Keep the Instructional Momentum Going

Thanks to its partnership with publisher Eye on Education, EducationWorld is pleased to present this article based on the new book The Principal’s Guide to the First 100 Days of the School Year: Creating Instructional Momentum, by Shawn Joseph.

Joseph stresses the importance of the first 100 days of school in setting the tone for the rest of the year. He describes how leaders should focus on vision, instructional leadership, politics, data, and planning during those days.

Accordingly, Eye on Education asked a panel of school leaders to respond to the following question:

What recommendations do you have for principals to build instructional momentum that carries their vision forward during the rest of the school year?
 

Suggestions from Teresa Tulipana
Principal, Renner Elementary School, Kansas City, MO

Though Shawn Joseph’s book stresses the importance of the first 100 days of the school year, in my experience it is the first 30 days that set the tone for the school year. During this first month, students are assessed and a collective vision for achievement is established. This vision drives instruction for the remainder of the year.

In my school district, the first two-and-a-half weeks of each school year are dedicated to assessing students to determine instructional strengths and opportunities for improvement. Within these first few days, every student completes valuable universal screenings in reading and math. In addition, teachers conduct fluency probes and running records while also collecting and assessing writing samples. This data is recorded on individual student dashboards and is used to determine classroom learning teams as well as RtI intervention groups. Because the data is collected so quickly at the beginning of the school year, intervention groups can begin within a few weeks of the first day of school, providing maximum instructional benefit to our most at-risk students.

How do teachers balance collecting valuable assessment data while creating a positive sense of community? The answer is simple—we organize around collective energy and class mission. We create scattergrams to holistically represent an entire class’s strengths. Goals are set to improve student learning and achievement. This focus on the whole class provides a sense of community as comparison data is collected and charted each quarter. On more than one occasion, I have had students run up to me in the hallway to share that their class had improved on their fluency goal or that more students were on grade level in reading than the prior quarter. Hearing students talk about their achievements and the achievements of their classmates with such enthusiasm confirms that we have created a strong environment focused on achievement.

Suggestions from James Davis
Principal, Knox Middle School, Salisbury, NC

During the first ten days of school, I make it a point to meet in small groups with my faculty. We discuss the importance of effective instruction, and then I let everyone know that nothing will supersede effective classroom discussion. I emphasize that although there are many factors that contribute to a school's success, and we value them all, none will be more important that our focus on instruction.

In addition, it is important for the principal and the assistant principals to teach several classes. If I want teachers to get excited about classroom instruction and to try to improve their instruction, I want them to see me modeling the expectation. The instruction I plan is engaging, full of best practices, and exciting. It shows the teachers in my school that the principal really is the instructional leader, and it provides them with a springboard to ask questions in the future.

Suggestions from Lolli Haws
Instructional Superintendent for Cluster 7, District of Columbia Public Schools

Principals should set expectations and systems early, to make it easier for teachers to start the year gathering data and using it to plan, teach, re-teach, intervene, and analyze results toward goals and measurable outcomes. The principal needs to help teachers assess their students across a variety of measures as well as gather data about students’ work, learning styles, needs, and unique situations from records and previous grades. Once teachers know where their students are as the new school year begins, they can plan how to organize, teach, and propel students forward.  Periodic and consistent interim measures of growth in mastering standards, improving reading Lexile levels and math skills, and other benchmarks will continuously set the course for teachers to focus on instruction that is effective. Such measures will also help teachers identify which practices and strategies are not effective.

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