Mr. Poling's blog

Another terrific find. I received a comment from Mr. Steve Poling, a principal in Arizona who found my blog. He added to Dr. Jan's list of tips for new principals. His ideas are equally valuable. We all should be fortunate enough to have principals or become principals like Mr. Poling. Again, I colour-coded the tips I believe in or already practise.
Look at Mr. Poling's blog here.

Here are his additions to Dr. Jan's list:

21. Believe in your innermost being that you have an unlimited capacity to be a positive force in your school. A positive attitude is contagious and it starts with you.
22. Take ownership of the school because it is a reflection of you. Take pride in your work. Ask yourself, "Would I sent my child here? Are parents happy to send their children here?".
23. Dress for Success: always look your best. You are a model for the rest of the staff. It will also help you build credibility with the parents and families.
24. Assume the best from your staff. They will live up to your expectations.
25. Show genuine care and concern about your staff. Their family and themselves are the most important things in the world just like it is with you and your family.
26. Make sure the house is in order: staff want, need, and deserve a school that runs smoothly with orders being placed on time, leave requests being processed same day, and broken things being fixed promptly. It is about systems thinking (see Peter Senge's 'Schools That Learn'). The maintenance man, secretary, and front desk clerk are essential high performing staff for a well running school.
27. In your first back-to-school staff meeting, create a Code of Honor together. It is your agreed upon operating principles and guidelines of how you will treat each other. Print it out on nice paper with some graphics and pass them out for staff to post in their work areas. (There are many protocols out there for the activity of creating a Code of Honor. Email me if you need help.)
28. Towards the end of your first year together, after you and the staff have had the chance to build relationship and work together, revisit the school's mission and vision statements. They are an important foundation to who you are as a school and what is important to you.
29. Don't pretend to be perfect, and don't pretend to have all the answers. Do act competent and knowledgeable about educating kids and running a school. Apologize to a person if you were wrong; apologize to the staff if you violated the Code of Honor. You are a model on how to accept responsibility and admit when you are wrong.
30. Work with parents and teachers on solutions that will help kids. Have few hills that you are willing to die on. (Save them for the most important issues.) For instance, don't have a policy that you refuse move a student to a new classroom during the year. Some principals act like that is the last hill to die on for fear that other unhappy parents will hear and come demanding new classrooms. They won't and sometimes a move is the best thing for the child and the teacher.
31. "Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart."
32. Focus on your school data. What does it tell you about the teaching and learning taking place in your school? Engage staff in discussion about the data and how students are or are not learning what they need to learn.