really have to hash out every issue with all 25 teachers but it is important that teachers decide them. This way, we don’t burden everybody with this discussion. We schedule the meeting for 30 minutes. We begin on time and we end on time,’’ she said.
Arranging time
As principal at Grand Centre Elementary School in Cold Lake, Alberta, Greig Christian initially introduced a learning segment into his weekly staff meetings. "That wasn’t always effective. It was staff development but it was always at my direction and that wasn’t really the idea of what I wanted,’’ said Christian, who is now a principal in the Northern Lights School Division in Bonnyville, Alberta.
So Christian rearranged the school schedule so that a different group of grade-level teachers could meet with each other each morning from 8:30 a.m. to 9:10 a.m. That meant that grade-level teams were able to meet for 40 minutes each week. Support staff and administrators would relieve teachers during that time.
Using the school and district goals as its guide, each grade-level team sets its own agenda for what it will study
"These professional learning communities took care of what we used to do in a curriculum committee so we eliminated that committee,’’ he said.
Regular staff meetings continued but shifted their focus. For example, a climate committee that studied student and staff issues might use one staff meeting to discuss what it was learning. During another week, staff meeting time might be converted to time for student support teams to meet. Those teams focus on the specific needs of a single student and help teachers identify new strategies for working with that child.
Released time
In the Adams Twelve Five Star District in suburban Denver, time that was once devoted to staff meetings has now shifted to time for professional learning. Every school in the district has an early release day once a week to enable teachers to meet with each other for about two hours.
At Arapahoe Ridge, Jerde asks the staff to allow her to have 30 minutes every other week if something comes up that requires a more traditional staff meeting. But, if she needs to use that time, it follows the planned learning for the afternoon. "Our teachers value their learning time so much that they don’t want to muddy the waters with other stuff. They want to get into their professional development,’’ she said.
Each Wednesday afternoon, the Arapahoe Ridge staff begins in the school media center with 10 to 15 minutes of celebration. "We touch base and we talk about what’s going well in the building. And we always have food because that adds to the celebration,’’ Jerde said.
The school has set up a four-week rotation with each week taking a different form.
Teachers use the first week in a more traditional way, typically listening to an expert who shares new content in an area of concern for them. For example, one week might focus on how to motivate children to read. Another week might focus on the needs of gifted and talented learners.
During the second week, teachers meet in grade-level teams where they focus on how they can take what they learned in the preceding week and apply it to their classes. They plan lessons and assessments together.
During the third week, teachers meet in study teams of three to four people each. The study teams organize themselves according to topics of interest and read to learn more about best practice in an area of concern to them. For example, one study team might focus on reading comprehension for advanced learners while another might focus on managing reading in flexible groupings.
"We provide the books for them but they set the goals for themselves,’’ Jerde said. "They love doing this. When they get together, it’s very rich professional talk."
Before departing on study team day, the entire staff reassembles in the media center to share what they’ve been learning.
Finally, during the fourth week, teachers meet in vertical teams, each headed by a volunteer teacher leader. Everyone brings an example of student work to these meetings and the discussion focuses on what teachers need to do to improve what students are learning.
"What makes this work so well is that every one is participating. Once they get into this, it makes such a difference in their teaching,’’ Jerde said.
At Ballow’s school, Thoughtful Thursdays run in roughly the same way. They have been "a dream come true for me,’’ said the principal.
A leadership team with representatives from every grade and every group of resource people plans each Thursday’s meeting. "This is self-directed. Teachers are making all the decisions. I’m sitting back and being a part of the conversations instead of facilitating. It’s wonderful,’’ Ballow said.
Click for NSDC Home Page