Why One Principal Is Asking Her Staff to Do Less

Why One Principal Is Asking Her Staff to Do Less

This school year will be filled with election messaging, Roe v. Wade debates, gender-identity issues, school prayer challenges, and whatever new political issues present in the next few months. No matter our stances on any of these contentious topics, they affect us both mentally and emotionally. Yet, as the world continues to feel as though it is spiraling into turmoil, we continue to show up.

We spent the last several years as the public face of mask and vaccination decisions that we neither controlled nor influenced. We have been villainized for teaching about any social injustice, supporting social-emotional learning, or trying to help kids through mental health challenges. We have tried to answer the questions about acts of racial hatred, the insurrection against our own government, a war in Ukraine, and mass shootings. 

In this biweekly column, principals and other authorities on school leadership—including researchers, education professors, district administrators, and assistant principals—offer timely and timeless advice for their peers.

Amid that chaos, I realize that I have been complicit in the stress my staff is feeling over the past few years in trying to keep up the frenetic pace of school as “usual” when nothing has been ordinary. If you work in an initiative-rich environment like I do, then you understand what I mean.

Just last year alone, my staff participated in professional-development activities for social-emotional learning, creating a positive and inclusive school culture, multitiered systems of support, school safety, increasing student engagement, universal design for learning, self-care for staff, team building and learning together, supporting English-language learners, response to intervention, positive behavior intervention and supports, identifying rigor in your work, restorative justice in schools, reviewing state standards and rewriting curriculum maps and scope and sequence/pacing guides, identifying essential learning in all disciplines, and ongoing work with professional learning communities.

As I reflect on my goals for this current school year, all the initiatives swirling in my district and the outside noise of the world, I have decided to focus on the A, B, Cs of school: academics, behavior, and culture. We are going to slow everything down and focus on a few manageable areas for improvement, not only for my staff’s peace of mind but for my own as well. We have all been so overwhelmed for the last two years that doing less really is doing more. My plan is to simplify our workload, while concentrating on what really matters most for our school community.

For academics, we will focus on implementing professional learning communities with greater direction and fidelity. We began PLCs in our district several years ago, but we never got it quite right. Staff members understood and bought into the concept, but we could never get out of our own way to see PLCs materialize in the way they were meant to.

However, this summer, several staff members attended a professional learning community conference in San Antonio. They were excited and transformed by what they learned. Our newly trained guiding coalition, consisting of teacher-leaders from several disciplines, is excited to lead the charge of retraining staff on what it truly means to becoming a PLC school, rooted in four essential questions: What is it we want our students to learn? How will we know if they are learning? How will we respond when individual students do not learn? How will we enrich and extend the learning for students who are proficient?

For behavior, our focus will be on restorative practices, where we will work on developing trusting relationships with all our students. It is time to reassess our disciplinary approach from a punitive method to one of student accountability, redirection, and reflection.

For culture, we will focus on developing a sense of belonging for everyone in our building. We will develop and nurture activities for students and staff, so they know that all are welcome here.

This school year is a time to reengage with our community and reestablish our partnerships with those we serve. We are always stronger when we work together. Instead of adding to the mental stress of my staff, my goal is to lighten the load. So much heaviness is already in the hearts and minds of students and staff, it is our responsibility to be reactive to their needs so that we can be proactive in their care.

So, for the rest of the school year, our plans will be simple, and our focus will be quite clear. How will you slow down? What will be your A, B, Cs for this school year to allow you to reset, renew, and reengage?

Erica Walters will be the founding principal of the first Mater Academy charter school Ohio, opening in the 2023-24 school year. Previously, she was an assistant principal of instruction at Osceola High School in Kissimmee, Fla.

My 11-year-old son came to me one day a few months ago and said, “Mom, how come more teachers do not look like me?” This struck a chord in more than one way. First, my son is half Jamaican and half white. Second, stating the obvious, my son was referring to how he is a boy and all his teachers are female.

As a female assistant principal, I have often echoed my son’s question: How come more of my fellow administrators do not look like me? I have come to realize that the higher one moves up the ranks of educational leadership, the clearer it becomes that is a male-dominated environment. Where are all the females in educational leadership?

What I also believe to be true is that the higher you go up the educational leadership ranks, the lonelier it is. And—as many of my fellow female education leaders have been learning for decades—it is an especially lonely road for female administrators.

In this biweekly column, principals and other authorities on school leadership—including researchers, education professors, district administrators, and assistant principals—offer timely and timeless advice for their peers.

I often run into situations where I am seen as stubborn and aggressive for expressing the same demeanor that would be read as authoritative and strong-willed in a man.

Throughout my past seven years as an administrator, it has taken hard work not to seem pushy, aggressive, or emotional while still standing strong for my guiding principles to do what is best for students regardless of their backgrounds, help teachers become the best educators they can be, and be a champion for our community.

In that time, I have been able to gather some tips and strategies to ensure that I am seen for what I stand for as an advocate for all students to be successful.

Be empathetic: I wear my heart on my sleeve in my profession, even when people may write that empathy off as being “too emotional.” You must show the community, your teachers, and students that you are a human being, too, and that you have their best interests at heart. It’s OK to come across as passionate; I would rather be passionate than a pushover.

Be assertive but calm: The word “aggressive” has become a trigger word for me. While my male counterpart is viewed as assertive, I am aggressive when I speak the truth. But I have learned that I can’t allow that perception to stop me from standing up for myself or someone else. There will always be times that a leader needs to go against the consensus. The trick is to be assertive while not allowing inflammatory statements or emotions to get the best of you. A former principal I worked with, Mr. Meechin, once advised me to wait 24 hours before responding to any inflammatory emails and to reread my response with a clearer head before hitting that send button. I also try to bring that same principle of allowing for a cool-off period ahead of my in-person interactions when they have the potential to become heated. How many times have we wanted to really put that person in their place but thought better?

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Find a mentor or a “rubber band friend”: We all need that person off whom we can bounce ideas like a rubber band, whether they are in our field of educational leadership or a personal friend. I have found one or two fellow female administrators who I can trust. I can vent my frustrations and discuss ideas with them confidentially and without judgment. This has helped me in many situations where I have needed advice and felt that only a professional peer could understand my feelings, where I am coming from, and be able to provide rational solutions.

Whether you are in your first year as an administrator or are in your 15th year, it is never easy. We have to allow ourselves the same grace that we give our students and our staff. I know this, though: I will never sacrifice who I am as a person and an educational leader to please someone else. I am a leader who is determined to see her teachers and students succeed. I just happen to be a woman.