We are preparing for our journey through the start of the school year during a pandemic. Staff have been back for two weeks, and I officially began my role as a new principal. There have been numerous typical leadership responsibilities, but there are also unique responsibilities that have come through leading during a pandemic. As a staff we have covered expectations for teachers, students and support staff during our virtual start. We have begun our journey around social justice and equity, and we have covered the standard operational expectations to starting the year virtually. It has been a good two weeks and as a new principal there have been some points where I have been overwhelmed and anxious. The feelings of anxiety have been normal and healthy as we approach the start of the year. It became incredibly clear that as a principal I could not lead through these challenging times all on my own.
Our leadership team consists of me, an associate principal and a deeper learning coach. Our associate principal in incredibly experienced in education and has been in the district for a long time. Our deeper learning coach has worked in the building for an extended period of time, and has incredible tribal knowledge of the history of the building. Both provide me with tremendous insight and bring many different perspectives to our work. I have been fortunate enough to lean on both of them for support as we lead our school and to gain understanding of the district, school and community. Without their support I would be completely lost and sometimes I feel as if they are carrying me through the start of the year. They have set the bar pretty high on the importance of distributed leadership and have pushed me to grow as a leader in understanding the importance of allowing others to actively participate in shaping our culture and kicking off the year. I am fortunate to have their support and incredibly grateful to begin my journey as a principal with both of them as we lead our building together.
I have also experienced the power of distributed leadership with our teaching staff. Prior to the start of the school year a teacher reached out to me about a book called The Distance Learning Playbook by Fischer, Frey and Hattie. The teacher was telling me about how amazing this text was as a resource for her to begin planning for the start to this year. I asked the teacher if she would like to put together a team of teachers and present on the book to our staff in a meeting. She jumped at the chance and quickly identified a team. They put together a great presentation that focused on resources that teachers could use immediately in the virtual learning environment. I was amazed at the finished product and the vast number of resources that our staff left the professional development session with to consider implementing with our students. Each of the team members did a phenomenal job providing our staff with insight into teaching in the virtual environment. This professional development session was powerful, productive and positive in building shared ownership in our school community with all our staff.
Another teacher emailed me about the idea of a standardized parent contact log that would be shared among all staff to open communication and centralize our parent contact data. I asked the teacher if she would like to create the log, allow an opportunity for staff to provide feedback, and create professional development around how to utilize the parent contact log. She jumped at the chance and proceeded with creating the contact log, incorporating feedback from multiple stakeholders and created video lessons on how to use the contact log. This teacher embraced the opportunity to provide leadership in our building. I appreciated the work and willingness to lead from this staff member, and I am excited to see how she continues to grow as an educator and teacher leader this school year.
With all the moving parts to start this year and how quickly things can change based on new information, it is essential to have a strong support network as a principal. In previous schools that I worked in there were ideas that would come forward from staff, but it was always phrased as something that administration should do for the building. The culture of distributed leadership was not present and that created and environment that felt overwhelming as a building level administrator. This has been different. Staff have been coming forward with great ideas and willing to serve as the process owner and run with these great ideas. The power of distributed leadership is immeasurable when everyone is free to work towards providing children with a great learning experience. I am incredibly grateful to have such a strong support network as I begin my first year as a principal. I am humbled to have an opportunity to lead this team as we embrace the challenges of this school year, and use those challenges to create opportunity for our learners. The power of distributed leadership is incredible when you have staff willing to share in leading our community of learners.