Part II. Creating Objectives… and why the focus on this can reinvent your school completely
It would be obvious to state that school wide objectives can drive a school in a specific direction. By nature, that’s what they are supposed to do. However, how many staff at your site, even know what they are?
If you’re answer is less than half, then that means less than half of the school’s staff are working with you, and on your team, in addressing them. That’s the receipt for absolute disaster. If your staff lack direction, or even worse if they lack buy-in to why the school’s focus is even relevant or important, you need some help.
You want unison? You want unity? You want school wide focus — you need purposeful objectives, that revolve around what matters most in education — the students.
In order to do this, you need a team. You can begin this discussion with yourself immediately, but you need a team to help you as well. Even the best of the best leaders that I know, have a team that is maybe even, a little better than them.
Your team should look at what is glaringly obvious as the worst area of the school, and write it down in the middle of a white board or yellow paper. Take what is written there, and ask the team who or what creates this issue? Off the center circle, connect a second circle with an aspect of the source in each, giving a new circle to each one bubbling off the center obvious problem.
Off of the who and what circles, each get a circle explaining how they are a major source.
You should have 3 layers of circles now, the major source issue in the center, the sources that make it connected around that inner circle, and a statement defining how they are connected is the third layer.
With that team, ask how can each of the sources be addressed? Start a new center circle with your answer. Off of that main circle, ask who can assist with this best and write them in the circle connecting to it. Branched off of that second circle, briefly describe how that person or team or area, can play a part in the solution.
What did we just do? We planned major school solutions, by identifying what they were, defining the parts that make it so, and developing a plan to address them.
This is fun with circles. But how does it help you still ask? Now, we have an outline, fro an objective. A school wide objective, that in theory, attempts to address school wide areas of concern that are greatest or demand the most attention. So art 101 just turned into school reform 101.
Now, Create a new, second, blank canvas/platform for planning, think of another major or glaringly obvious issue or area of concern for the school, and put it in the center. Repeat all steps again.
You now have a second area for creating an objective.
Now that we have areas for objectives — how do you write them? To guide you, make them measurable, attainable, relevant, time measured, and specific enough to be able to agree that the objective has been met on account of said end result. These are classic smart goals. Classic.
You have most of this outlined, in your simple bubble chart that you and your staff did in how ever long that took to identify the major issues that you all agree, can transform your school. Take that center bubble, and based on your solution, and a time frame to get there, utilize a means to measure that statement, and give it a sequence of time. Objective created.
Again, take your solution, determine a means of measurement, and the amount of time it will take you to accomplish this goal — and this statement is your objective.
Your Objectives should be visible for everyone to see and understand. They should resonate with your staff since they helped create them, and with your students since it will revolve around them and they will foster the means to measure the result.
You may have several. You may have 2. But the process of realigning and refocusing everyone’s attention to create solutions and fostering the environment to do so, begins with your team, and perhaps just a yellow sheet of paper and a red pen.
In our next piece, we discuss Key Results, and how the entire staff play their part in creating them. This dives a little deeper into the steps a school leader needs to take in fostering real school reform.
If I can be of assistance, send me an email, thetravelingprincipal@gmail.com.
I’m a part of a 30 day writing challenge hosted by mastermind leader from Better Leaders Better Schools, Daniel Bauer. Check him out at www.betterleadersbetterschools.com for more information on how to spark you creative and educational endeavors. Read Danny’s stuff here.
Also, check out some of my friends doing it with us, TJ Vari and Mitch Weathers!!!!
