Back To School: Tips from High School Principals

     In July, nearly 400 Partnership Principals gathered in Portland, Oregon for the Second Summer Leadership Institute, sponsored by Union Pacific. During the conference, PrincipalsPartnership.com asked many of these professionals for the one best “back-to-school” tip they would offer to their colleagues.

      One of the first comments was the most profound. Upon hearing that these tips would form the basis for the August feature article, a Chicago principal said, “Here’s a tip: make the article short. No one has time to read much during the first weeks of school.” So, here it is: a short list of the best back to school tips from a non-scientific sampling of Partnership Principals.

Make your meetings listening sessions. Too often, the first meetings of the school year are filled with announcements from the administration with little time remaining for important questions. Tip: As teachers enter meetings, give them several 3x5 cards. As questions occur to them during the meeting, have teachers write them on the cards. Then, at the end of the meeting, quickly respond to questions or refer them to the person best able to answer them.

Focus on new teachers. Spending time with new teachers (both new to the profession and new to the building) helps them adjust to their new surroundings and saves a lot of time and confusion later in the semester. It also demonstrates that the school’s leadership is accessible and interested in their success. Tip: Have a special meeting for new teachers during which you tell give them “The Ten Most Important Tips for Success at ___ High School.” Make sure they understand the unique practices and procedures in your school that are second nature to veteran staff. Don’t waste the time of veteran teachers reviewing the procedures they already know. Use selected veteran teachers to help plan and conduct the meeting.

Contact parents. An initial, positive contact with the students’ homes opens up lines of communication that may be extremely important later in the year. Tip: Mail a welcome message to parents containing essential school contact information, including phone numbers for school offices, email addresses, and the address of the school’s website. Offer them tips on how to help their adolescent child succeed at school. Parents are often puzzled by how to interact with their adolescent children around the topic of school, so be direct in offering advice and support.

Monitor your most precious resource. Principals spend a lot of time helping other people achieve their goals, sometimes at the expense of their own professional growth and satisfaction. Tip: Look through your appointment calendar from last year to see where you spent your time. Did you spend your most important resource doing the things that bring you the most satisfaction? If not, what can you change to make your time more productive? (One superintendent requires principals to keep time-activity logs. He encourages them to follow the 80-20 rule, spending 80% of their time on the 20 activities most likely to improve student achievement. His cabinet meetings always include a discussion of how their time is being used to support achievement.)

Begin data-based discussions. Schools are awash in data – from test scores to attendance to athletic scores. Much of these data never receive the attention or discussion they deserve. Tip: Use your school data as discussion starters for back-to-school or regular faculty meetings. A one-page “briefing” sheet that provides critical information will help stimulate discussion and focus your faculty on data-based school improvement efforts. Some information, such a disciplinary referral rates (and the reasons for them) can lead to major improvements in school procedures or important climate initiatives.

Build community. Don’t let the huge task of opening a new school year or the thousands of details that confront you swamp efforts to build community among the faculty and staff. Tip: Nothing works like food, so have a celebratory breakfast, lunch, cook-out – anything that allows people to socialize, celebrate the events of the summer break, and look forward to a promising year. Don’t make every gathering a working session; take time to relax and enjoy the people you work with. One entire community hosts a “Hot Dog…It’s Back to School” cookout the evening before students return to school. Each campus hosts a hot dog roast, using food donated by a local supermarket. It gives faculty, staff, and people from the community (whether they have kids in school or not) a chance to meet one another and establish the importance of the school as a social center in the community.

Tend to business. Two of the most important things a principal does are to assure a safe and orderly environment for learning and allocate the school’s resources, including time, staff, materials and space, for instruction. Tip: Before students show up, review the master schedule, supervisory procedures, emergency procedures, and materials/resources with your leadership team and your faculty. Making sure everyone understands school operations will help to assure smooth functioning throughout the year.

Reconsider your open door policy. A Utah principal said that, for years, his open door policy put his calendar at the mercy of anyone who wanted to stop in and chat. Once he realized that what people really wanted was accessibility, he began making several walking tours of the entire school, including classroom visits, every day. These informal learning walks not only brought him into contact with most of the teachers, but also greatly enhanced his visibility among students. Tip: Schedule several walks around your school every day. Treat them like meetings, putting them on your calendar and making sure your staff knows that if they want to talk with you during the learning walk, they are welcome to come along with you. (For more on learning walks, see the archive section of PrincipalsPartnership.com.)

     Back-to-School is one of the great cultural rituals of American life. It affects almost everyone who has children, visits a shopping center, or drives behind a big yellow bus early in the morning. However, no one has a higher stake in the way a school opens than does the principal. Listed below are additional resources that can help set the tone for a well-organized, calm and pleasant school year.

It’s Back to School Time for Administrators, Too! From Education World.
http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin231.shtml

Education World has gathered great resources from their archives that offer advice, tips, and resources all principals should have at their fingertips. Included: Fund-raising ideas, parent involvement strategies, and much more.

Back to School Advice.
http://michiganprincipals.org/parentresources/back_to_school.html

Advice from the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals offers a succinct guide for middle and high school parents. This is the perfect enclosure to accompany your “welcome back” letter to parents.

Organizational Tips for Middle and High School.
http://www.fortbend.k12.tx.us/gifted/organization.cfm

From the Fort Bend (TX) Schools comes this helpful information on how to help middle and high school students organize themselves for academic success. It includes helpful tips for parents on how to assist in managing homework and other academic demands.

Back to School Week Festivities.
http://www.osba.org/commsvcs/btsweek/about.htm

The Oregon School Boards Association offers advice on how to capitalize on back-to-school publicity to create a week that celebrates the opening of school and encourages community participation in the life of the school.

Helping Middle School Kids Make the Transition to High School.
http://www.kidsource.com/education/middlehigh.html

Ninth grader exhibit some of the most challenging adjustment problems: low attendance, high failure rates, and other high risk behavior. This article outlines how to create academic and social support systems for incoming students in the high school.

Prepared by Howard Johnston
Secondary Education
University of South Florida