Managing Time to Become an
Instructional Leader
Laura Couret
Grand Canyon University
Attitude
• The only thing we have absolute control over is ourselves.
• We can’t control what happens, but we have ABSOLUTE
control over how we react to it.
Begin with Clarity
on What We Want to Accomplish
Our objective today is to learn strategies that will allow us to
meet our commitments of evaluating teachers in order to
become successful instructional leaders.
• Identify strategies that organize my day and protect my time
• Create a management plan to apply immediately
• Chose 3 strategies to implement my first day back at the office
1st Step is to Build Internal Team
1. Acknowledge that both you and your personal secretary are
the two most attached members of the administrative team.
2. In order for you to be successful, both of you need to make a
commitment to fulfill your responsibilities.
3. People go through her to reach you.
4. She will eventually be your voice. She will be an extension of
you.
You and Your Secretary
Redefine secretarial roles: set procedures and routines in place
1. Set techniques with her and commit to them
•
•
Daily morning meeting to avoid constant start-stop-start again
You decide when/where and how long
2. Secretary handles all incoming paperwork and email
•
•
You only get to see what merits your time
Papers for you to sign, approve, review, etc. get submitted to her. She
schedules a office time to meet with you and this gets done all at once
2nd Step is Your Calendar
• Your secretary will have full rights to your Outlook calendar.
• She will schedule priority activities for you with reminders, so
your phone/computer signals when you need to prepare for
the next activity. Color code them by category.
• Out of respect for each other, you will follow your schedule.
• If you want something placed on your calendar, have her place
it with attachments included.
– IE: “complete section 1 of school improvement plan” and include
template in appointment (notice it states section 1… very specific)
What Do We Schedule?
1. District-related meetings and due dates
2. Instruction- school priorities such as walk thrus, informal and
formal evaluations, meetings with faculty, your lunch time
3. School- PTA meetings, sports events, parent conference nights
4. Community- calling local community organization to invite them
to Reading Night, calls thanking those who donated to an event,
writing a letter to request a partnership with a local business,
follow-up phone call with disgruntled parent, your personal family
commitments
5. Take a moment to fill in your schedule to-do’s on handout
Attitude
• You’re not hoarding your time.
• You’re creating opportunities to stay connected with staff and
students.
• Visibility is a “command of presence.”
• Begin a shift from being reactive to proactive.
• Scheduling time for classrooms allows you to build trust in a
school by making personal connections.
– 10 to 15 minute morning sweeps in various classrooms…
3rd Step is Collaborate and Delegate
• Anything that someone else can do to a 70% capacity of
you, should be delegated out.
-John C. Maxwell
» IE: Board reports and newsletters.
» Give them a template and a due date/time.
» You will preview or edit before it gets submitted
• Focus on the matters that you are solely
responsible for. They are your priorities.
3rd Step is Collaborate and Delegate
1. Teach your leadership team what you’re learning today (handout).
2. They have access to view your calendar with limited rights.
3. Secretaries are taught to respond to parents by showing them
your calendar. District support is a must for this to succeed.
5. Clearly state who does what among your leadership team
according to job description.
6. Informally include other members and delineate their roles.
7. Share your new strategies with your faculty during a meeting:
plenty of time, sincerity with goals, leadership team by you.
Principal
• Formal &
informal evals
• Approval for
black-out
absences
• Approve
retentions
• Change a
student’s
schedule
Assistant Principal
• Formal &
informal evals
• Student
discipline
• Assessments
• Board reports
• Newsletters
Administrative
Secretary
• Makes
appointments
for Principal
• Purchase orders
• Keys
• Paperwork
requiring
Principal’s
signature
Support Secretary
• Attendance
• Supplies
requests
• Discipline
tracking
spreadsheet
4th Step is Emails and Electronic Support
• Your secretary will schedule a time of day for you to check
emails. Doesn’t have to be just once a day.
• She will schedule a time for you to respond to urgent or timesensitive emails by pasting them into the calendar
appointment.
• Ask the tech person to set up your email so that all cc’s go
straight into a CC folder.
• You will check this folder 2-3 times a week, glancing through.
Only respond to emails that are sent to you- not cc’s.
Emails and Electronic Support Continued
• All appointments with others will be made with an invitation
they must “accept.” Reminders will be included as will any
descriptions of tasks, agendas, or attachments necessary.
• High Priority (!) emails should only come from you once in a
blue moon.
• iPads with you as you do observations… Give teachers a
courtesy email on what you just saw.
• Marzano’s research on specific and immediate academic
feedback also works with adults.
Sample Email Before You Leave the Room
Thank you Mrs. Smith, for allowing me a few moments to observe your
class. Here is some personal feedback:
REINFORCEMENT: objective was clearly visible on the board with a
measureable outcome. A campus priority and implemented perfectly.
REFINEMENT: most questions were “yes/no” answers or were very low level
recall. Consider jotting down some higher level Blooms verbs on a notecard so
that you can refer to it as you randomly ask questions through your lesson.
If you continue to state clear objectives and increase rigor with higher order
questioning, your student achievement will increase and this professional
growth will be duly noted in your upcoming formal evaluation.
Thanks again.
Your friendly, neighborhood principal
Sample Scenario
You have a full day scheduled. You’ve done your morning
welcoming rounds for 15 minutes, answered your emails, and
your on your way to your first of 2 informal evals and you have
one formal eval this afternoon along with a parent meeting for a
bullying concern at the end of the day. It’s now 10 a.m. and a 6th
grade teacher approaches you as you attempt to enter the
classroom you’re doing the evaluation in.
She informs you that one of her students told her
that some 8th graders outside were smoking pot.
The only info you have is that the student Laura
Couret is involved. How are you going to:
Modify your calendar:
Collaborate and delegate:
Use electronic communication for
efficiency:
Be Patient, Positive, and Keep Working at it.
• “One of the greatest problems people have with failure is that
they are too quick to judge isolated situations in their lives and
label them as failures.”
-The Spirit of Kaisen by Dr. Joseph Mauer
Now take out your cell phones…
Email your boss.
It can be done. You can do it.