A district leader shares five great ideas that district's can use to help schools decrease behavior incidents.
After the first day of school and for many weeks after I remember sitting in my car crying and in disbelief.
Why am I having such a hard time getting my students to listen, follow directions, and be respectful to each other and me?
This was not what I thought teaching was, I felt so unprepared to manage a classroom. I assumed that students would just respect me and follow my directions because I was their teacher.
If I, a well-prepared professional, felt this way about my classroom, what does that mean for the rest of campus?
When you think about the word “behavior management” we often assume that managing behavior has a negative undertone and not a positive one.
Behavior management is the ability to provide an environment that is conducive to engagement and learning. Staff and students have to create an atmosphere where they feel like everyone can be the best version of themselves.
It is important to note, this can mean very different things to different people.
So how do you create a learning environment conducive to engagement that can yield high results?
Once we know what “winning” looks like you can develop expectations within the space that allow for staff and students to hold each other accountable.
In the classroom these commitments need to be revisited often and when a community agreement is broken the teacher needs to model for students what that interaction should look like.
Something as simple as “let's remember our agreed upon community agreements” or “ one of our agreements is not being followed, how can we get back on track”?
Now, expand that idea to the entire campus. What does “winning” look like in your school? In the hallways, in the lunchroom, in the auditorium, on the bus as well as in the classrooms?
As a school unit, you need to determine what we want to see in our spaces. Do we want children sitting quietly at their desks, not talking in the hallways? Are students allowed to laugh and/or talk loudly in the hallways?
Every school has a “culture” that needs to be examined. Once we know what “winning” looks like within your school culture we can think of ways to support that vision with our students holistically.
So if we notice that students are “hanging out in the hallways” well after the bell, how can we retrain that behavior? And for these more significant school shifts, everyone needs to be on board.
If a student gets the same expectations from every staff member, they are more likely to shift their behavior.
Behavior management was not something I was explicitly taught in undergraduate school, this is the case for many newly hired teachers. Understanding how to manage behavior takes practice and support. So district offices should expect to support staff in this area.
The district office needs to understand and communicate to their staff what “winning” looks like in our school. This includes all areas; in the hallways, in the lunchroom, and in your classrooms.
I encourage other administrators to make it a point to go into spaces to not just observe but to teach and learn from their staff. It is never easy for anyone to put themselves out there but we ask our staff to do it every day.
The district office can help staff build an environment that is conducive to learning by making sure procedures are established early on.
This means going above and beyond sending reminder emails about procedures. You need to put boots on the ground and be visible during this transition period. Your staff will appreciate it and sometimes presence can make a big difference.
If the schools you serve need support in developing building-wide expectations, provide the support they need to create them. This means providing a PD on the subject in the summer and then potentially even offering a stipend for the team to develop them on a non-instructional day.
Newer teachers often struggle to implement routines…when students do not know the classroom and/or the school expectations they will make up their own. Can students just get up to sharpen pencils whenever they want? What if someone is absent?
I served as a teacher mentor in a school district and oftentimes the biggest disconnect administration had is understanding what the experience looks and feels like for their staff on a regular basis. What sounds good on paper does not always translate to real teaching practices.
The solution involves spending time meeting with veteran teachers in your district to determine what support their new colleagues are likely to need as they transition into the role you're hiring them for. This can be a lot of work, but the result is a higher teacher retention rate!
The district office can leverage the staff that is strong in creating community in their classrooms and managing behaviors. How can we encourage them to support and share their ideas with others?
Ask your staff what they feel is one of their strengths in the areas of PBIS, conflict resolution, de-escalation, and classroom procedures. Would they be willing to model, be a thought partner, or be an observer in someone’s classroom?
Or even better, would they be willing to host an internal PD like a lunch-n-learn or a learning walk where they can share that hard-earned expertise?
Providing professional development can be expensive and at times it can have mixed results if the audience doesn’t have built-in respect and rapport with the presenter.
By celebrating and encouraging your in-house rockstars you can provide PD more often that is more likely to find its way into practice.
The district office should teach a class at least once a year to understand what their staff is managing each day. This will give you some great insight and at the very least it will ground your solutions in reality.
I had a very humbling experience when I was an administrator and “volunteered” to teach a class of 1st graders for the morning. This was as we were returning back to in-person learning and we had “roomers” (the students in the classroom) and the “zoomers” (the kids that were streaming into the classroom).
I began my reading lesson so confident and so strong.
Overall it seemed to be going well minus the student that had gone to the bathroom and never came back and that I had forgotten about letting the “zoomers” into the classroom for the first 15 minutes of the school day…good times! 🙃
This provided some needed perspective when it came to assessing what we were asking our staff to manage when it came to behaviors.
The experience garnered many laughs from my staff but it allowed me to have some very well-informed talking points when speaking to other administrators.
So you have all these great ideas… how do you know if it is working? You need to identify what data you have available and what is needed to really make an informed decision about your practices.
We should collect both quantitative data and qualitative data. By this, I mean student discipline statistics as well as feedback from staff and students.
When we have the data, how long should we stay the course before making a change? Change can happen quickly in some cases but in most cases, it can take 8-12 weeks to see a more meaningful change in a school community.
Once you have a thoughtful focus, plan to stick with it for a bit to see if it is working. Also, consider who is going to be positively and negatively impacted by these changes.
Behavior Management is one of the most important investments any administrator can make in their school community.
Creating a learning environment that yields high results will require setting expectations and listening to feedback from your community.
Key Takeaways
Remember education is hard but be gentle with yourself. If it was easy everyone would do it.
After the first day of school and for many weeks after I remember sitting in my car crying and in disbelief.
Why am I having such a hard time getting my students to listen, follow directions, and be respectful to each other and me?
This was not what I thought teaching was, I felt so unprepared to manage a classroom. I assumed that students would just respect me and follow my directions because I was their teacher.
If I, a well-prepared professional, felt this way about my classroom, what does that mean for the rest of campus?
When you think about the word “behavior management” we often assume that managing behavior has a negative undertone and not a positive one.
Behavior management is the ability to provide an environment that is conducive to engagement and learning. Staff and students have to create an atmosphere where they feel like everyone can be the best version of themselves.
It is important to note, this can mean very different things to different people.
So how do you create a learning environment conducive to engagement that can yield high results?
Once we know what “winning” looks like you can develop expectations within the space that allow for staff and students to hold each other accountable.
In the classroom these commitments need to be revisited often and when a community agreement is broken the teacher needs to model for students what that interaction should look like.
Something as simple as “let's remember our agreed upon community agreements” or “ one of our agreements is not being followed, how can we get back on track”?
Now, expand that idea to the entire campus. What does “winning” look like in your school? In the hallways, in the lunchroom, in the auditorium, on the bus as well as in the classrooms?
As a school unit, you need to determine what we want to see in our spaces. Do we want children sitting quietly at their desks, not talking in the hallways? Are students allowed to laugh and/or talk loudly in the hallways?
Every school has a “culture” that needs to be examined. Once we know what “winning” looks like within your school culture we can think of ways to support that vision with our students holistically.
So if we notice that students are “hanging out in the hallways” well after the bell, how can we retrain that behavior? And for these more significant school shifts, everyone needs to be on board.
If a student gets the same expectations from every staff member, they are more likely to shift their behavior.
Behavior management was not something I was explicitly taught in undergraduate school, this is the case for many newly hired teachers. Understanding how to manage behavior takes practice and support. So district offices should expect to support staff in this area.
The district office needs to understand and communicate to their staff what “winning” looks like in our school. This includes all areas; in the hallways, in the lunchroom, and in your classrooms.
I encourage other administrators to make it a point to go into spaces to not just observe but to teach and learn from their staff. It is never easy for anyone to put themselves out there but we ask our staff to do it every day.
The district office can help staff build an environment that is conducive to learning by making sure procedures are established early on.
This means going above and beyond sending reminder emails about procedures. You need to put boots on the ground and be visible during this transition period. Your staff will appreciate it and sometimes presence can make a big difference.
If the schools you serve need support in developing building-wide expectations, provide the support they need to create them. This means providing a PD on the subject in the summer and then potentially even offering a stipend for the team to develop them on a non-instructional day.
Newer teachers often struggle to implement routines…when students do not know the classroom and/or the school expectations they will make up their own. Can students just get up to sharpen pencils whenever they want? What if someone is absent?
I served as a teacher mentor in a school district and oftentimes the biggest disconnect administration had is understanding what the experience looks and feels like for their staff on a regular basis. What sounds good on paper does not always translate to real teaching practices.
The solution involves spending time meeting with veteran teachers in your district to determine what support their new colleagues are likely to need as they transition into the role you're hiring them for. This can be a lot of work, but the result is a higher teacher retention rate!
The district office can leverage the staff that is strong in creating community in their classrooms and managing behaviors. How can we encourage them to support and share their ideas with others?
Ask your staff what they feel is one of their strengths in the areas of PBIS, conflict resolution, de-escalation, and classroom procedures. Would they be willing to model, be a thought partner, or be an observer in someone’s classroom?
Or even better, would they be willing to host an internal PD like a lunch-n-learn or a learning walk where they can share that hard-earned expertise?
Providing professional development can be expensive and at times it can have mixed results if the audience doesn’t have built-in respect and rapport with the presenter.
By celebrating and encouraging your in-house rockstars you can provide PD more often that is more likely to find its way into practice.
The district office should teach a class at least once a year to understand what their staff is managing each day. This will give you some great insight and at the very least it will ground your solutions in reality.
I had a very humbling experience when I was an administrator and “volunteered” to teach a class of 1st graders for the morning. This was as we were returning back to in-person learning and we had “roomers” (the students in the classroom) and the “zoomers” (the kids that were streaming into the classroom).
I began my reading lesson so confident and so strong.
Overall it seemed to be going well minus the student that had gone to the bathroom and never came back and that I had forgotten about letting the “zoomers” into the classroom for the first 15 minutes of the school day…good times! 🙃
This provided some needed perspective when it came to assessing what we were asking our staff to manage when it came to behaviors.
The experience garnered many laughs from my staff but it allowed me to have some very well-informed talking points when speaking to other administrators.
So you have all these great ideas… how do you know if it is working? You need to identify what data you have available and what is needed to really make an informed decision about your practices.
We should collect both quantitative data and qualitative data. By this, I mean student discipline statistics as well as feedback from staff and students.
When we have the data, how long should we stay the course before making a change? Change can happen quickly in some cases but in most cases, it can take 8-12 weeks to see a more meaningful change in a school community.
Once you have a thoughtful focus, plan to stick with it for a bit to see if it is working. Also, consider who is going to be positively and negatively impacted by these changes.
Behavior Management is one of the most important investments any administrator can make in their school community.
Creating a learning environment that yields high results will require setting expectations and listening to feedback from your community.
Key Takeaways
Remember education is hard but be gentle with yourself. If it was easy everyone would do it.
After the first day of school and for many weeks after I remember sitting in my car crying and in disbelief.
Why am I having such a hard time getting my students to listen, follow directions, and be respectful to each other and me?
This was not what I thought teaching was, I felt so unprepared to manage a classroom. I assumed that students would just respect me and follow my directions because I was their teacher.
If I, a well-prepared professional, felt this way about my classroom, what does that mean for the rest of campus?
When you think about the word “behavior management” we often assume that managing behavior has a negative undertone and not a positive one.
Behavior management is the ability to provide an environment that is conducive to engagement and learning. Staff and students have to create an atmosphere where they feel like everyone can be the best version of themselves.
It is important to note, this can mean very different things to different people.
So how do you create a learning environment conducive to engagement that can yield high results?
Once we know what “winning” looks like you can develop expectations within the space that allow for staff and students to hold each other accountable.
In the classroom these commitments need to be revisited often and when a community agreement is broken the teacher needs to model for students what that interaction should look like.
Something as simple as “let's remember our agreed upon community agreements” or “ one of our agreements is not being followed, how can we get back on track”?
Now, expand that idea to the entire campus. What does “winning” look like in your school? In the hallways, in the lunchroom, in the auditorium, on the bus as well as in the classrooms?
As a school unit, you need to determine what we want to see in our spaces. Do we want children sitting quietly at their desks, not talking in the hallways? Are students allowed to laugh and/or talk loudly in the hallways?
Every school has a “culture” that needs to be examined. Once we know what “winning” looks like within your school culture we can think of ways to support that vision with our students holistically.
So if we notice that students are “hanging out in the hallways” well after the bell, how can we retrain that behavior? And for these more significant school shifts, everyone needs to be on board.
If a student gets the same expectations from every staff member, they are more likely to shift their behavior.
Behavior management was not something I was explicitly taught in undergraduate school, this is the case for many newly hired teachers. Understanding how to manage behavior takes practice and support. So district offices should expect to support staff in this area.
The district office needs to understand and communicate to their staff what “winning” looks like in our school. This includes all areas; in the hallways, in the lunchroom, and in your classrooms.
I encourage other administrators to make it a point to go into spaces to not just observe but to teach and learn from their staff. It is never easy for anyone to put themselves out there but we ask our staff to do it every day.
The district office can help staff build an environment that is conducive to learning by making sure procedures are established early on.
This means going above and beyond sending reminder emails about procedures. You need to put boots on the ground and be visible during this transition period. Your staff will appreciate it and sometimes presence can make a big difference.
If the schools you serve need support in developing building-wide expectations, provide the support they need to create them. This means providing a PD on the subject in the summer and then potentially even offering a stipend for the team to develop them on a non-instructional day.
Newer teachers often struggle to implement routines…when students do not know the classroom and/or the school expectations they will make up their own. Can students just get up to sharpen pencils whenever they want? What if someone is absent?
I served as a teacher mentor in a school district and oftentimes the biggest disconnect administration had is understanding what the experience looks and feels like for their staff on a regular basis. What sounds good on paper does not always translate to real teaching practices.
The solution involves spending time meeting with veteran teachers in your district to determine what support their new colleagues are likely to need as they transition into the role you're hiring them for. This can be a lot of work, but the result is a higher teacher retention rate!
The district office can leverage the staff that is strong in creating community in their classrooms and managing behaviors. How can we encourage them to support and share their ideas with others?
Ask your staff what they feel is one of their strengths in the areas of PBIS, conflict resolution, de-escalation, and classroom procedures. Would they be willing to model, be a thought partner, or be an observer in someone’s classroom?
Or even better, would they be willing to host an internal PD like a lunch-n-learn or a learning walk where they can share that hard-earned expertise?
Providing professional development can be expensive and at times it can have mixed results if the audience doesn’t have built-in respect and rapport with the presenter.
By celebrating and encouraging your in-house rockstars you can provide PD more often that is more likely to find its way into practice.
The district office should teach a class at least once a year to understand what their staff is managing each day. This will give you some great insight and at the very least it will ground your solutions in reality.
I had a very humbling experience when I was an administrator and “volunteered” to teach a class of 1st graders for the morning. This was as we were returning back to in-person learning and we had “roomers” (the students in the classroom) and the “zoomers” (the kids that were streaming into the classroom).
I began my reading lesson so confident and so strong.
Overall it seemed to be going well minus the student that had gone to the bathroom and never came back and that I had forgotten about letting the “zoomers” into the classroom for the first 15 minutes of the school day…good times! 🙃
This provided some needed perspective when it came to assessing what we were asking our staff to manage when it came to behaviors.
The experience garnered many laughs from my staff but it allowed me to have some very well-informed talking points when speaking to other administrators.
So you have all these great ideas… how do you know if it is working? You need to identify what data you have available and what is needed to really make an informed decision about your practices.
We should collect both quantitative data and qualitative data. By this, I mean student discipline statistics as well as feedback from staff and students.
When we have the data, how long should we stay the course before making a change? Change can happen quickly in some cases but in most cases, it can take 8-12 weeks to see a more meaningful change in a school community.
Once you have a thoughtful focus, plan to stick with it for a bit to see if it is working. Also, consider who is going to be positively and negatively impacted by these changes.
Behavior Management is one of the most important investments any administrator can make in their school community.
Creating a learning environment that yields high results will require setting expectations and listening to feedback from your community.
Key Takeaways
Remember education is hard but be gentle with yourself. If it was easy everyone would do it.
After the first day of school and for many weeks after I remember sitting in my car crying and in disbelief.
Why am I having such a hard time getting my students to listen, follow directions, and be respectful to each other and me?
This was not what I thought teaching was, I felt so unprepared to manage a classroom. I assumed that students would just respect me and follow my directions because I was their teacher.
If I, a well-prepared professional, felt this way about my classroom, what does that mean for the rest of campus?
When you think about the word “behavior management” we often assume that managing behavior has a negative undertone and not a positive one.
Behavior management is the ability to provide an environment that is conducive to engagement and learning. Staff and students have to create an atmosphere where they feel like everyone can be the best version of themselves.
It is important to note, this can mean very different things to different people.
So how do you create a learning environment conducive to engagement that can yield high results?
Once we know what “winning” looks like you can develop expectations within the space that allow for staff and students to hold each other accountable.
In the classroom these commitments need to be revisited often and when a community agreement is broken the teacher needs to model for students what that interaction should look like.
Something as simple as “let's remember our agreed upon community agreements” or “ one of our agreements is not being followed, how can we get back on track”?
Now, expand that idea to the entire campus. What does “winning” look like in your school? In the hallways, in the lunchroom, in the auditorium, on the bus as well as in the classrooms?
As a school unit, you need to determine what we want to see in our spaces. Do we want children sitting quietly at their desks, not talking in the hallways? Are students allowed to laugh and/or talk loudly in the hallways?
Every school has a “culture” that needs to be examined. Once we know what “winning” looks like within your school culture we can think of ways to support that vision with our students holistically.
So if we notice that students are “hanging out in the hallways” well after the bell, how can we retrain that behavior? And for these more significant school shifts, everyone needs to be on board.
If a student gets the same expectations from every staff member, they are more likely to shift their behavior.
Behavior management was not something I was explicitly taught in undergraduate school, this is the case for many newly hired teachers. Understanding how to manage behavior takes practice and support. So district offices should expect to support staff in this area.
The district office needs to understand and communicate to their staff what “winning” looks like in our school. This includes all areas; in the hallways, in the lunchroom, and in your classrooms.
I encourage other administrators to make it a point to go into spaces to not just observe but to teach and learn from their staff. It is never easy for anyone to put themselves out there but we ask our staff to do it every day.
The district office can help staff build an environment that is conducive to learning by making sure procedures are established early on.
This means going above and beyond sending reminder emails about procedures. You need to put boots on the ground and be visible during this transition period. Your staff will appreciate it and sometimes presence can make a big difference.
If the schools you serve need support in developing building-wide expectations, provide the support they need to create them. This means providing a PD on the subject in the summer and then potentially even offering a stipend for the team to develop them on a non-instructional day.
Newer teachers often struggle to implement routines…when students do not know the classroom and/or the school expectations they will make up their own. Can students just get up to sharpen pencils whenever they want? What if someone is absent?
I served as a teacher mentor in a school district and oftentimes the biggest disconnect administration had is understanding what the experience looks and feels like for their staff on a regular basis. What sounds good on paper does not always translate to real teaching practices.
The solution involves spending time meeting with veteran teachers in your district to determine what support their new colleagues are likely to need as they transition into the role you're hiring them for. This can be a lot of work, but the result is a higher teacher retention rate!
The district office can leverage the staff that is strong in creating community in their classrooms and managing behaviors. How can we encourage them to support and share their ideas with others?
Ask your staff what they feel is one of their strengths in the areas of PBIS, conflict resolution, de-escalation, and classroom procedures. Would they be willing to model, be a thought partner, or be an observer in someone’s classroom?
Or even better, would they be willing to host an internal PD like a lunch-n-learn or a learning walk where they can share that hard-earned expertise?
Providing professional development can be expensive and at times it can have mixed results if the audience doesn’t have built-in respect and rapport with the presenter.
By celebrating and encouraging your in-house rockstars you can provide PD more often that is more likely to find its way into practice.
The district office should teach a class at least once a year to understand what their staff is managing each day. This will give you some great insight and at the very least it will ground your solutions in reality.
I had a very humbling experience when I was an administrator and “volunteered” to teach a class of 1st graders for the morning. This was as we were returning back to in-person learning and we had “roomers” (the students in the classroom) and the “zoomers” (the kids that were streaming into the classroom).
I began my reading lesson so confident and so strong.
Overall it seemed to be going well minus the student that had gone to the bathroom and never came back and that I had forgotten about letting the “zoomers” into the classroom for the first 15 minutes of the school day…good times! 🙃
This provided some needed perspective when it came to assessing what we were asking our staff to manage when it came to behaviors.
The experience garnered many laughs from my staff but it allowed me to have some very well-informed talking points when speaking to other administrators.
So you have all these great ideas… how do you know if it is working? You need to identify what data you have available and what is needed to really make an informed decision about your practices.
We should collect both quantitative data and qualitative data. By this, I mean student discipline statistics as well as feedback from staff and students.
When we have the data, how long should we stay the course before making a change? Change can happen quickly in some cases but in most cases, it can take 8-12 weeks to see a more meaningful change in a school community.
Once you have a thoughtful focus, plan to stick with it for a bit to see if it is working. Also, consider who is going to be positively and negatively impacted by these changes.
Behavior Management is one of the most important investments any administrator can make in their school community.
Creating a learning environment that yields high results will require setting expectations and listening to feedback from your community.
Key Takeaways
Remember education is hard but be gentle with yourself. If it was easy everyone would do it.
Faith resides in Oak Park, IL with her husband and son. She currently serves as Assistant Superintendent of Student Services for D212. She is a passionate leader with 18 years of educational experience in K-12th grade. She has extensive experience in MTSS, PBIS, Equity and Justice, Teacher and Principal Mentoring, Special Education, Restorative Practices, and Student Services.
I remember preparing for my first year of teaching. I dreamt about the dynamic lessons I would create and the robust conversations that would take place in my classroom. I was excited about all the apples and thank-you notes I would be receiving, clearly, I had a bit of a rosy outlook on life in the classroom.
After the first day of school and for many weeks after I remember sitting in my car crying and in disbelief.
Why am I having such a hard time getting my students to listen, follow directions, and be respectful to each other and me?
This was not what I thought teaching was, I felt so unprepared to manage a classroom. I assumed that students would just respect me and follow my directions because I was their teacher.
If I, a well-prepared professional, felt this way about my classroom, what does that mean for the rest of campus?
When you think about the word “behavior management” we often assume that managing behavior has a negative undertone and not a positive one.
Behavior management is the ability to provide an environment that is conducive to engagement and learning. Staff and students have to create an atmosphere where they feel like everyone can be the best version of themselves.
It is important to note, this can mean very different things to different people.
So how do you create a learning environment conducive to engagement that can yield high results?
Once we know what “winning” looks like you can develop expectations within the space that allow for staff and students to hold each other accountable.
In the classroom these commitments need to be revisited often and when a community agreement is broken the teacher needs to model for students what that interaction should look like.
Something as simple as “let's remember our agreed upon community agreements” or “ one of our agreements is not being followed, how can we get back on track”?
Now, expand that idea to the entire campus. What does “winning” look like in your school? In the hallways, in the lunchroom, in the auditorium, on the bus as well as in the classrooms?
As a school unit, you need to determine what we want to see in our spaces. Do we want children sitting quietly at their desks, not talking in the hallways? Are students allowed to laugh and/or talk loudly in the hallways?
Every school has a “culture” that needs to be examined. Once we know what “winning” looks like within your school culture we can think of ways to support that vision with our students holistically.
So if we notice that students are “hanging out in the hallways” well after the bell, how can we retrain that behavior? And for these more significant school shifts, everyone needs to be on board.
If a student gets the same expectations from every staff member, they are more likely to shift their behavior.
Behavior management was not something I was explicitly taught in undergraduate school, this is the case for many newly hired teachers. Understanding how to manage behavior takes practice and support. So district offices should expect to support staff in this area.
The district office needs to understand and communicate to their staff what “winning” looks like in our school. This includes all areas; in the hallways, in the lunchroom, and in your classrooms.
I encourage other administrators to make it a point to go into spaces to not just observe but to teach and learn from their staff. It is never easy for anyone to put themselves out there but we ask our staff to do it every day.
The district office can help staff build an environment that is conducive to learning by making sure procedures are established early on.
This means going above and beyond sending reminder emails about procedures. You need to put boots on the ground and be visible during this transition period. Your staff will appreciate it and sometimes presence can make a big difference.
If the schools you serve need support in developing building-wide expectations, provide the support they need to create them. This means providing a PD on the subject in the summer and then potentially even offering a stipend for the team to develop them on a non-instructional day.
Newer teachers often struggle to implement routines…when students do not know the classroom and/or the school expectations they will make up their own. Can students just get up to sharpen pencils whenever they want? What if someone is absent?
I served as a teacher mentor in a school district and oftentimes the biggest disconnect administration had is understanding what the experience looks and feels like for their staff on a regular basis. What sounds good on paper does not always translate to real teaching practices.
The solution involves spending time meeting with veteran teachers in your district to determine what support their new colleagues are likely to need as they transition into the role you're hiring them for. This can be a lot of work, but the result is a higher teacher retention rate!
The district office can leverage the staff that is strong in creating community in their classrooms and managing behaviors. How can we encourage them to support and share their ideas with others?
Ask your staff what they feel is one of their strengths in the areas of PBIS, conflict resolution, de-escalation, and classroom procedures. Would they be willing to model, be a thought partner, or be an observer in someone’s classroom?
Or even better, would they be willing to host an internal PD like a lunch-n-learn or a learning walk where they can share that hard-earned expertise?
Providing professional development can be expensive and at times it can have mixed results if the audience doesn’t have built-in respect and rapport with the presenter.
By celebrating and encouraging your in-house rockstars you can provide PD more often that is more likely to find its way into practice.
The district office should teach a class at least once a year to understand what their staff is managing each day. This will give you some great insight and at the very least it will ground your solutions in reality.
I had a very humbling experience when I was an administrator and “volunteered” to teach a class of 1st graders for the morning. This was as we were returning back to in-person learning and we had “roomers” (the students in the classroom) and the “zoomers” (the kids that were streaming into the classroom).
I began my reading lesson so confident and so strong.
Overall it seemed to be going well minus the student that had gone to the bathroom and never came back and that I had forgotten about letting the “zoomers” into the classroom for the first 15 minutes of the school day…good times! 🙃
This provided some needed perspective when it came to assessing what we were asking our staff to manage when it came to behaviors.
The experience garnered many laughs from my staff but it allowed me to have some very well-informed talking points when speaking to other administrators.
So you have all these great ideas… how do you know if it is working? You need to identify what data you have available and what is needed to really make an informed decision about your practices.
We should collect both quantitative data and qualitative data. By this, I mean student discipline statistics as well as feedback from staff and students.
When we have the data, how long should we stay the course before making a change? Change can happen quickly in some cases but in most cases, it can take 8-12 weeks to see a more meaningful change in a school community.
Once you have a thoughtful focus, plan to stick with it for a bit to see if it is working. Also, consider who is going to be positively and negatively impacted by these changes.
Behavior Management is one of the most important investments any administrator can make in their school community.
Creating a learning environment that yields high results will require setting expectations and listening to feedback from your community.
Key Takeaways
Remember education is hard but be gentle with yourself. If it was easy everyone would do it.
I remember preparing for my first year of teaching. I dreamt about the dynamic lessons I would create and the robust conversations that would take place in my classroom. I was excited about all the apples and thank-you notes I would be receiving, clearly, I had a bit of a rosy outlook on life in the classroom.
After the first day of school and for many weeks after I remember sitting in my car crying and in disbelief.
Why am I having such a hard time getting my students to listen, follow directions, and be respectful to each other and me?
This was not what I thought teaching was, I felt so unprepared to manage a classroom. I assumed that students would just respect me and follow my directions because I was their teacher.
If I, a well-prepared professional, felt this way about my classroom, what does that mean for the rest of campus?
When you think about the word “behavior management” we often assume that managing behavior has a negative undertone and not a positive one.
Behavior management is the ability to provide an environment that is conducive to engagement and learning. Staff and students have to create an atmosphere where they feel like everyone can be the best version of themselves.
It is important to note, this can mean very different things to different people.
So how do you create a learning environment conducive to engagement that can yield high results?
Once we know what “winning” looks like you can develop expectations within the space that allow for staff and students to hold each other accountable.
In the classroom these commitments need to be revisited often and when a community agreement is broken the teacher needs to model for students what that interaction should look like.
Something as simple as “let's remember our agreed upon community agreements” or “ one of our agreements is not being followed, how can we get back on track”?
Now, expand that idea to the entire campus. What does “winning” look like in your school? In the hallways, in the lunchroom, in the auditorium, on the bus as well as in the classrooms?
As a school unit, you need to determine what we want to see in our spaces. Do we want children sitting quietly at their desks, not talking in the hallways? Are students allowed to laugh and/or talk loudly in the hallways?
Every school has a “culture” that needs to be examined. Once we know what “winning” looks like within your school culture we can think of ways to support that vision with our students holistically.
So if we notice that students are “hanging out in the hallways” well after the bell, how can we retrain that behavior? And for these more significant school shifts, everyone needs to be on board.
If a student gets the same expectations from every staff member, they are more likely to shift their behavior.
Behavior management was not something I was explicitly taught in undergraduate school, this is the case for many newly hired teachers. Understanding how to manage behavior takes practice and support. So district offices should expect to support staff in this area.
The district office needs to understand and communicate to their staff what “winning” looks like in our school. This includes all areas; in the hallways, in the lunchroom, and in your classrooms.
I encourage other administrators to make it a point to go into spaces to not just observe but to teach and learn from their staff. It is never easy for anyone to put themselves out there but we ask our staff to do it every day.
The district office can help staff build an environment that is conducive to learning by making sure procedures are established early on.
This means going above and beyond sending reminder emails about procedures. You need to put boots on the ground and be visible during this transition period. Your staff will appreciate it and sometimes presence can make a big difference.
If the schools you serve need support in developing building-wide expectations, provide the support they need to create them. This means providing a PD on the subject in the summer and then potentially even offering a stipend for the team to develop them on a non-instructional day.
Newer teachers often struggle to implement routines…when students do not know the classroom and/or the school expectations they will make up their own. Can students just get up to sharpen pencils whenever they want? What if someone is absent?
I served as a teacher mentor in a school district and oftentimes the biggest disconnect administration had is understanding what the experience looks and feels like for their staff on a regular basis. What sounds good on paper does not always translate to real teaching practices.
The solution involves spending time meeting with veteran teachers in your district to determine what support their new colleagues are likely to need as they transition into the role you're hiring them for. This can be a lot of work, but the result is a higher teacher retention rate!
The district office can leverage the staff that is strong in creating community in their classrooms and managing behaviors. How can we encourage them to support and share their ideas with others?
Ask your staff what they feel is one of their strengths in the areas of PBIS, conflict resolution, de-escalation, and classroom procedures. Would they be willing to model, be a thought partner, or be an observer in someone’s classroom?
Or even better, would they be willing to host an internal PD like a lunch-n-learn or a learning walk where they can share that hard-earned expertise?
Providing professional development can be expensive and at times it can have mixed results if the audience doesn’t have built-in respect and rapport with the presenter.
By celebrating and encouraging your in-house rockstars you can provide PD more often that is more likely to find its way into practice.
The district office should teach a class at least once a year to understand what their staff is managing each day. This will give you some great insight and at the very least it will ground your solutions in reality.
I had a very humbling experience when I was an administrator and “volunteered” to teach a class of 1st graders for the morning. This was as we were returning back to in-person learning and we had “roomers” (the students in the classroom) and the “zoomers” (the kids that were streaming into the classroom).
I began my reading lesson so confident and so strong.
Overall it seemed to be going well minus the student that had gone to the bathroom and never came back and that I had forgotten about letting the “zoomers” into the classroom for the first 15 minutes of the school day…good times! 🙃
This provided some needed perspective when it came to assessing what we were asking our staff to manage when it came to behaviors.
The experience garnered many laughs from my staff but it allowed me to have some very well-informed talking points when speaking to other administrators.
So you have all these great ideas… how do you know if it is working? You need to identify what data you have available and what is needed to really make an informed decision about your practices.
We should collect both quantitative data and qualitative data. By this, I mean student discipline statistics as well as feedback from staff and students.
When we have the data, how long should we stay the course before making a change? Change can happen quickly in some cases but in most cases, it can take 8-12 weeks to see a more meaningful change in a school community.
Once you have a thoughtful focus, plan to stick with it for a bit to see if it is working. Also, consider who is going to be positively and negatively impacted by these changes.
Behavior Management is one of the most important investments any administrator can make in their school community.
Creating a learning environment that yields high results will require setting expectations and listening to feedback from your community.
Key Takeaways
Remember education is hard but be gentle with yourself. If it was easy everyone would do it.
All the behavior resources you need to create the positive culture your school community deserves.
