Check out my bulletin board!

Colleagues,

MVP: Are you doing things that someone else could do? Could you use that time to invest in helping others grow?
 
This is a follow-up to yesterday’s email about doing things out of habit or based on historic circumstances. I offer you an example.
 
Every Friday at lunch the new assistant principal takes pictures of the students who have been named as “students of the Week.” The AP compiles information from the nomination forms and writes a brief statement highlighting each student’s accomplishments. They then post the photos and information on a bulletin board outside the office.
 
It takes the AP about two hours to do the bulletin board. Over the course of the year, the AP will spend 80 hours on the bulletin board, or the equivalent of two weeks.
 
The AP does the bulletin board because their predecessor did the bulletin board.
 
We don’t need to know why the previous AP did the bulletin board to know that this is a bad practice. 
 
Remember that leaders should spend as much time as possible doing what only they can do, and APs should be growing teachers because only they and the instructional coach and the principal can do that.
 
Anyone can take a photo, copy a statement, or staple something to a board. The kids could have done the board themselves.
 
But only the AP can help teachers grow. Imagine investing an hour with two different teachers every week. 
 
Are you creating bulletin boards? Or are you growing people?

Cheers!

​Frederick