Effective and professional communication is important to me. Last week I shared some of my beliefs about communication and this week will expand with some additional information about what you can anticipate in terms of decision making this year at Lava.
My preference for communication is face-to-face. If I can, I will talk with you, or your grade level, or our whole staff. Via phone works too. You can always ring my office @ 2402. My second preference is email. Finally, this blog will be a regular way to share information with you. I will send out notes to you once a week and appreciate you making this a must read before the start of the next week. You can always toggle back in time for attached documents, website addresses, and information from earlier in the year.
One of the key roles of a principal is to be a filter of information for staff. Too much can be stressful and unnecessary. Too little is not good either. It’s a balance. I try to keep information as concise as possible (please excuse the last two weeks of blog posts! 🙂 ) and get it to you in a timely manner. With 18+ elementary schools, there is a possibility a colleague at another school might hear about something before you-being first is not important to me, accuracy and timing are.
Decision Making:
Outside of general operational decisions (ie. scheduling of safety drills, determining the Staff Meeting schedule, etc.) most of the decisions I make could be referred to as either being consultative or collaborative. No one (especially me) wants me making all of our decisions. I have been a principal long enough to know that when possible and when realistic, the more we can share in decisions as a staff the better.
Consultative: These are decisions I make by consulting with as many people as possible who are impacted by the decision. As an example, when we have the May Kindergarten info night for families, moving where a grade level picks up their students after recess, etc.
Collaborative: These are decisions that have long range implications and we need to get a strong consensus before moving forward with something (or not). An example of this would be the conferencing schedule we use, the survey we sent out in June about students having recess before lunch, etc.
The reality is that there are grey lines between these two types of decisions. Some decisions will be made in a way that at least one person feels it should have been made a different way (usually those are people who disagree with the decision). There will also be times when we use a collaborative approach and you may think, “why doesn’t he just decide and tell us?” Again, I’ll do my best. My default is always to ask as many involved when possible and necessary. As always…have a question? Ask me. Door’s open.
We are looking forward to everyone’s return to Lava this week. It is not necessary this year to check-in or check-out (ie. QR Code or Google Doc we used last year) 🙂
From Instructional Tech – Here is resource page for you. Schools will also have the premium version of SeeSaw for k-2 students again.Â
Thank you for waiting to communicate to the families of your students until Thursday at 11:00. Class lists in Synergy are ever changing and we need this initial communication to land in Lava Ridge family mailboxes simultaneously.
Updates below for next week:
- We will begin at 7:45 in the gym on Tuesday (Coffee and muffins will be available at 7:30)
- We are planning to watch the District Welcome Back together as a staff
- We are scheduled to finish inservice on Tuesday at 3:00
- On Wednesday we will begin at 8:00 in the gym