Bill Sterrett—Short On Time

[00:01] Justin Baeder:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high-performance instructional leadership, Justin Baeder.

[00:13] Bill Sterrett:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio. I'm your host, Justin Baeder. I'm thrilled that my guest today is Dr. Bill Sterrett. He is a former principal and teacher and a current faculty member and program coordinator for the Master's in School Administration program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Bill is also the author of Short on Time, How Do I Make Time to Lead and Learn as a Principal, which is part of the ASCD ARIAS series.

[00:39] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:41] Bill Sterrett:

Bill, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:43] Bill Sterrett:

Thank you, Justin, for the opportunity to share with you today.

[00:46] Bill Sterrett:

Well, I'm interested in your approach to time management because that's a big interest of mine and a lot of what we do at the Principal Center, especially in the High Performance Instructional Leadership Network. What's your perspective on... the fact that principals are perpetually short on time. And what do you think we can do about that?

[01:04] Bill Sterrett:

Justin, it's no secret that principals are feeling more stressed than ever. If you look at MetLife survey of the American teacher, you'll see that both teachers and principals feel that they are being asked to do more and more and that time is just an increasing burden, an issue for them. If you look at teacher working conditions survey data, that North Carolina and many other states conduct where they sort of take pulse at the end of the year to ask teachers and principals what their areas of concern are. Time continually emerges. As principals, we wear many hats. We know that.

[01:39]

We're asked to be instructional leaders, to manage the school, to build strong culture, to improve and encourage our teachers. And yet, those things aren't going to get done if we don't take control of our calendars. if we're not deliberate about managing time. As a principal in Virginia, I continually felt like I was in responsive mode. No matter how strategic I wanted to be, there are certain things that happen throughout the course of the day that are outside of our control. And I found that I had to be deliberate in doing specific action items, like at the end of a busy day, getting on a school bus and getting out to the school community.

[02:17]

Bus drivers were happy to have me join them And they'd bring me back to the school afterwards. And it gave me an opportunity to get out there and to see the school community. And within the school, I had to be very deliberate about setting aside time, up to 20 minutes a day for those walkthrough observations. And you say, well, 20 minutes doesn't sound like a lot. But if you do the math and you're doing that, you know, about four days a week, you quickly realize that you're logging 20 walkthroughs a week times 36 weeks in a year. Well, you can do the math.

[02:49]

Those numbers can be quite promising if we're deliberate about it, but it takes time.

[02:54] Bill Sterrett:

Well, and I love that concept that being purposeful and being deliberate is absolutely essential because there's never time that just kind of shows up unspoken for.

[03:05] Bill Sterrett:

No, time is one of those resources. We all, as it's been said many times before, we all have the same 24 hours in the day. So whether you are a new principal of an elementary school or whether you're a veteran principal of a large high school, The bottom line is every single student, every single staff in that school, staff member, sees you as the leader of the school. Now, leadership might mean different things in different schools. It's been said that we need to differentiate our leadership the same way as we do in the classroom. We've got to practice that.

[03:37]

But what does that mean? Well, it means that we need to find ways to be very active and visible in our schools. And whether it be the way that you portray yourself in those morning announcements times. Maybe you've never sung the school song before, and you see the power of that, whether it's an elementary or secondary setting, of recognizing students of the week, of really transforming the way you do faculty meetings. Well, those sort of action steps are great areas of potential for the principal. The principal is uniquely poised to make changes when it comes to school culture, when it comes to faculty meetings, when it comes to giving meaningful feedback after visiting classrooms.

[04:24]

You know, just simply showing up in a classroom with a clipboard isn't going to make a big deal of difference for a teacher.

[04:31] Bill Sterrett:

Right.

[04:32] Bill Sterrett:

What you have to do is really encourage two-way communication, encourage teacher leadership, and look for ways to connect silos within the school. Sometimes schools are the loneliest places. You have a thousand people in a big brick building and And yet everybody's working in isolation when it comes to the teaching staff. And as principals, we see the good, the bad, and the ugly within the schools. We've got to be very deliberate in connecting those silos.

[04:56] Bill Sterrett:

Absolutely. And what do you see as the connection between our time management as principals and the way we have our staff work together? Because in the book, you get into some connections there between collaboration and I think kind of even going beyond delegation.

[05:15] Bill Sterrett:

Sure. Well, one example is you've got to start by focusing your calendar on what I call, we like acronyms in education, so I call this the DISC, the D-I-S-C, where you focus on your district, instructional, school, and community priorities. And a real quick example for that would be district principals really need to start by locking in all of their principal meetings, a school board meeting if it's applicable, any district-based collaborations such as committees, that you serve on, and really make a point to be engaged. Don't just show up, but show up 10 minutes early. Network with those connectors. If you have an idea such as transforming something on your school grounds, maybe you want to put in an outdoor learning trail.

[06:03]

Well, that sort of thing, you need to make sure that you are working with people in your district to garner support in whatever initiative you want to be. So show up early. For the instructional pieces, I mentioned walkthroughs earlier. I'll talk about them later. But carve in those times, your PLC or department meetings. Not that you have to show up and micromanage them, but that you're there in an encouraging, active role if need be, or that you're at least aware of that.

[06:26]

In terms of other school items, the after-school events, the PTO meetings, the fire drills, the way that you have school picture days, all of those managerial items and school culture and climate opportunities need to be a focus area for you as a principal. And then there's the community aspects. So much of our work can be strengthened if we are willing to get outside of our school, connect with local businesses and civic groups, partners, and find ways after they help us or after they volunteer or coordinate with us to simply get out and say thank you and maintain and strengthen relationships. Oftentimes, getting back to connecting best practices, as principals, we're now in a position where As I mentioned, you see the good within, let's focus on the good for a minute. You see best practices.

[07:16]

You're in a classroom, whether it's middle school science or primary reading or AP calculus, you see best practices. You see engaged students. You see teachers who are really being innovators and differentiating. Well, how can we share that out? Here's another acronym, Justin, since you like acronyms. The ABC is a faculty meeting.

[07:39]

I started as a principal focusing on affirmation. I knew that other principals did great ideas like this to really bolster and affirm teachers, and we made it unique to our school, where at our school, our mascot was the woody bear. So I had a large stuffed bear, and I got our school's polo shirt, put it on the bear, and at the very beginning of my faculty meeting, I think it was my second or third year as principal, I believe it was my second, I recognized a teacher I'll call her Mrs. Smith, for being engaged, for working with students who weren't engaged, and for really never giving up on them. And I just briefly spoke to that in a firm during the faculty meeting, and we all clapped and represented Woody Bear in his polo shirt. And then also, I mentioned the community piece.

[08:29]

I had worked with some external businesses and had some gift cards and so forth to share out with her. And I said, Mrs. Smith, This is going to start a tradition where the next meeting you're going to recognize a colleague. And make sure it's not your best friend or the teacher next door. But let's use this as an opportunity to affirm great teaching within the school. So every faculty meeting, the A of affirmation started off.

[08:52]

And I was always there ready with those gift certificates just to bolster it. And teachers were recognizing teachers. And we made sure, again, to tie it into our webpage to recognize this in morning announcements and to really talk this up. And this worked at my...

[09:06]

elementary school and I've heard that it's worked well in high schools as well, that affirmation. The B is best practices. What if I was in Ms. Smith's classroom and I saw something great and never shared it? That doesn't help the other teachers. However, I had a tech-savvy superintendent, Pam Moran, who encouraged us with handheld cameras, or you can use your handheld phone with a camera on it, to just capture short 90-second, two-minute, two-and-a-half-minute clips of teaching and learning.

[09:39]

And what I thought would help, and it transformed our faculty meetings, was having those little clips start some of our faculty meetings where I'd ask a teacher such as Ms. Smith, would you be willing just to kind of set the stage if I share this clip? And you kind of get their permission. I never had a teacher turn me down. And what happened is teachers started opening those faculty meetings after affirmation, with talking about teaching and learning that happened within their classroom. For me, the technology part was easy.

[10:10]

You catch a small clip, you throw it into a PowerPoint, and you let the teacher conversation guide the meeting. And so that's the first 10 or 15 minutes of every faculty meeting. The bulk of the faculty meeting is the C, the coordination that you focus on a time of collaboration where you're working together. Let's say PLCs are your focus, Justin, or formative assessment. You really want to talk about exit slips Well, if you have the parameters in place to really have teams work on that in a concerted manner, and maybe you've arranged ahead of time for specialists, such as literacy specialists, math specialists, new teacher coaches, et cetera, instructional coordinators, you get the idea. If they're on hand to be a resource, different teams grapple with different instructional items, too.

[10:58]

But when you make those ABCs the priority of faculty meetings, it does a couple things. Teachers feel like their voices are heard. Teachers feel that they can contribute and lead. And the focus isn't on a principal standing up there reading some bulleted list of managerial items, but it's on teachers having robust, authentic conversations about teaching and learning. And it removes this whole, well, that wouldn't work in my school that you get if you bring in some staff development from outside the school. What it does is it says, you know what, that's working in Ms. Smith's classroom, and I have the same students that she has.

[11:32]

I bet this would work. with those same students in my classroom.

[11:36] Bill Sterrett:

Bill, that is a powerful formula. And I'm thinking back to some research that I did in putting together our course on trust. And the two big factors that came up over and over again in all the different books and resources that I went through are were the ideas of personal regard, the sense that we care for each other as being really the foundation of trust. People do not trust people that they think don't care about them. And second, competence. People don't trust people that they think can do a good job.

[12:09]

And your A and your B, your affirmation and sharing of best practices, absolutely build both of those right into every faculty meeting. And I think the idea of having people share clips from their classroom of what they're actually doing just breaks down a huge barrier in terms of just not knowing what our colleagues are up to, how they teach, because as you said, we can work in silos.

[12:32] Bill Sterrett:

Right. And trust and time go well together because as a new leader in a building, you're not immediately going to walk in there with a ton of trust capital, if you will. It takes time. But it also takes some deliberate steps like those ABCs. And some follow-up steps, too. Let's get back to the meetings.

[12:50]

After each and every meeting, I really advocate giving what's called an exit slip. Now, I use slips of paper that ask three questions. What was helpful about this meeting? What was not helpful about this meeting? And what other general thoughts, ideas, questions do you want to share? So at the end of each meeting, you end five minutes early.

[13:09]

Always respect their time here, time to focus. And you give out this thing that's like, well, now it could be done on a web-based survey to really ensure anonymity and confidentiality. And what I found is that I read each and every response, and I acted on it. And when teachers saw that I valued their input and that I was action-oriented, I had a veteran teacher come up and say, Bill, any lounge grumbling quickly reduced when they realized that we had an outlet. You know, we didn't have to wait for that biennial survey that I referenced at the beginning of our talk, or I didn't have to wait for some formal document to come out and note my, you know, pros and cons of the principle. But the fact that you initiated it, Bill, you know, a small exit slip, and you listened at the end of each meeting, and we could see anything that we

[14:02]

recommended or complained about, you at least reference it. You can't solve all the problems, but if you're referencing it and if you're giving credence to what the teachers are saying, you are going to build that trust, Justin, that you just referenced too. You know, I can't overestimate the power of listening. You know, we talk about it all the time, active listening and so forth, but if, you know, great principals really are strategic about carving out time to listen to their teachers. In most cases, when a principal sits down with a teacher and It's usually some state or district-mandated evaluation tool or an observation where you have a pre-conference and a post-conference. Let's get beyond that, and let's look at evaluation as a way to really strengthen teaching, but also to foster collaboration.

[14:47]

In many schools or districts, I see this all the time. They say, well, we do PLCs. Well, there's a lot of variance to what that means. And if you get to the heart of those key questions that Rick DeFore and others have pushed where you're asking, What is it that we want our students to be learning? Then the second question is, how do we know whether or not they're succeeding? And then third, what do we do for those who are succeeding or what do we do for those who aren't succeeding?

[15:12]

We've got to find ways to really anchor whatever PLC work, to coordinate whatever work that you're doing with those key cornerstone questions too. So there's a connected principal, Lynn Hilt, who advocated using sort of an online portal, such as a Google form or other document where you ask those questions and teachers, you know, each week when they meet, they're answering those questions and you're able to see it in real time without being there at the meeting and being able to support them too. Principals can do so much. They can leverage so much if they're engage in the process. And again, I'm not saying you should attend every PLC or every department meeting. It's not always feasible in your role as principal, but you do need to have an awareness of what's going on in those meetings.

[16:05]

And the team needs to know that you're there to respond, to help, to support, to listen. in each and every case. And that can go a long way.

[16:17] Bill Sterrett:

And so, Bill, we know that collaborative time and the way that people work together has a lot to do with our master schedule. How do you involve teachers in kind of putting that together and setting up their use of time, their collaborative time, so that you get the most out of it?

[16:35] Bill Sterrett:

Great question, Justin. In a lot of schools, it's an assistant principal over the summer months that ends up putting together a master schedule. You wait to see what your numbers are in terms of staffing, in terms of student population, and understand that you do need to make those last-minute tweaks. However, I strongly advocate in the book for fostering a collaborative schedule approach where you take the existing master schedule toward the end of the school year, so maybe in late May or early June, and you involve teachers, not at the end of a busy day, but provide sub-coverage and give them the full day to really work to focus on this and to prioritize this. For me, it was having three or four key teachers, including a specialist teacher. And by that, I mean like art, music, PE, one of those specialists that sees the whole school perhaps in that big picture way.

[17:27]

Have somebody that's focused on math, somebody that's focused on reading or another key subject area. Look at the current schedule, pros and cons, and then also look at your school improvement plans Because how we manage that resource, again, of time will impact those external variables, such as how students are achieving, how staff are working together. But we've got to really prioritize this. So carve out a full day with those three or four key teachers where you open the meeting by overviewing the existing master schedule, by overviewing the goals, the school improvement plan, where you want to go, what's your school's vision and mission. you know, cover the big picture and those details too. And then empower the teachers to start crafting that schedule.

[18:15]

And some teachers are really great at this sort of thing. Sometimes you might need to have an AP available or you might yourself might need to be available as well. But I found that teachers are more than capable and more than willing to do this. In any master schedule, you often have this perceived notion of winners and losers. Well, they have the You know, as a former middle school science teacher, I know that sometimes teachers really want to have that first block planning. Or in the elementary setting, you might have, you know, well, specials are right before lunch or recess is right after lunch.

[18:47]

That sort of thing can quickly impact morale if you're not careful. And you need to be deliberate about ensuring as much equity and as much fairness and consistency and transparency. After I had the schedule created, we went through it very carefully. send a draft out to your teachers and offer input too. And again, speak to the coordination and collaboration and maybe find ways to involve different teachers in that process too.

[19:15] Bill Sterrett:

Well, and I think that idea of beginning with collaboration as, you know, as kind of a key priority and looking at the whole, I mean, I totally agree that bringing in teachers who have that kind of whole school perspective and kind of big picture perspective thinking, uh, it just results in a much better schedule than if you sit down by yourself, as you said, over the summer and think, okay, how can I make this work? You know, it's very stressful and that feedback is going to come and you might as well start with everybody at the table who, uh, who can really contribute. So Bill, based on your research and the ideas that you present in the book, what's something that you would like to encourage every school administrator to do?

[19:54] Bill Sterrett:

One thing that revolutionized the way I thought about teaching and learning really transformed my work as a principal, Justin, was when I read Richard Louv's book, I think it was about the summer of 2008, called Last Child in the Woods. And in Richard Louv's book, he really advocates the idea that we need to work more as parents, as educators, to help foster this idea that students can get outside. There's this term he uses called nature deficit disorder. where oftentimes some of the issues that we're seeing in schools with students who are grappling with attention issues might be related to the fact that we're expecting them to sit for long stretches of time in those traditional rows of desks and four walls within a classroom under fluorescent lights.

[20:49]

But we know from research that students benefit from getting outside. If I offer examples in short on time, and also in a previous book for ESTV I wrote called Insights into Action, of how school leaders are, again, uniquely poised to help foster this idea that we can get outside, whether it be a learning garden or a track that goes around our school grounds to foster healthy choices, learning about the outdoors, or just simply taking a class outside to read. Those are ways that we can really impact the way our students see school. I talk a lot in the book about coordinating volunteers. That's an untapped resource, and principals are poised to do that in some very interactive ways. To really, again, foster the notion, let's get outside our box.

[21:39]

One practical tool you can do is in your school office. A lot of time is wasted by parents or visitors just waiting to sign in have a computer screen or if you have the funds, a large panel screen and just keep a rotating slideshow or a Twitter feed if you're on Twitter of pictures of teaching, learning, of outdoors engaged activities, of volunteer efforts, and just celebrate the great ideas from within the school. And Visitors that came into my school, and we just used like a PowerPoint of pictures. I worked with a teacher who was great about really capturing moments with her camera. What this does is it says, these are living, vibrant examples of learning from within our school and outside of our school and our school grounds too.

[22:31]

And it just really gets the wheels turning for people as they look to connect volunteer efforts with prospective activities and needs of the school. in a very real manner. But again, you're leveraging time to recognize the needs, to affirm the learning activities that are going outside, to celebrate the accomplishments in a very real manner.

[22:52] Bill Sterrett:

Well, I love that metaphor of kind of getting outside to get more leverage. And if you're too close to a problem or too close to a situation, it's very hard to get leverage on it. You actually do have to kind of step away if you want to kind of move the big rocks. I love that metaphor and the idea that as we build more relationships and as we make connections and kind of gain new perspective, that does have an impact on what we're able to accomplish in the time available to us.

[23:22] Bill Sterrett:

Absolutely, because we're all pressed for time. As I mentioned, we feel short on time, but that doesn't mean you can't address the real needs of your school in a specific way that really benefits your school community.

[23:36] Bill Sterrett:

Well, Bill, thank you so much for joining us on Principal Center Radio. If people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to find you online?

[23:43] Bill Sterrett:

They can find me online at Twitter. Bill Starrett at Twitter. And in this age of doing a quick online search, you'll be able to find my... Email address, BillSterrett at Yahoo.com.

[23:55]

And if you want more information about the book, just go to ASCD.org. Both books that I've mentioned, Short on Time and Insights into Action, can be found there. And on Twitter, I have links to the books and resources as well.

[24:07] Bill Sterrett:

Fabulous. And we'll link those up on our website as well. If you go to PrincipalCenter.com and search for Short on Time or Bill Sterrett, S-T-E-R-E-T-T, you can find everything on our show page. Bill, thanks so much. It's been a pleasure to speak with you.

[24:21] Bill Sterrett:

Justin, I've enjoyed the conversation. And thank you for kind of carving out this opportunity for principals to connect, to learn from each other. And it's a great program.

[24:32] Justin Baeder:

And now, Justin Baeder on high-performance instructional leadership.

[24:36] Bill Sterrett:

So, high-performance instructional leaders. What did you take away from my conversation with Bill Starrett? I think all too often when we think about time management, we think about just what we're doing personally. We think about how to leverage our time to get more done. But one of the things that Bill...

[24:53]

shared very clearly and very directly in our interview and in his book is that the way we use our time is largely about what's going on with our teachers what we're doing to build relationships among teachers and to create collaboration and with the larger community. The relationships that we're building, the way we're getting out into the community and looking for opportunities and being visible and forming connections, that has a lot to do with how we use our time. So I'd like to ask you to think about all of the different kinds of social capital that are contributing to student learning in your school. Because if it's our job to just kind of single-handedly accomplish everything that needs to happen, we're gonna have a really hard time. The schools that do well, despite funding challenges, despite all of the problems that schools everywhere face, the schools that are doing the best are the schools that can leverage their social capital.

[25:47]

So as you heard Bill talk about getting out, and working on those connections and those DISC priorities, district, instructional, school, and community. Bill is talking about social capital and about working together under conditions of trust so that we can create every opportunity possible for our students. So if you're looking for more on building that social capital, building trust, and leveraging your time to maximize your impact on student learning, I would encourage you to check out Bill's book, Short on Time. And I would encourage you to check out the High Performance Instructional Leadership Network at PrincipalCenter.com.

[26:25] Announcer:

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