SMS Principal Blog

If there are flaws they are in ourselves, and our task therefore must be one not of redesign but of renewal and reaffirmation, especially of the standards in which all of us believe. -Elliot Richardson Over the weekend, my parents renewed their wedding vows as a way of commemorating their 40th anniversary. It was a nice reminder that there are times when it is appropriate to renew commitments or reaffirm that which we have already affirmed. I was having a conversation with a few teachers as conferences were wrapping up on Thursday evening, and as I talked about the programs Ms. Keifer would be starting to take over in the coming week, one of the teachers asked if that meant I would be out in hallways and classrooms again.  The question made me very excited because I took it to mean that teachers were seeing the same things I thought I was seeing. I really felt like the first month of school was fantastic. Things were going really well, and I attributed that to not only t...

"Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot." -Alan Jay Lerner There are a number of books about organizational leadership that describe "building Camelot". The idea is that King Arthur's Camelot was the ideal place because only the noblest of knights were admited to join the Round Table, so as an organizational leader, if one wishes to have their very own Camelot, they must first get rid of the unworthy knights and replace them with those who are worthy. From a personnel standpoint, this means getting rid of low performers and replacing them with high performers. This kind of talk gets used in the education world by people who talk about turning around failing schools. I remember shadowing a principal at a low-performing school during my graduate program, and he explained that he was the guy who was brought in to build Camelot. He spent four years getting rid of teachers who were ...