Spencer: My name is Spencer, and I am a second generation educator.
Stewart: My name is Stewart. I’ve been in education for over a decade and my father as well was an educator.
Spencer: Interestingly enough, our parents worked together at an alternative high school probably 35, 30 years ago, plus. This podcast is about education what we view and what we think about some of the things that are happening in education, specifically as our roles as leaders in buildings today.
We are talking about moving from teaching to administration or counseling to administration – why people make the move to go into administration.
Stewart: Talk about what it looks like, what the story is and what we can do to help.
Spencer: So let’s hear it. What are some of the reasons that people go into administration?
Stewart: Well, I can share my personal story with it because it is one of the reasons. It might not be the most common reason that people do. Growing up with my father being a high school administrator it was something that first I swore off I would never ever do. Of course “never say never” because that’s when it happens and once I decided to go that route I realized I didn’t want to be just a teacher, I wanted to go to administration, I wanted to be a principal like my dad had been and so from day one I was telling people “I love teaching, I’m in it but our district requires five years and you can move into administration” so that was always the plan.
Oddly enough, I would get some really mixed responses from teachers. They would always say “Oh you want to go to the dark side” and I’d be quick to remind them “We need good administrators, they make the difference” and then they would give me that but it was interesting in their view of it when I mentioned that I did want to move over.
Spencer: So you’re talking about fellow teachers gave you a hard time about going into administration?
Stewart: Yeah, yeah they they call it the dark side because I was so open and honest about it they they like to harass me a little bit about it for sure.
Spencer: My path is a little bit different but I mean I started education late, I was not like a born teacher and maybe in the back end I there was the you know things I was learning but I started off in small business and kind of entrepreneurship and got into education as a more secure way to sustain ourselves. Our business did really really well and in fact I think it’s at some point that made me a a better teacher because I was not stressed about certain things that a lot of other teachers work through. But you know about 3 years in to education our business we had to sell off this is you know 2008 is and you know we had to sell off some different things and so I started looking at everything and I was like “Hey this is not going to be sustainable based on this outcome and I don’t want to have to say it’s all about the income but when you tell somebody “Hey your income is going to double basically over a period of time” that was super helpful.
I think also my skill set outside of school as far as like management and operations and logistics and different things like that really helped the case for seeing a big picture in a school and all of the moving parts and bringing them all together to be like synchronous – that was also another skill set that I recognized pretty early on. And to be honest the idea of helping build a culture in a school as opposed to just your classroom, helping teachers create a schoolwide culture, I do think there’s other reasons.
You and I have talked about this before. I think there are people like you that have just decided from day one “Hey this is my track, this is where I’m going, this is what I want to do.” They’re pretty open about it. I think there are some people that do it because of the financial benefit and the assumed power that comes along with that position right? There’s this perceived power that comes along with it and then when you get there that power kind of just disappears right? And then I think there’s a group that are really really good teachers and they hear it long enough and from enough people that they say “Oh hey you would be a good administrator, have you thought about that?” “Well no I’ve never really thought about it but you know I maybe could, what would it require?” Right and then they talk about going back to school or getting a Masters or doing some of those things but some people decide to do that part and then they never actually go into administration right? Because they go through the classes and they start to see what’s happening and they start looking closer because I think as a teacher you look at what your principal, your assistant principal does but then when you start getting into the classes and you start doing your hours and your observations you start really seeing what it is and I have probably 10-15 friends that went through the program and are licensed to be administrators but they’ve either said “Nope I’m I’m good, I’m good where I’m at” and just kind of stopped right there.
Stewart: Yeah and I don’t know if I can put my finger on exactly what it is.
Spencer: So the other thing that we had talked about before is the skill set. So now as an administrator, when you go from the classroom to be an AP or a principal, you’re now working with adults a lot more and problems with adults but you’re also dealing with, specifically if you’re an AP, the general consensus for APs is that they are working with behavior. So that’s a whole new skill set. What skill sets did you recognize that you were missing or that you had to work on when you went from being a teacher to an administrator?
Stewart: That’s a great question. I feel like I learned a lot from the first administrators I worked with and I learned a lot about connecting and working with the students differently because as a teacher, like you said, you see them in a different way and they see you in a different way. Every step you move up the ladder in leadership in schools you move one step further away from the kids and I feel like because we’re one step more removed from the kids, the teacher is viewed as that authority figure but principal, assistant principal even more so – there’s that second level of authority that you kind of have to break down a little bit so the kids can see you as a person, as a human being, and want to make that connection.
It was for me, learning that skill of how to discipline a kid but also maintain a relationship with that kid because it’s easy to yell at the kid and burn every bridge and send them on their way and just wipe your hands of it but I really wanted to try to make sure that every kid that walked out of my office felt hope for the future and that I had their back even though I did have to suspend them. So it was learning a lot of those skills.
Spencer: Yeah there’s a couple. One, I think for me was even though I was a language arts teacher and I loved communicating and writing and all that stuff it was how to be more concise with the message I was sharing and the information I was sharing with parents and kids – that they don’t need to know everything they just really need to know what concerns them. I know that sounds weird but I remember sometimes wanting to explain all of the reasons why this was happening to this student and I really didn’t need to. There are times when it’s like “Hey, you know, I understand that you want to know more but these are the policies, these are the rules, this is where we’re at. I’m sorry.”
So there was that one and then my ability – and I still have a problem with this skill and I’m still practicing – is the ability for me to say “No, I don’t know all the answers but let me find out” or “No I don’t have the time to do that, let me send you to someone who can do that,” specifically I think it is a skill to say no, not because you don’t want to help people, not because you don’t want to do the things but there are times when if you just say yes to everything and try and become a people pleaser you end up disappointing everybody because you’re not giving everybody your full….This is more with the adults in the building with all the chaos that happens in a middle school or even a high school, which is even more than a middle school because of the sheer number.
So I think those are things that I am still learning but is there anything, preparation wise – let’s say you’re a teacher listening and you’re thinking “Hey I’m thinking about going into administration” – what was the most helpful thing? I know there are things that everybody has to do as far as a master’s degree, observations – what are things that you were like “Oh I have kept that for the past 10 years because it was so amazing”?
Stewart: Yeah the biggest thing for me was creating the network, creating those connections. On my prep period I oftentimes went down to the main office to talk with assistant principals or principals and pick their brain even just shadow them during my prep so I could see what it was like. I asked a lot of questions and there were some administrators that got really bugged with it and so I learned to not ask them a lot of questions but there were others that loved it and they would sit and pick their brain.
I would ask them all the time “What would you do in this situation? How do you handle this situation?” Or they would tell me what was going on in the school and how they’re handling a situation so for me building that network has been really helpful.
The biggest thing though was being a leader in the faculty. Whether I was or not is subjective but I was looking for opportunities to lead out on professional development, looking for opportunities to lead out any way I could, which helped because by the time I applied to be an administrator my principal but also the district saw me as that type of person already so it was an easy transition for them to take me as an administrator.
Spencer: I’ve got a couple so I think one is that mentorship and that colleagues – I still have really really good relationships with people that were assistant principals that I worked with as a teacher, that are still assistant principals or maybe they’re now principals, and we can talk about things and hash things out. I can call them outside of work and say “Hey I have this situation, what would you do in this situation or how would you handle this?” Because what you’ll learn as you continue through education is that people have their really niche specialties.
I have somebody that I call about special ed. I have somebody that I call about technology. I have somebody I call about relationships. I have somebody that I call about difficult conversations because this person really handles things well. So as you kind of go through your teaching career start to keep a list of those things.
Stewart: What are the greatest rewards? What are your biggest rewards that you would say about administration?
Spencer: Yeah what a great question. I think one is working whether it’s a difficult student or not over a long period of time and watching them change and become a better version of themselves – working with the parents, the siblings, the teachers, working on behavior plans, different things like that and to watch a student kind of grow and become this fantastic human being I think that’s rewarding.
I think the other one, like you said, is the relationships you have on a team. There are moments that you have as an administrator that you cannot replicate as a teacher where things happen and you as administrators bond together. It becomes like this moment, like this core memory of the team that you’ll forever be bonded around.
My third thing for me personally is the ability to help teachers become better teachers. As an instructional leader your job is to coach, mentor – whatever you call it in your district – and watch a new teacher or a veteran teacher that struggles and help them get through that. That is really rewarding.
Stewart: Okay, so the three tips that you would give…this is the money moment for teachers. What are the three things that you would say to help them be more successful? If you’re listening, you’re going to get Stewart’s three and I’m going to give you three. Let’s say they have just made the jump or they are thinking about the jump.
Stewart: First year administrator – first one for sure is 99.9999% of the time you do not have to make a decision in that moment. You can tell them “I need to talk to my team” even if you don’t have a team there – you can use that as an excuse to step out, collect yourself, bounce ideas off people to make sure you’re making the right decision. That was really helpful as a first year administrator where you feel a lot of stress because there’s so much you don’t know – policy, procedures, all of that. Giving myself permission, because an older administrator gave me that permission, “Hey you can step out and you can talk to us anytime.” I used it all the time especially when big things would come up. I would say “Let me go talk with my team and then we can make a decision from there.”
Second thing – figure out how to maintain a relationship with a kid even when you’re suspending them. It looks different for every kid. Every kid responds differently but what can you do so that kid doesn’t think “Mr. Stewart hates me”? If you can do that, that’s what it’s all about – relationships.
Third thing is get into as many classrooms as you can. I don’t care if it’s for two minutes, five minutes, get in as many classrooms as you can because it’s easy to get stuck in the black hole of the main office and I always find I like my job more when I get out.
Spencer: Some of ours might overlap but number one is to go into your leadership position with a “service leadership” attitude. Your role is to serve the community – the school, parents, teachers. Number two, very similar, but absolutely be visible everywhere all the time. One thing you’ll find is that as you are visible you will solve problems before they come to you. It’ll help you feel better, it’ll build trust and care from faculty and staff – not just talking teachers but custodial, ESPs, nutrition – all of that.
Number three for me is have some sort of plan going in – internship, first year as AP – set some goals to make sure the transition goes well. 100 day plan, organization plan, motto, creed, manifesto that you kind of live up to and look back on – “Okay these are my core values, I did not dishonor those today” – and move forward.
Stewart: Cool, love it!
Spencer: Awesome, thank you for listening to the School Story Leadership podcast – the beginning of something beautiful! I’m Stewart Hudnell, I’m Spencer, thank you for listening. See you next time, peace!