The Principal's Handbook

Setting Building Goals as a Principal
[00:00:00] In today's episode, I wanna talk about setting building goals as a principle. Stay tuned.
Speaker: 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. 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 back to the podcast. Today we're going to be talking about setting, building goals as a principle. And I like talking about this topic because people have different views on how this should be done, and so I wanna share how I always [00:01:00] set.
Building goals, how I did this and why I chose to do it this way, and how you can do it in your building as well. It's really important to start the year having an annual vision and
it's. Good to ask yourself, what would a successful school year look like? What would we have accomplished? Because it keeps you anchored and proactive in what needs to be accomplished, and it also sets the tone for your building. For me, it really helps me to prioritize. Where I'm spending my time, the energy resources, how we're using PD days, all of that, it helps streamline everything.
If I have a very clear plan of what the year is going to look like. , I sit down every year. It could be at the end of a school year, or I do it in July or August. . I just recently did this for the building I'm going to be leading, and I really sat down and thought about what is my vision for the building in this coming school year?
What are the top goals I wanna see the building achieve for the school year, and what would a successful school year look like? And. [00:02:00] It's really important for me to do this as the leader first because I did this after having a lot of conversations with district leaders, knowing the district initiatives, , knowing the building needs, looking at data from last year, even though I'm new coming in, I've already looked at achievement data. I have an idea of what that looks like of what. Areas need to grow in achievement, what curriculum's been implemented, things like that. And so I have an idea, even though I'm going into a new school of this big picture of what needs to be done in the building.
And so I'm going to share five reasons why it's important as the school principal to have a vision and goal set before the school year even starts, that you are doing as the principal. And we're gonna talk about that a little bit, and people have different ways of doing this. This is just the way that I did it, and I wanted to share five reasons why.
So number one, why I started the year with. , my own vision for the staff and for the building [00:03:00] and a list of goals is clarity of vision as the leader, I see that big picture and I know it's coming from the district and the data. . And so. I like to come in with those clear goals to make sure that we're anchoring all of our work based on , the overall district goals and what is related to the data.
It's because I don't want to just react to issues that pop up. It also gives a lot of clarity around the work that I wanna be focusing on in the building, but it gives, , clarity to what needs to be done
so that's one reason. It just gives that clarity of vision, of what the goals are, what needs to get done, and it keeps it focused. Now I will say I know what needs to get done from conversations with teachers. District staff, et cetera. So all of that of what needs to get done has come from surveys. It's coming from,, district, , administration and just talking to different stakeholders.
So it's not just coming from [00:04:00] myself, but that vision is basically data and input that I've gathered from other people. . So that's the first thing. It just gives clarity a vision of what we're working towards. The second thing is it's an efficient use of team time. I have always found when working with a team, even when I was a teacher and
I was a grade level chair. If I came in with an idea and an outline of that idea, we got so much further than if I came with nothing and we started from scratch and we're building everything together. Okay. So having your goals set first, it means that the meetings that I have with staff and the BLT are far more productive because I have a starting point for us.
. So the vision I come with and the goals that I have, it's a. Starting point for us to work through. We're not spending time figuring out where to start from zero, because as a building leadership team, we meet once a month. So if we meet in August or September, usually it's September, , and we don't have any type of goals if we're starting from scratch, by the time we [00:05:00] even get some ideas down, we're talking October before we have goals written in stone.
. It just helps have something to start with so that we can take what I bring as the vision and what we're working on and tweak it to what the BLT thinks, and it's going to help us be more productive. And the team really, it's so important that they're there to help refine, improve, and truly own the goals,
they have to help own this. And like I said, the basic plan, that clarity that I'm coming with came from input to start. So that's a big thing. So we start with the clarity of the vision that comes from input from others, that I'm bringing that clarity that I sat down and wrote this summer. Then we work on it as a team, and we use that time very efficiently to refine, improve, and truly own the goals.
Then another reason that this is so important is it ensures alignment with the district and school wide priorities. . I already know that one of the district's strategic plans is that we need to have teacher-based teams going, which is basically a [00:06:00] PLC, a professional learning community.
We need to be focused on PBIS, which they've been doing. , we need to be using the district curriculum with fidelity, right? Like those are all goals that come from the district. I know from TAINA teachers, they haven't really done the, , professional learning communities the way that we would like to have them done.
So just things like that. So knowing that ahead of time that these are things we need to work on really does help the building leadership team and the staff work towards goals that we already need to be working on. Another one is interventions. We already know that we need really good reading interventions.
These aren't just things I've pulled out of, thin air that I think are really good. Like these are things that align with district and school-wide priorities. That just need to get better. Okay. That need to be tweaked, that need to be, revisited so that they can get more streamlined in the school.
So that's another reason. And the fourth reason is it just demonstrates proactive leadership. So it builds trust with staff when they've seen that you've actually thought about where the [00:07:00] building is headed. So it's not that it's set in stone, whatever you come with, but it's just this idea that you've sat down, you brainstormed, and you know.
where you would like to see the building go and where you would like to see the staff go? Okay. It shows intentional organized leadership and it sets the tone for the school year. And then the fifth thing is it creates space for shared ownership, not chaos. So ironically, having your own goals first that you can share.
It's easier for staff to buy in because they can then take your goals, like I talked about earlier. And really refine them to make them even better, to make them fit the building better. Like I said, the goals really came from lots of input from other people that I'm creating, and so then now it's being refined and so otherwise, if I don't come with that direction, that vision, that idea, the goals for the year.
It's so easy for teams to spend in circles without directions or , for it to take a [00:08:00] whole year to come up with goals for the building. And by the time you do that, like a whole year has passed and you didn't get anything done. So I deeply believe in shared leadership, but I know that sometimes it can be controversial if you say, I'm coming at the school year with goals because people believe so strongly that needs to be co-created.
And I totally agree with that. However. I really believe strongly that you as the leader, have to come with that vision and outline of what those goals look like and then have it tweaked with the team. Now, when I was up in a building for a long time, my building leadership team, we had goals each year that we worked at on, , and then at the end of the year, we would create our goals for the next school year.
But I still had things that were priorities to me that came from the district. Like for example, we're implementing a new math curriculum. Okay. I'm adding that to my goals that then we're gonna talk about as A BLT. we're at the end of the school year with the BLT.
Maybe we didn't think about that. . But as I'm planning and thinking about it, from my standpoint, having leadership meetings, I know that's something we need to [00:09:00] plan for and talk about. So again. Even though I believe in shared leadership so much, it really to me is important that the principal comes with those ideas, comes with that vision, and allows for the building leadership team to add to it, to make it their own, to refine it, , so that they can strengthen it and really help carry it out in the building and make it good.
I talked a little bit about PLCs. It's the same way if we just had a conversation, if my goal is. To have more fidelity with a curriculum or more integrity with a curriculum that they're using. Bringing that to the BLT, talking about it. I have this goal that we're using this curriculum with more integrity.
How would that look? What would we need to do to make that happen? And bringing that to the team to talk about, to collaborate, to come up with those action steps. Okay. So that's what you do. You draft your goals, you share them with your leadership team, you get feedback, you get concerns, you get new ideas, and you adjust it.
So it becomes a collective plan that [00:10:00] people buy into, because then it's truly theirs as well. And then you can share that with the staff and do the same thing. So that's really important that you come with that vision. You get the feedback, concerns, new ideas, adjust it to become a collective plan so that people buy in and it becomes theirs as well.
So just some tips to think about. , I really encourage as a principal in the summer, take a half day to map out your thoughts alone. Think about it. Think about the district goals, your building's biggest needs, last year's data, and draft two to three clear goals and be ready to explain to the team why they matter and
bring them to the BLT to improve and own it together. Now, I will say one thing that you could do that's really helpful, and this is something I do, is I actually use chat GPT to help me get clarity on my goals because I have a lot of different ideas. There's a lot of data, but you also don't wanna overwhelm people with too many goals.
And so I have some chat GPT prompts that you can use to help you come up with those building goals. , it's part [00:11:00] of my lead with Clarity, vision, and goals workbook, which I'll put here in the show notes that you can go if you wanna use those chat GPT prompts, because it really is going to help you have that clarity.
So I just wanna plug that in there too. . But just reflect, what's your vision for the building this year? What are the two to three? What are the two to three top goals you see as critical for moving your school forward? And just take time to think about it, because remember,
as the leader, you set the direction and then you have others help you refine to make it better, but you have to be the one here leading the direction. Your clarity gives staff something to be part of, to rally behind, to really. Think through. But
you have to bring the clarity and the ideas for them to refine and to talk about. Because otherwise you can find yourself just spinning in circles trying to come up with goals together.
Again, if you wanna download that free workbook, lead with Clarity, vision, and goals workbook. I'm sharing those chat GPT prompts, and I give you step by step how to set goals for the [00:12:00] upcoming school year that are going to help move your building forward so you can grab it in the show notes if you love the show, if you're listing on Apple, scroll down on your app and leave a review.
Keep in mind you have the power to shape your life according to the mindset you choose. I hope you have a great week, and I'll see you back here next time.