The Principal's Handbook

Building Effective School Systems: From Observations to Culture
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work life balance, I'm Barb Flowers. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.
Welcome everyone to the podcast. I'm excited to be here today. And today our guest is Nicole Baker, and she's coming to us from California. And I am going to let Nicole come on and talk to us because we are going to be talking about organizational systems today.
This is part of a series. So we have multiple episodes on this. I think [00:01:00] this is such an important topic. that everybody just has a little bit of a different way that they organize in their school buildings and systems that they have. And so I'm excited to have Nicole on with us today. So Nicole, if you want to start by just telling us about yourself and how you got to where you are today.
Thank you. I'm excited to be here. , I feel very blessed that I've been able to be an educator in several different states. and learn different systems. , I actually received my teaching credential years ago in, , the state of Wyoming and some weird luck got me teaching in, , the state of Arizona. I was there for six years and then, , I hopped back north into Nebraska for about five years.
And then somehow found myself and I never thought I would be living in California, but I've been in California now for the last 20 years. And so over that time, I earned a master's in educational leadership. And [00:02:00] I was able to receive my administrative credential while I was here working in California and, , have loved every job I've had in education.
It's just built upon itself. I was a high school vocational teacher with a focus on business. , moved into administrative work overseeing a teacher induction program, um, got to learn a lot about new teachers and their hopes and fears and that I learned a lot in that role and then took a leap of faith and applied for a superintendent principal position when my oldest was entering kindergarten.
Oh, wow. Right? I'm very fortunate. Both my girls attended that school for their K 8 educational career and I feel very blessed that I was able to take my children to work every day. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's great. So now I'm at a county office where we provide supports to our local districts and again, I'm excited [00:03:00] to be doing this role as well.
Yeah, and I love that you bring all this experience from different states. I've only been in Ohio, so I think that does bring a , diverse background, , because we know that every state does things a little bit different. It might have an overarching idea that's similar, but yeah, you learn something new in every state.
So let's go ahead and just dive right into how do you create systems or organizational systems around teacher support? So things like observations, your PD planning, coaching, any of that, when you think about teacher support, how do you organize yourself around that? Specific to the observation, , Stephen Covey, I think is begin with the end in mind.
And so as I got more experience as administrator. I just backward mapped everything , I knew, based on, you know, our local policy and our local bargaining agreement that certain things had to be done by certain time. And when we don't do those things is when administrators find themselves in [00:04:00] trouble.
And so I just learned to backward map everything, making sure that I was meeting the deadlines that were expected, by the district and by, by the agreement. I think. You know, that's the easy thing to say the important thing for me and I, I think it goes back to the years I had as the induction administrator is really, as far as the observation itself meeting this, the teacher where they are, and really playing to their strengths, I would often tell my teachers, I'm going to come in here And things that would work for me may not work for your teaching style.
And that's not what I want to see happen at all. I want you to feel comfortable in your own skin in front of kids. So let's work on things that you want to work on and really own your own growth. And sometimes I, I see other administrators and I, I don't know if they have that same mindset, but it's that old adage of you can lead a horse to water but we can't make them drink, and [00:05:00] you can lead a lot of teachers to water, but if they need to make impactful change in the classroom , we can't force them to drink and so what are they comfortable drinking on their own, to get that change, that's going to benefit kids.
I just want to say I love first how you talked about designing everything backwards like we think about with our lesson planning as teachers. I think that's such a great way as principals and school leaders to think about. Obviously, as you've done the job more than a year it helps so much when it comes to time management I think of me as a new principal and I had no clue what I needed to do or.
At what points in the year. And so my first year I made a checklist and I'm sure a lot of principals, have dates written down of when they need to do certain things. And I think that's such a good point, taking that, working backwards and making sure you hit all those deadlines, because that's the biggest thing, especially if you have a struggling teacher, when it comes to the union and deadlines and things like that, [00:06:00] I also loved what you're talking about with teachers, making sure that you're supporting the teachers and giving them the support.
The resources that they're going to want to do, because when we think about adult learning theory and how adults learn, they have to have that buy in, right? It has to be their idea, too, because if we just say, This is what we see. And that's it. Then it's hard to get their buy into it and them want to change in that area.
So we have to be motivating them for that growth. So I love that outlook on it. I think it's important for your listeners to know that I was a superintendent principal at a really small school. We were K 8. I had nine classroom teachers. And so it was really small, but, but then again, , I had two titles and so , it was a big job.
But, , one thing that I brought to the teachers, , a couple of years in is the option to have a video, , observation. And I loved it when teachers chose that option. So they could [00:07:00] either go kind of the traditional route where, I come in and observe and do the notes and the feedback and all that, or they could choose the video option.
And I loved when teachers chose the video option because all we did is we videoed the lesson that they chose and then they went and watched it. They gave themselves feedback and then we came back together. And watched it together and they led me through their own feedback and nine times out of ten they're identifying the things that I probably would have identified too.
But yeah, just goes back to what you said it's that buy in and for them to sit back. And watch and listen to themselves, oftentimes to the common denominator and most of those is I didn't realize how often I said, Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was something fun that , you don't often say fun with observations, but that truly was.
a fun experience for both the teacher and myself. I think if people have the opportunity to do that, that is [00:08:00] one of the best ways. In the state of Ohio, when you first started teaching, and other states might do this as well, we had to videotape ourselves. It was, I think, when I started year four, I had to do it.
But I videotaped myself for a week and then picked my favorite video to submit. And me watching myself teach multiple lessons, like you said, I caught things that I said And I was like, why do I default to those words? Or why did I say that to kids? , and it just, it helped me correct my own teaching , and really see it for myself.
Because it's hard when somebody else gives you that feedback and you don't notice that you do it. And you might not take that feedback as well because you think, well, I don't really do that because you don't see it. And so I think having that, we're so lucky. Teachers are watching themselves, and I love that they would walk you through that process.
I think that's a great way to do it. So if that's an option for principals, I think that would probably be the most meaningful feedback teachers could get.
So let's talk about student data. So when it comes to being an instructional leader, it's really important to [00:09:00] be looking at student data yourself, looking at it with teams. I know in our district we had a building leadership team, but it also can be a lot. There's a lot of tracking that goes into it, progress monitoring teachers do.
How did you track data and how did you use it in your building? So that, that's another one that's kind of unique to a small school. But I do feel that a lot of schools across the country, because I follow groups on social media, use iReady. So iReady was something that, that we used. , we did have some negotiation with some of the younger grades.
They felt that it wasn't as spot on as they would like. And typically I believe we were using iReady by second grade in both, , math, or yeah, math and reading. But again, , being so small, , so my grade level team was my one first grade teacher. My grade level team was my one second grade teacher.
And we wouldn't rely. I read it was that nice, , kind of through line that we had for our entire school, but [00:10:00] we really relied on the teacher data that they were looking at. Because we were so small, and I don't really think this is just a small school issue, , I think even the larger schools, because you're larger, you have so much more data , to look at, and it can be as burdensome as it is for a small school with very few people.
But I, I really cautioned my teachers on, let's not over assess, You know, our students and , what observation, I think the teacher observation of the student ability is so important. And so what observational data can you bring to the table? And those were always our conversations that we had, , when we would meet, , we did because we were single grade level teachers, we ended up, , meeting in grade level teams that were vertical alignment.
So our, we had a K one, two team, a three, four, five. Okay. And then our six, seven, eight, one year we did a matrix and it was, it's one of the products I'm so proud [00:11:00] of that came out of our little district is that, , our seventh grade English language arts scores were off the charts. I had a phenomenal seventh grade teacher at the time , and we came back.
, okay, how'd you do that? , what did you do? And I know other districts do these stories. So this is. You know, it's nothing that I haven't seen anywhere else, but the work that we did, we just aligned a matrix that started in kindergarten, went to eighth grade, and we just focused on, on writing that year.
And, we started with seventh grade that what did he do that made that writing year so powerful to those kids. And then we just backward mapped, okay, when you come in kindergarten, what should you be leaving with? you get into first grade and then we and we but we were very specific with activities.
I saw teachers sharing different activities. I saw the 4th grade teacher saying I can't quite do that with my 4th graders, but I can start building on that here and it was the coolest professional development I've ever seen with the [00:12:00] staff and they were just learning from each other. I had staff that would go in and I covered their class for 3045 minutes so that they could go in and see what it looked like.
So In , the grade above them or the grade below them. , and I know I kind of got off on a little tangent there, but that. That was the coolest, , I think professional development that I saw kind of come from within, and it all started about some student data that we were talking about. , it was a powerful experience.
It took us the whole year, and then after that we focused on reading what was happening across reading across our K 8, and then in my, , One of my last years while I was there, we began the math conversation. I love that you broke it down by subject because it is overwhelming. And I always say that too, to elementary teachers, , who are teaching multiple subjects, you really can only refine a subject a year.
, you can't redo everything you're doing in math and redo everything in reading in the same amount of time. But I will say, I think having that matrix and [00:13:00] having those systems in place, like you said, you're utilizing what you have, which is a really good teacher in writing who can help the other teachers.
And even looking at standards, we went through a period of time where we curriculum mapped and teachers would be like, not again. How many times have we curriculum mapped? But what I notice is. Without being intentional about having systems like that in place, where you're looking at standards, looking at what students need to be doing, they usually over or under teach.
They're teaching the wrong content. , either I see like a kindergarten teacher who has first grade expectations, , and then we're missing those foundational skills that they need to know in kindergarten. Or, , Or you might even have a third grade teacher who's got like first grade expectations, and they're not holding kids to the standard that they need to have.
So having systems in place, like you're saying, where as a grade level cross curriculum teams, you're really looking at this is what we should be teaching. How are you doing it in your [00:14:00] grade and exploring that? And I love the idea of going in each other's classrooms because You already, as a principal have great resources there, let people go see what other people are doing and learn from each other.
I think that's a great strategy. Well, and I'm sure I know the substitute shortage continues to be an issue at all across the country. And so I, I tell principals to this day, man, if you can get into classrooms, do it. You're helping out because we do have a sub shortage, but wow, does it give you insight?
Yeah. Into, the struggles and the successes that teachers are having. That was one of my favorites. Five minutes of teaching a lesson or even a 15 minute short lesson, it takes you back, right? It brings you back into the teacher's shoes. And I think one, it's humbling and it's really good to remember, and you get to see kids in a different light.
Like I'm like, wow, now I see how hard that is. That student does talk a lot or has a hard time [00:15:00] following expectations. , the other thing you said that I think is important to bring up too, you talked about the size of a district and looking at data. And one thing I noticed sometimes with smaller districts is there's less resources, so it can be even more difficult.
So I started, my building always had about 550 kids, , we lost some kids over time, but we started with no instructional coach. So if I wanted to look at data for the building, it was really me evaluating that data, bringing it to the building leadership team, which was great. But then when we hired a reading coach, it changed how we looked at data because.
I was able to say to her, Hey, can we break down a cadence data and look at something specific, look at the growth for this year, she would break it down, explain to staff what it meant. Things that I, as the principal did not have the time or even expertise to do. So I also think that, you know, if you have people who you can delegate that [00:16:00] to, that can be really helpful.
And then over time that just became part of her job , that her and I met and we. Discussed the data that we had and how she was going to present it to staff and what that would look like. , so I do think that's something that if you do have a larger district and you have those supports to do that.
We're in a smaller district, you don't always have that. So that can be a challenge for sure. , you touch on something too and , it may kind of go into the school culture piece a little bit, but because we were so small, , we couldn't afford , economy of scale, right? We can only do so.
And one thing we didn't have access to is there were no opportunities for growth as far as department chairs or lead teachers or things like that. So something that we were able to build in. Was it a financial stipend for any staff member who wanted to take on an additional duty? So similar to your reading coach, , I had a great sixth grade teacher who loved data.
[00:17:00] And so she became my data lead and she got paid, you know, an extra stipend during the year. , And once a month we would sit down and we'd look at data across the district and then bring that information to our teacher meetings and things like that. So we were able to do that with various aspects of different things that we needed because we.
It didn't just need to be Nicole looking at the data. Yeah. Yeah. So that was kind of something fun that we did in our small district. And, it got people kind of out of that typical teacher role and into it. I had a, , we brought in a social emotional learning curriculum and my first grade teacher took that on.
And so she became that lead that's what it was. , we had some other, , in California, we do the, ELPAC, which is for our English learners assessment. And so I had an ELPAC lead. And so just different ways to build, , leadership roles for teachers where at our district, they were very limited. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think, like you said, that goes right into school culture because when you're thinking [00:18:00] about school culture, when you have a culture where you're empowering people. I mean, teachers behave so much different when they know that you trust them to do that. And I, you know, in my experience, it, they want to do those things.
They want to take on those leadership roles and really feel like they're part of the school. So what do you have? , let's start with talking about systems of just culture in general with, like you said, teacher leadership, teacher collaboration, all of those ideas. that's actually one thing that.
I get asked the most. I had a pretty solid reputation for having a great school culture. And I'm very, I'm very proud of that. , when I got hired there, I just, I wanted it to be a place where people got up in the morning and said, Oh my gosh, I get to go to work, you know? So , what could I do to bring that type of atmosphere?
And, I learned that while students come first. As the principal, as the administrator, they don't come first to me. And [00:19:00] that sounds like a one off that I was like, what kind of administrator has that type of, you know, attitude. And I'm like, , no, you need to understand my staff comes first. Because , if my staff is happy, guess who they're working with.
They're working with those kids. Right? So that was happy. The kids are happy. If the kids are happy, parents are happy. And if the parents are happy, our community is happy. So yeah, so my first role and it took me a while to articulate this to others because people would come and they'd like how it's just a different feeling when I walk on your campus.
What are you doing to and I'm like, I don't know. Well, we have fun for starters. We enjoy who we work with. We enjoy, , one another. But I treat my staff like gold. Yeah. And their parents too and their grandparents and you know, they may have, their, my teacher may have a football player who they need to get off work early because [00:20:00] the football game is in two hours away and, and so we make accommodations for that and I don't, I know, I know not every site has that ability to do that.
But I always wanted to remember that my teachers , were people first. I think sometimes we get into the grind of school or any profession , and we lose sight of that. That was something I just, I never wanted to do. I wanted my people happy. To be coming to work and it showed. Yeah. Yeah. And they feel that when it's that people first, , and I felt that with my own superintendent who was very good at, , boundaries and work life balance.
And, he never bothered us outside of work and he really tried to respect that and be flexible. And that meant a lot to me. And I same, I always tried to do that for teachers because, you know, I always say we come here to work to make an income. Not that we don't have a larger purpose, but if we forget that.
The real reason is we work to support our families, right? Like [00:21:00] without, we wouldn't come here if we were all millionaires and didn't need to work. So I think that's an important thing to keep in perspective. So, also as school culture, how did you guys support behavior management? What systems did you have in place for students, , to help with their having a positive climate and culture for them and with their behaviors?
I shared just a minute ago, , we brought in an SEL curriculum, or it was really more of a program. , it, it was called Toolbox. And I, I think the thing that made it so powerful, , was that it involved everybody. I had my cafeteria gal in there, my bus driver, who was also my custodian and maintenance person.
, the secretaries, the aides. Our after school program people, everybody. I mean, if they worked at a 25 FTE, if they were just a part timer, everybody was involved in that training so that we all have the same language. And then it was so neat one day I'll [00:22:00] never forget it. I can't remember. Oh, it was one of the tools , is.
Using , your garbage can , when someone says it's kind of a simple one, but when someone says something mean to you, there's an opportunity to just throw it away. Just throw it in your trash can because , it doesn't deserve the time that you're giving it. And I'll never forget , my custodian was walking out during recess one time and she overheard these kids scuffle.
And, , she didn't intervene. She just kind of watched what happened. , and one of the kids said, , you know what, I'm just going to put that in my trash can. I don't need to listen to that. And she came in so excited. She goes, it must be working. Even the kids are using the language. Yeah. It's because it was a system wide program that we brought in with everybody and, , it was so cool that she observed in that moment.
Yeah. , so I think that was one of our biggest takeaways and. And we never got away with that matter of fact that the , second or third year of implementation of that program, we put on parent workshops, so that parents can have that same [00:23:00] language at home. And when you start to hear parents have success at home with things, you know, know something's working.
And yet we were, again, our school is very unique. 70 percent of our student body, , were what we call out of district students. , so families were choosing to opt into our school. Yeah. So typically , when you have parents like that, , they're very involved in school and they, , They have high expectations of their own students.
And so , our behavior management , isn't typical, I would say, of most schools, although I'm, I am hearing, because I am still so well connected with schools in our area that the behaviors , are getting trickier. I think, you know, post COVID, we're still reeling from that. I think there's a lot of influence out there, , and not in a great way on social media.
I mean, some of these social media challenges, I think administrators are, got their hands full with some things that, that we haven't seen, , in [00:24:00] recent years, as far as behavior. Yeah, and I think it makes it that much more important, like you said, to have that school wide language, those systems, , PBIS, positive behavior interventions and supports in place that we're really giving kids the tools Because you're right.
I'm seeing, more and more, they just lack skills or you have a conversation and it doesn't sink in because they don't have the skills to, , put that conversation with, , I just feel like more and more, , they are in their own world of social media and all of the things that's going on with phones and I was just talking to somebody that you really , you can't shield kids from things they see and are exposed to so many things that they shouldn't be exposed to because if they're watching any type of YouTube, it's like the next video that pops up is inappropriate, even though they're not watching something inappropriate.
So it is really hard with kids because they're overexposed at a young age to a lot of different things. So these systems and social emotional programs are so important for those [00:25:00] specific reasons. So talk to us a little bit about, so I think this is a good system or a thing that people might struggle with.
I know for us it was always something staff duties and Scheduling things, changing the schedule. Did you change the schedule every year? Did you have scheduling teams? How did you schedule your staff to do lunch duty? , that is always a conversation. Is it equal? Do people have different amounts of, , of, , things, responsibilities that they need to do before or after school?
What was your organization like on those areas? Yeah, that's those are big ones. I, I learned early on in, in my superintendent principal role that 90 percent of the decisions I made didn't really impact me or my schedule. And I'll never forget sitting in my office one day, I had, I don't know how many drafts of a schedule.
And I looked at I'm like, [00:26:00] wait, it was like this little light bulb went on. I'm like, wait a minute. None of this matters to me. I'm not implementing this schedule. I'm not time bound. Why am I killing myself trying to do this schedule? So I ended up meeting with everybody. , what we ended up doing.
Is instructional aides, , who are impacted by recess schedules and lunch schedules and teachers, obviously, , we would meet with in the early years, we just take bulletin board paper and spread it out on a wall, , over the years, we invested in some more whiteboards, and so we had enough room, but we would just kind of put down everybody's wish list, if you could make a schedule, what would it be?
And it's crazy how nine times out of 10, it just made its own schedule. When people kind of again, it's giving folks that voice, right? What could they live with in a schedule? And when I realized none of it impacted me, [00:27:00] I'm like, I shouldn't be making these decisions. And so, , that's really what we did.
, and every year I made a commitment to staff. I didn't want them worrying over the summer what their schedule would look like. They, they didn't need to worry about that. Matter of fact, they made sure every spring we got together, would figure out the schedule for next fall. Yeah, , I think that was, you know, it goes back to that piece of culture is that, I honored their time.
We didn't need to come in early over the summer to figure out what the schedule, let's get it done this year. , and I think if you were to ask my teaching staff now, that would probably be one of their best things that we did , is brought forward that schedule at the end of the year so that it was ready for next fall.
Yeah. , I did go in after my first year. , I did feel. Our teachers, because of the size of the school, didn't have a lot of prep time. , so I did kind of rein in a lot of recess duties and things like that. And then fortunately I had [00:28:00] enough, , classified staff that I was able to cover yard duty and things like that.
Recess duty. , I just didn't feel, we were asking so much of our teachers that I'm like, I just can't, I can't, just can't have them doing recess duty, , but that was something that we were able , to figure out. , and we did. Yeah, as a teacher, it feels like the biggest gift when you're given that duty time off.
I remember I had recess duty and it was, we would rotate weeks. It was like one week for 10 minutes and I hated it so much. But yeah, and every school is different. The school I was just at, we had playground monitors. Again, that's being in a little bit bigger elementary compared to the one that I taught in was only 250 kids.
So we did not have playground monitors and , teachers had to monitor recess. But , that's another thing is I always had the teachers help me with the duty schedule because they could see it on a different level than I did. They knew all the little [00:29:00] intricacies of how they work together as a team.
, and, , they all like to rotate, you know, this grade level would have, An inside and an outside duty. I mean, they had it down. And so I just really utilize my building leadership team to help with that as well. I agree when it comes to schedules, the more input you can get from those people and you just have your non negotiables, you know, and in elementary, it's 120 minutes of reading time and things like that, and then work it out together.
I think That's the best way. And it saves you time. So when you're thinking about how you manage your own time, when you get their input, it saves you so much time. Oh my gosh. I, yeah, my first year,, I think everybody does, right? Your first year of teaching, your first year as an administrator, you look back and you chuckle.
Yeah. Things that you did and the time you spent on certain things, but that's how we learn. Yeah, and I always did so much because I thought I was saving them time, like I thought I was saving them. , but really I was, not empowering them, you know, and they made that [00:30:00] clear to me. Then I learned, but , I really was doing it from a good place of like, I'm going to save you time and I'm going to help you.
And it, it didn't help me and it didn't help them. So yeah, I think those are great tips. All right. So last one, when we're thinking about organization and systems, what do you do for communication and actually in this thinking about staff and parent communication? I just had this conversation with another coach, , who's mentoring one of our new administrators yesterday And I don't think you can over communicate.
, someone said several years ago, , if you're not the one telling your school story, someone else will, and it might not be the right story. It might not be the story you want to tell. , so I over communicated with staff with my board and with our families. , every Friday afternoon, I would send out an email of , what's my week ahead look like.
, sometimes because I was also the superintendent, I would have to attend meetings that were off [00:31:00] campus and I wanted people to know, not only that might not be on campus, but why. , And when a parent pops in, you know, well, why isn't Mrs Baker here and I wanted every staff member to be able to say because she's at a meeting, you know, at the county office or whatever.
So I would send those Friday emails included the board in that as well. , and then, , The, , every Sunday evening, I still have parents. I've been gone from my previous site now for a year and a half. And , I still have people in the community. Oh yeah. I miss your all call Sunday night at seven o'clock.
Mrs. Baker did an all call. And, , we had a system that I recorded, you know, the things that were coming up and, , surveys or, you know, dress update, whatever it is or whatever it was, , that Sunday night, I'll call it seven would go out, And, it's funny. I did that for 10 years and there are still times now that I'm like, Oh, I, I forgot to do the, I'll call, , so that was really important.
I always had an open door policy. , and I know, I think some things are changing out there in the landscape with, , some [00:32:00] parents are feeling a little bit more entitled to, to be able to storm into an office. It's really knowing your community and knowing your environment, but,
it never wavered for me, even during the tough times, you know, when we had , some fun things that happened at the site. It was always an open door policy. I wanted to be accessible to the people I was serving. , so I, I did that. It was interesting , after COVID, it was so hard to get our parents back on our campus.
And I, didn't anticipate it. And, , I can remember going out after it was a, it was pickup one day and parents were lined outside our gate getting their kids. And I was like, no, , please come in on our campus now. And we had to retrain parents to get back onto our school campus. , and that hurt my heart for a while because we were such a highly engaging, , school community where there were some times where I had to actually ask parents to leave because we had to teach their children.
The academics, we have very involved community. , sometimes be a blessing and a curse, but , I'll never remember those first [00:33:00] Actually, it took us over a year to get our parent community back onto our campus to where they felt comfortable and safe to be there again, which is nobody's fault, right?
That's just a pandemic. , but it was, , we started having, , donuts with the dean. I had a dean of students that kind of helped me out. , so we had donuts with the Dean , and different things that I see a lot of other schools doing, , copy with the principal or whatever, but it was hard to pull folks back in.
I think now we're finally getting back to kind of some normalcy in that parent involvement. That's interesting. In our school, we had the opposite. Parents were so ready. They were like knocking down the door. So I, any event, I'm like, let's take advantage. We'll get the most parent involvement that we've ever had because they wanted to be there so bad.
So that's interesting. The differences. But, , yeah, I definitely think that consistent communication. And one thing that I learned from another principal now, the Samar newsletter, we started that, , and that is amazing because I was able [00:34:00] to have my secretary work on it. She'd work on it all week. She'd put pictures in it, but then we both had access.
So I was able to look at it, edit it, , Put in my principal's message too. So I think that's another tool that with technology, because when I started, we were doing weekly newsletters that we printed 550 copies and sent them home. And it was nice, but we, after a while, it was like, parents can just click the link, they can check the newsletter virtually, and it was, It's saving paper and easier and if somebody wanted to request it on paper, we could accommodate that.
But, , yeah, so definitely having those consistent touch points with staff and with your parents is so important. You reminded me of another strategy , that I really liked that I, the teachers bought into. I told him I had a goal of. We don't want one student to go home when their parent asks them, what did you do today?
And they say, Oh, nothing. Right. We don't want any students saying that. And so I challenged my staff for [00:35:00] once a week. I don't care when it is, but once a week, Send out a remind message. So we use the app, remind and send pictures of an activity, whatever you're doing, whether it didn't matter to me, but , your challenge was once a week.
That was so powerful to our parents to see their students in action. And then my teachers even took it to the next level and would send out like Ask your student this question or they had specific questions to ask their students about what they learned about. So that was pretty cool. And then obviously, as a parent at that school as well, it'd be so I'd be surprised, even though I yeah, I get these pictures of my, you know, my kids and then, oh, hey, I can ask them about this today.
So that was something neat that came out of an agreement we had with a challenge that I threw out to the teachers and They just hit it out of the park. Yeah, no, I think that's great. Well, is there any last things you want to share when it comes to just overall systems and organization with our audience [00:36:00] today?
, when I'm one of the shares that , I will give to any new administrator is, I would say that on a small campus, put things in your Google, whatever calendar you use, if it's Google or outlook. I wanted to be consistent with getting into a classroom every single day and on a small campus, that sounds very easy, but it's not.
So , I would actually put things into my calendar knowing that, you know, it was kind of a soft calendar. I guess, if you will, that it could change any moment, but it was so easy for it to all of a sudden be Wednesday and Thursday, and I still hadn't been in, you know. Four or five classrooms and so calendaring things are so important and getting into the routine of those annual reports that you have to do but because they're annual you forget you have to do them from your yeah so I began just putting those types of reports.
Getting ready for board meetings, things that if I didn't pay attention to it, it wasn't on my calendar. I would be scrambling last minute. And so I have [00:37:00] things in my calendar that are annual reminders that go on for eternity. , that, that really helped me. So, you know, taking advantage of the technology tools that we have at our fingertips.
Yeah, I would agree with the Google calendar a hundred percent. Even if I talked to a parent in, I would say, okay, I'll check back in with you in , a month, . I would put it on my calendar, , check back in with so and so, , because you're right. You don't remember. And if you just write a note on a notepad somewhere, you're never going to go back and look at that and check in.
So I agree. Putting everything on your calendar is so powerful. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here, Nicole. A lot of great insights today. How can people reach out to you if they want to ask any questions or just learn more about you? Probably the easiest is email,,, I am on LinkedIn at Nicole Baker and I think that's about it actually, but email is probably the easiest way to get ahold of me. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you so [00:38:00] much. This was so much fun.
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