“How many people have never raised their hand before?”
― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life

“Don’t just teach your children to read…
Teach them to question what they read.
Teach them to question everything.”
― George Carlin

It is pretty safe to say that Nashville has a bad case of Titan’s fever and Saturday night just raised the city’s collective temperature. Riding the incredible Derek Henry – the first player to ever record over 185 yards rushing in 3 straight games – the Titan’s ran the heavily favored Baltimore Ravens right out of their own house by the score of 28 – 12. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched a football game that was that much fun. Only the Chiefs stand between the Titans and a trip to Miami for Super Bowl LIV on Feb. 2. Let’s Titan Up!.

Unfortunately, Titan fever isn’t the only fever that’s running rampant through Nashville. It seems that MNPS’s principals are also feeling increasingly under the weather. This week saw another one resign from their leadership post due to health issues.

Over the weekend the staff of A.Z. Kelley received an email from their principal Heather Bethrum informing them of her intention to relinquish her position due to health issues. Bethrum is not the first MNPS principal to do so this school year, Erin Anderson of Oliver resigned her position just a couple months ago.

Both Anderson and Bethrum – through their own actions or outside factors – had lost the support of the majority of their staff. As a result, both schools suffered and needlessly lost talent. Talent that for months cried out for help from the district. Help that only materialized after things deteriorated.

Bethrum was hired by Dr. Joseph back in the 2017 – 2018 school year. She came to MNPS via the Indian River School District. Early indications were that she was a talented administrator. I’m not trying to be facetious or insensitive, and I hope both do what’s best for them, but two principals resigning mid-year due to health concerns raises a few red flags for me.

In the past, both teachers and principals viewed the school year as sacred ground. If you committed to a school and it’s students for a school year, you pretty much did whatever it took to complete that assignment. Unfortunately, it seems the rules are changing and educators are leaving mid-year with increasing frequency. I recently heard of one teacher who went as far as to notify a principal at 8 AM the morning of the first day back from winter break of their intent not to return.

On Friday at the MNPS School Board retreat, I listened as TSBA Tammy Grissom spoke on the growing teacher shortage – describing it as “national issue”. Making it a national issue always makes me nervous because it gives cover to ignore the local element in those attrition rates. Yes, it’s a national issue but what are we doing as a local entity to mitigate the situation. No matter how you slice it, the answer continually comes up as not enough.

Over the last several years there has been a great deal of focus on the importance of having a quality principal at the head of every school. There has been no shortage of research into what makes a “good” principal and many private companies have upped their bottom line by training principals in those attributes. What I haven’t seen a lot of research on is the importance of placing the right principal in the right school.

Over the past decade of watching school issues unfold, I’ve come to appreciate the art form that is principal placement. Experience has shown me that matching a principal’s skill set with the right school is every bit as important as the inherent skills possed by the principal. Unfortunately, I seem to be a minority in this observation as over the past 3 years I’ve repeatedly watched principals placed in what are obviously untenable positions and as a result, be labeled a bad leader.

In my opinion, that does everybody a disservice. I have witnessed principals that have struggled at one school be absolute rock stars at another. I’ve also seen the opposite.

It’s not just a level of tiers – high school, middle school, elementary – either, though that obviously comes into play. There are so many intangibles that come into play with leadership that it’s hard to isolate individual traits that will ensure success. Sure there are the basic skills – transparency, ability to communicate, honestly, preparedness – but the list shouldn’t stop there. There are intangible to every principal position that makes one candidate better equipped than another and it is up to district leadership to identify and address those intangibles.

A big part of leadership is putting people in positions where they can succeed. It’s also adjusting when it’s clear that they are not in the right place. Adjusting before the person has to be fired or quit is equally as important as providing support.  Anderson and Bethrum are not the only two principals who are struggling this year. They are only the latest two casualties of a system that is not responsive enough to the needs of our schools.

I have long argued that whenever an employee is fired or quits, it is as much on their direct manager as it is on the employee. The manager either failed to identify the traits needed to successfully do the job, failed to communicate the vision and goals of the job, or failed to offer proper supports and resources. As such, it’s important that a 360 evaluation takes place and focus is paid equally to management’s role in the employee’s departure in order to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself.

Anderson and Bethrun are also not the only two health-related departures over the last 3 years, there have been several others. Being a principal is a highly stressful job – stress negatively affects personal health – and it’s imperative that attention is paid to the level of stress these building leaders are exposed to, in the same manner, that we have to pay attention to the amount of stress being placed on classroom teachers.

If learning is supposed to a joyous exercise, we need to ask ourselves, what are we doing to make schools joyful places?

CHANGES IN NON_NEGOTIABLES

At last week’s principal meeting, the guidelines for next year’s school-based budgets were rolled out. This year there are a few changes.

In the past, it was required that every school have an LTDS, in other words, a literacy coach (which by the way MNPS is reverting back to that title). It was also required that every school has a gifted and talented specialist as well – we call those AARTS and they guide gifted and talented education throughout the school.

This year it is not mandatory that every school has a literacy coach, though each school must designate a point person for literacy. If that person is not the coach, a stipend must be paid to the designee to serve in that role.

This move has been met with mixed feelings. Many principals like it because it gives them flexibility, and to be honest, not all coaches were effective. Others feel that by removing the non-negotiable status from coaches in turn you deemphasize literacy instruction.  I think both arguments have merit, but there continues to be an elephant in the room that we fail to address.

The job description for literacy coaches has always been a little vague and the district has done little to ensure that principals are utilizing them in the way the district envisions. It’s not uncommon to find literacy coaches spending their time serving as test proctors, substitute teachers, defacto administrators albeit without the authority, and any number of other jobs that make a school function but don’t actually contribute to higher literacy outcomes.

Coches have routinely been placed in a position where they are perceived by teachers as being the eyes and ears for both central office and building administrators. As a result, it is difficult to acquire the needed trust in order to be effective. To be fair, some literacy coaches have embraced the role of a compliance officer, which also hurts the position across the board.

I would argue that a more clear definition of duties and expectations coupled with ensuring that coaches are used in the prescribed manner would go further toward producing greater literacy than making the existence of the position a negotiable or non-negotiable.

Furthermore, MNPS over the last 3 years – due to poor leadership and shifting responsibilities – has lost many talented literacy experts. As a result, the current pool is a little short on talent and experience. Focusing on rectifying both of those elements would also go a long way towards instilling confidence in the position.

The third ingredient would be a clear literacy plan that has lots of “how” and “why” and not just “what”. At the recent board retreat, it was brought up that much of what MNPS does going forth is contingent on the state’s current adoption of ELA materials process. I think that’s a legitimate concern due to some of the TNDOE’s recent remarks around literacy development.

The ENCORE positions are a whole another can of worms. The problems with gifted education are well known throughout the district – 2/3 of the district’s students are Hispanic or Black, yet less than 1/3 of the gifted program are Black or Hispanic students. In our schools with less economically disadvantaged students, ENCORE designation has taken on social status. It’s not uncommon in those schools to have classrooms with 21 kids and 18 qualify for ENCORE. Meanwhile, schools with more economically disadvantaged kids struggle to have 18 kids identified in the whole school.

First of all, in my opinion, there needs to be a clearer definition between what qualifies as “gifted” and what qualifies as “really smart”. Despite being two completely different things, strategies for serving both are often intermingled, to the detriment of both.

The TNDOE defines gifted as follows,

That’s a wrap. Check out the Dad Gone Wild Facebook page, where we try to accentuate the positive.

If you’ve got something you’d like me to highlight and share, send it on to Norinrad10@yahoo.com. Any wisdom or criticism you’d like to share is always welcome.

Categories: Education