Written by JoLynn Clark, Frankenmuth High School Principal and MASSP Board of Directors President
Many principals use a theme to kick off the year in an effort to generate excitement and forward motion as staff return to the building. Themes are a great way to establish a unified focus for a staff team or for the whole school, and I’ve used a wide variety of themes with staff in my 16 years in this role. We’ve had fun themes like “Level UP!” that were not only focused on striving to do better as a team and a school, but also was focused on games, incorporating fun staff competitions in our meetings and social gatherings throughout the year. We’ve had tv show or movie-based themes like Survivor (this theme was one we used before the Covid Year, but it would have been a great year for that theme!) and The Greatest Showman, which carried the added benefit of the double entendre, since sometimes schools can be quite the circus. Not untrue, but definitely not the main point I was trying to convey.
This year I did something I have never done in 16 years: I re-used the prior year’s theme. It only happened because my staff told me to! Well, maybe they didn’t tell me directly, but they definitely told me indirectly that our team’s 2023-24 theme of “ABCs: Back to Basics” was the right focus at the right time, and that this focus needs to continue.
Our ABCs are Academics, Behavior and Culture. These three simple concepts embody everything we know schools need to focus on to ensure student success. I won’t go into all of the details, but I am sharing the original image that outlined the key elements we focused on in our PLCs and PD time last year as we went “back to basics.”
Since we were all on board and locked in, aligned in our purpose after multiple years of external inconsistency and unknowns, I followed through on the theme, something that often falls by the wayside as the year gets more involved and hectic. But knowing we were onto something and seeing evidence of improvement in multiple areas, I asked for feedback via survey at the midway point and end of the school year. In each of our focus areas (Academics, Behavior and Culture), I asked the following questions:
- What do we need to CONTINUE doing (put another way, what are we doing well?)?
- What do we need to START doing (what opportunities do we have for improvement in this area?)?
- What do we need to STOP doing (what has run its course or needs to be reconsidered?)?
- What professional learning opportunities do we need to support our work in this area?
It was an extremely simple survey, but it yielded deep and helpful insights and numerous ideas for shaping our practices and processes, for planning our back-to-school PD sessions, and for cementing the continued use of this theme. In my own need for continuous improvement, though, of course I had to “tweak” it a little bit; so this year, it is “ABC, Easy as 1-2-3.”
We are continuing the focus on our ABC elements and adding “how” we achieve those things: through Best 1st Engaging Instruction, Strong Tiered (especially tier) 2) Interventions, and 3 words stolen from a line in The One Hundred Foot Journey: “Innovation. Innovation. Innovation.” What innovations will this year bring? Well, that is still to be seen. But in an effort to lead the charge for my team and our students, I am exploring every avenue I can find to energize the classroom experience, diversify the variety of available learning opportunities and personalize the outcomes for every student. I don’t yet know all of the “what’s” or “hows” of this effort, and that is quite possibly the most exciting feeling I’ve experienced in a long while in this role. There is currently a surge of momentum toward new opportunities for educational change and progress, to be sure, and it may just take going “back to basics” to propel education forward. Will it really be “As Easy As 1-2-3?” Not likely. Will it be worth it? Absolutely!
So if there are two takeaways I leave you with, they are these: first, it isn’t too late to pick a theme to drive your team’s focus for the year, and doing so might even help you define your own. Second, if you’re interested in joining forward-thinking colleagues in imagining what innovation in our field might entail, and what that might look like for you, your staff, your students, and your school, it isn’t too late to sign up to be part of the FREE (for members) Co-Intelligence book study Cohort #2, or the full year of learning opportunities offered through the Innovative Leaders’ Network, which kicks off in just one week (9/26/24; cost is $299 for full year).
One thing I know from a prior year’s theme is that Together, Everyone Achieves More, so I hope to see you and learn from you during these exciting opportunities ahead, and I wish you a 2024-25 school year that is everything you imagine it can be.