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Providing you, the K-12 leader, with the help you need to lead with clarity, credibility, and confidence in a time of enormous change.
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In Your Corner, Leadership and Change Management
Engage Your Scouts and Explorers Now
It may be tempting to roll out a full slate of new expectations and role adjustments for your staff from the first day. While there will be some changes made out of necessity, attempting to make wholesale shifts with all staff members from the start will likely lead to disaster. For now, consider limiting major changes to those aspects that will most directly impact the learning and health of students.
At the same time, there are likely a number of staff members who can help to grow experience, explore options, test tools, and develop practices that will move the strategies you are identifying forward. Every school district has these people. You might call them scouts or explorers. They are often eager and fearless when it comes to trying something new. They are not afraid to make mistakes, change direction, or challenge assumptions and traditions.
Enlist this group of scouts or explorers to assist in identifying options, testing approaches, and exploring the landscape that lies ahead. Now is the time to engage these educators, if you are not doing so already. They can test, modify, and solidify what later can be rolled out for more or all of the staff. They can also provide important reassurance, modeling, and coaching as larger groups of staff learn and implement longer-term shifts in practice to align with the vision and strategies you are developing now.
In fact, gathering some of these key players now to share your thinking with can offer added benefits. They may have valuable ideas and insights to assist your planning. They may also be in a position to try out and gain experience with tools and approaches yet this summer if you have a summer learning program. You might even pair them up with some learners who need additional support to be ready for success when school starts in the fall to gain some early experience and insights.
You know your specific circumstances. Just be sure not to ignore this important and potentially helpful resource as you think through the challenges you face and the changes you need to make. You will be glad you did.
Behavior, In Your Corner
Tap “COV-etiquette” to Build Positive Behavior and Culture
When school opens in the fall it is likely that for at least a portion of each day or week students will be in physical proximity to other students and staff. This reality means that some expectations and guidelines will be needed beyond the behavior expectations to which students have been accustomed.
A typical response to this need would be to add a supplementary list of rules for students to follow on top of rules in place before the pandemic. However, there is another way to view and communicate about the situation that recognizes its uniqueness and positions the expectations as something more than additional rules for students to follow.
You may have noticed over the past few weeks articles featuring the concept of “COV-etiquette,” or appropriate behavior considerations when dining out or interacting with people in a public setting during the pandemic. The term, obviously, is a modification of the historical term, etiquette, referring to proper behavior when interacting with others. Central to the concept of etiquette is behaving in a manner that is respectful of others and reflective of your good manners.
As you think about necessary shifts in procedures, desired behaviors, and the need for safety, consider approaching your communication through the lens of respect for others, good manners, and protecting the health of everyone. This “COV-etiquette” approach invites students to be a part of a larger effort to make school and learning safe and successful for all.
You can build on this concept by finding ways to state the new behavioral expectations in terms of what students are to do rather than what they are not to do. As examples:
- Wear a mask whenever you are at school but are not eating or drinking.
- Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer whenever you touch something that may carry germs.
- Follow posted signs regarding which direction to go and which hall to use to move from one part of the school to another.
- Maintain at least a two arms-length distance from others whenever possible.
- Speak clearly so that what you say can be understood even when your mouth is not visible.
- More germs are spread when face coverings are not present.
- Hands are more likely to carry germs than other parts of the body that are covered.
- When all students walk in the same direction there is less likelihood that germs will be spread to people who might be walking in the opposite direction.
- Research shows that maintaining appropriate distance from others decreases the spread of germs.
- Even though we are wearing masks, it is important that we are able to hear and understand each other.
Shop "COV-etiquette" Masks
In Your Corner, Leadership and Change Management
In Your Corner, Student Learning
In Your Corner, Leadership and Change Management
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