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Are you feeling swamped by the demands of being a principal? From juggling emails, calls, and decisions to boosting test scores and wading through endless paperwork, the pressure is real.
But imagine a scenario where you no longer feel this overwhelming stress. Picture yourself as a more resilient leader, concentrating on enhancing your school rather than merely coping with the daily tasks that currently consume your time.
I‘m Barb Flowers. Drawing upon my eight-year experience as an elementary principal, with a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and certification as a life coach, Along the way, I've mentored and coached school leaders, guiding them to change their mindset, set boundaries and focus on their own well-being while navigating their roles.
Each episode offers practical insights on time management, communication, overcoming overwhelm, boosting confidence, and fostering a positive mindset. We'll also discuss topics like working with stakeholders, implementing new initiatives, and managing discipline. Let's set boundaries, focus on well-being, and reignite your passion for being a principal. Welcome to "The Principal's Handbook."
I firmly believe that to be an impactful educator, you must first become a confident and well-rounded individual. Join us in this journey to empower and enhance your confidence as a school leader.
Four Layers of Instructional Leadership
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Speaker 2: [00:00:00] in today's episode we're talking about the four layers of instructional leadership. Most principals skip. That's all coming up next on the Principal's handbook.
Speaker 3: 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. I.
Speaker 2: , Welcome everyone. Today we're talking about the four layers of instructional leadership.
Most principals skip, and I really thought about this topic because a lot of times what I hear from principals is. They want to be instructional leaders, [00:01:00] but they're constantly putting out fires, and it's not really the problem that they don't know how to be an instructional leader, or they don't know where to begin.
It's more of a foundation problem. They're trying to lead instruction, but they don't have the systems underneath that instructional leadership to support it. So today I'm going to walk you through the four layers of instructional leadership and help you figure out exactly where you might be stuck. Today what we're going to be talking about. Are four layers to instructional leadership. So the first three layers really aren't about instructional leadership, but it's how you get to that instructional leadership in your building. So I want you to think about where you are right now.
Layer One is the topic of discipline. So this is really having stability in your building. You can't lead instruction if behavior's running your building, if you're constantly running around handling behavior. If teachers are frustrated with behavior, if there's inconsistent expectations, there's not a tier one system in place.
It's really [00:02:00] hard to move kids forward academically. , You feel like you're in constant reaction mode. You're not able to be the leader that you wanna be. And this is where principals get stuck and then they feel like I'm not a good instructional leader because I'm putting out fires all day. And really you need to take a step back and just focus on your discipline.
I always think of one principal that I'm coaching on instructional leadership. I. And she talked about, she's been in her building for a couple years and she has just gotten to the point where she can really focus on instructional leadership because she has been focused on discipline and over time she's been able to reduce those office referrals, get her tier one system.
Up and running and really, , working well, but it took time to get there. And so when we think about scores not being where she wants them to be, when it comes to assessments, we talk about she spent the last couple of years trying to stop putting out fires and helping create systems in the building for assistant principals.
And even if you don't have an assistant principal. It's how do [00:03:00] we create systems in the building to just make the building run smoother, to make it a stable environment for kids and really have the stability that you're not being pulled out of things all the time. And I was in a building for eight years too as the assistant, six as the principal.
And when I was the assistant, I was working with a principal who was really good with PBIS. And so we were putting that stability in place, we were focusing on the discipline, and it was really neat to see how over time. That changed the building and we had way less office referrals. My first year we didn't track data, but my second year we had 380, there were so many office referrals.
And by, , year three or four, it was like 170 it really did go down. And so , it's all about putting these systems in place and making sure that you focus on discipline first to get to the instruction later. Not that you can't be doing instructional leadership things in between.
But you have to get out of that [00:04:00] reaction mode. And so you have to remember that discipline is not separate from instruction. It protects instruction. And so when we're thinking about tier one systems for behavior, that is part of instructional leadership, it's getting you to the point where you're able to focus on instruction even more.
So when tier one is strong, you have clear expectations in the building. You find ways to support teachers and you have fewer behaviors that interrupt learning, and this is where we have to remember that tier one. So there's still going to be kids who are tier two and tier three, but you have to have that strong tier one system in place.
And if you want help with that, I'm going to link some, , resources in the show notes. I have the tier one behavior blueprint, and I have the principles discipline toolkit that can help you create consistency to move forward in these areas. Okay, so that's layer one, the stability with discipline. Layer two is your culture with the people.
So once behavior with students is predictable, we can look at the adults , . Because instruction improves. [00:05:00] When teachers collaborate effectively. They're able to manage their emotions and they stay focused on solutions and the things that they can control. So often what I see is that teams meet, but they might not be the most collaborative.
Every team has a different dynamic. And so if they're not in that collaboration mode, you have to get to the root of what is happening there. Also, certain personalities can dominate teams, grade levels, and then people shut down. And it could be a building where emotions are driving everything more than a system being in place.
, A big piece that I saw that in, , is MTSS right. Use our emotions and our teacher intuition to decide if a student needs tested for special education. That's an example of emotions driving. Decisions more than a system. , Most instructional problems are actually people problems in disguise. So you really have to focus on staff culture around collaboration.
And it doesn't mean that you're. Staff. If they're not good at [00:06:00] collaborating, it doesn't mean that they don't get along, ? There are staff that gets along, they hang out after school, but it's about having those hard conversations about data, about instruction, where we're able to disagree. And still get along.
We're able to share what's going well in one classroom and, , have those open and honest conversations about what's not going well in another classroom if we're not being open and honest during, , the collaborative time. A lot of times it's professional learning communities, or if you don't have those yet, it's those grade level meetings, department meetings, whatever it is.
You don't have true collaboration. So oftentimes that's masked by staff getting along outside of school. Okay, so really thinking about that culture piece and how are people collaborating? How are people managing their emotions? How are people focusing on what they can control? And that's going to really help you.
With the next piece of instructional leadership, so again, our first layer is focusing on the discipline and the students. Our second [00:07:00] layer is focused on the culture and the people in the building, and so , some different resources I have for this is the toolkit for navigating challenging team dynamics and the toolkit for navigating challenging teacher dynamics. So this can be really helpful if you are struggling with teams or individual teachers where I have different profiles that you can identify people with, and then things that you can actually do that are actionable right away to help make a difference in this area.
So that's the second layer. The third layer is time and your capacity. So even with strong systems and people, many principals still get stuck if they don't have good time management. If they aren't productive or they don't have a structure to lead instruction. So you might notice that your day can be taken over by email.
It can be taken over by discipline. It could be. Taken over by, everybody just stopping , and talking to you for a minute, and you wanna get in classrooms, but if you don't have a system to do it, you won't. , And then if you're [00:08:00] holding onto everything instead of delegating, that's another capacity issue.
Maybe you're not empowering your staff to do things in the building. It's not necessarily about needing more time, it's about being more intentional with your time. It's about time blocking your time. It's about protecting your time. This is where I have the eight to four principle blueprint, and I also have an eight to four principle planner that's free that you can grab, but it's really about thinking about your initiatives.
I talk about planning two weeks ahead of time. These are all instructional leadership things that we do. It's planning for committees, it's getting into classrooms, it's creating habits, structures so that you are able to do these things, but it is about the time management piece of it. So if you're not managing your time well, if you're staying every day till six or seven o'clock, then you know that you have a time management issue.
And it really is about getting clarity about the things that need to be done and how can you, , structure [00:09:00] that so that you're able to get as much done at work so that you can leave work on time. And so that is layer three. So I'm going back layer one, we're talking about discipline and students. We're layer two is our culture and our people.
Layer three is your time and building capacity of others. And then layer four is really about the impact of instructional leadership. , This is really digging into instructional leadership at a deeper level. So once you get those first three layers in place, , you're still doing instructional leadership activities throughout, but this is where you can make the biggest impact.
This is where you can really start moving your building forward. So there's two parts. We're gonna talk in this layer about instructional leadership. So the first part as a principle is you have to have clarity. , There are things that you do. Those are the execution, the actions, but you have to have clarity in that vision as an instructional leader.
So what do you see for your building? , What do you need to get done in your building to have things start to improve [00:10:00] instructionally? , You can't coach and lead teachers if you don't clearly define what outcome you're looking for. Now, sometimes this is a simple, like in my building that I'm currently in.
We're focusing on improving, reading scores through our intervention and our tier one instruction. We're also focusing on implementing a new math curriculum. Like those are pretty simple things that we're pretty clear on what it means. It doesn't necessarily have to be this big complex initiative that you're doing, , but you want to know.
Where you're leading the staff, like what are those focuses and what do you want for people? Clearly as we're implementing a new math curriculum, I want teachers to be using best math practices, but they're learning a new math curriculum. They're learning how to utilize it, and so I have to give people grace throughout that process.
So know where you are in your building and have clarity with the staff of what you're trying to accomplish. So you wanna ask yourself, could your staff describe what those goals are for the building [00:11:00] in the same way that you describe it? Do you have clear instructional look fors when you're walking into classrooms?
Like what are you looking for if we're talking about intervention and tier one instruction? Are you focused or general in feedback that you're giving people? Are you observing and going through the process and really giving people feedback through whatever evaluation process your district uses?
Because if there's no clarity, leadership can feel really inconsistent and people don't know what you're working towards. So that's the part one of instructional leadership is having clarity on the goals for the building, having clarity on what you're working on. Part two now is the execution. So once you're clear, now you can lead it daily.
So this is where, if you go back to episode one 19, I talk about the five traits of strong instructional leaders. That's a great episode to listen to, but this is where you are protecting instructional time for teachers. You are doing walkthroughs, you're getting into classrooms consistently. You're looking at data not only by yourself, but with teams,
like I look at data all the [00:12:00] time by myself, so I know what those coaching conversations need to look like, whether it's with individual teachers or grade levels. But using data with teachers, with your, , reading coaches, whatever you have, coaching teachers intentionally on things that need to be worked on.
, Modeling, learning, this is a big one. We're doing a book study during our staff meetings, , we're modeling what that learning looks like and making sure that , we're talking about best practices. , We're actually talking about explicit instruction and with Anita Archer and what that looks like.
. Part two is where you actually make the impact. However, you have to have clarity about what those goals are. So I really want you to think about where are you in these levels. Just to review layer one as your discipline, your stability in the building. Layer two is the culture and the people that you're leading.
Layer three is time and building your capacity and the capacity of others. And layer four is that impact, , that instructional leadership impact. And so. I want you to think about [00:13:00] where are you? Most principles are stuck in one of these levels. Are you in reactive leader mode where you're stuck in discipline?
Are you in managing leader mode where you're stuck in the culture and people right now, are you the busy leader that you're stuck in time and overwhelm issues? Or are you the instructional leader focused on teaching and learning? And so it's not about a capability issue, it's about where you are and what you're building moving forward.
So if you're in reaction mode right now, give yourself grace. That's okay. But the problem ,, is if you're in reaction mode for a long period of time, if you're new to a building, of course you're gonna be in reaction mode for maybe a year or two. If you are new to a building and you could be in a couple of these together, like maybe you're working on discipline and culture and people at the same time , while sprinkling in some instructional leadership,
like it's not just a one-way path, but when you're in a building for a long period of time, I'm talking about this is the goal, this is where we're going. We're going from discipline, culture, [00:14:00] and people to time management to focused instructional leadership. And like I said, when I work with principals.
I actually see that if they're newer to the building, they are stuck in those beginning things, but as they've been there for a longer period of time, they're able to focus on that instructional leadership. And so you have to give yourself grace about where you are right now. You have to know where you are.
Give yourself grace. But one thing I urge you to do is I have an instructional leadership scorecard, so this is completely free. I'm gonna put the link in the show notes, and it's not to judge where you are, but to give you clarity on what's actually holding you back in your instructional leadership because you think you have an instructional leadership problem, but really what's happening.
Is, you might be stuck in one of the earlier layers, so I want you to take the scorecard, see where you are with instructional leadership, and so instructional leadership is not the starting point.
If you're a brand new. Principle or you're new to a building, it is the result of strong systems, [00:15:00] a healthy culture, intentional use of time, and clear instructional vision. However, like I said, even if you're new to a building and you're putting out fires and working on those systems, you can still sprinkle it in, but it's.
Not going to be as strong as somebody who's been in a building for five years. So just remember, you don't need to fix everything at once. You just need to be clear and have clarity on what needs worked on right now. So I want you to identify and think through which layer needs your attention right now and take the instructional leadership scorecard.
All right. I hope everybody has a great week, and as you think about this, , and are finishing the year, I hope that you take some time to really think about where you are and where you wanna head as you go into the next school year.
[00:16:00]