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In Search of Catholic School Excellence
Exploring the programs, people, and practices making a difference in Catholic education. Join host Thomas Boles as we hear from principals, teachers, and innovators shaping the future of Catholic schools. Whether you're a leader looking for ideas or an advocate for Catholic education, this show is your guide to what’s working—and why it matters.
Be sure to check out the show notes, as each episode comes with a companion guide to help you implement the ideas discussed during the episodes.
Thomas Boles: Welcome to In Search of Catholic School Excellence, the show where we spotlight the program's, people, and practices making a real difference in Catholic education today.
If you're a school leader striving to build a community of faith, excellence, and innovation, you've come to the right place.
Each episode brings you ideas that are working, stories that inspire and new possibilities for your school's mission.
Let's explore what's working.
And what's possible.
Hello folks.
Welcome back for another episode.
I'm joined by Becky Wong today, and we are talking about onboarding new teachers, setting up new teachers and staff members for success.
This topic comes to mind because at this time we're talking about a teacher going on maternity leave and therefore we're bringing somebody in new and, thinking about, well, you go through this process, it's almost like we're making it up every time.
And so today we want to talk about how we can onboard new teachers, how we can get better, a little bit better about that system
and think about, you know, what are the nuts and bolts of that, how we can support them, and how we can keep them for the long term.
So I wanna thank Becky again for joining us.
Becky: Glad to be back.
Thomas Boles: I know you've onboarded many of teachers, so this is this is an easy topic for us to talk about.
Becky: Oh, definitely.
It's actually one of my favorite things to do at school.
Welcoming new people.
Thomas Boles: Yeah.
They bring a shot in the arm, a little bit of joy to the school.
It's nice to have new people and you wanna make them feel like they're a part of the place right away.
Part of that, you know, we always talk about family, so you want them to feel part of the family right away.
How do you typically start this kind of process?
Becky: Well, the main and most important thing is make sure your new staff member knows who the point person is.
And a lot of times that's me.
I was a tech coordinator at my school, but I was fortunate to sit next to our HR person.
So she would always ask me questions or talk about like, oh no, the new teacher doesn't have this or that, or they didn't know about something.
So I would get a lot of insights of where the holes are.
So when we have someone new, I don't just tell them about tech, I tell them about everything under the sun, the.
It could be something as simple as like, Hey, you know, where do I get my computer to making photocopies, how to order something from Amazon.
So everything and anything.
When you have that one point person, then your new staff member would know who to go to for any questions because we don't want them to just.
Show up to school and say, here's your classroom.
Good luck.
And a lot of times I feel like that's what happens.
Here's a funny story.
My first day of school that I did have a mentor teacher, she gave me a phone call a month before the first day of school.
It was great.
She was wonderful, and she was very good at classroom management.
So I get a lot of my skills from her.
But what happened was that, there wasn't an official onboarding.
So my first day of school, you know, we did our prayer, everything, and then two seconds later, the PE teacher came in and took all my kids away.
I was like, oh wait, why are my kids all in PE uniform on the first day of school?
And they literally left by eight 10.
I was like, oh, okay.
I guess I have time to make copies.
And it was like the funniest thing.
I was like, oh, this is nice.
I didn't even realize we had PE on the first day of school.
So that was kind of hilarious and I was like, oh it would've been great.
To have been gotten some more onboarding or some sort of guidance, like, Hey, this is what to expect on the first day of school.
You know, Mr. Choki is coming in, he's gonna take your kids.
And then like, I had a nice.
Hour and a half gap on my first day of school because my kids went half the class went to pe, the other half went to computers and I was like, oh, what's going on?
Okay.
So then, you know, being my first year and first day of school, it was kind of a sigh of relief, but at the same time I was like, what's going on?
What was your first day like, Tom?
Thomas Boles: Yeah I feel like I got left out.
I feel like we also need to have an episode in the future about first days.
First weeks and last weeks.
There's so much chaos.
Having PE on the first day of school is just a really bad idea anyway.
The,
Becky: I was lucky.
I was like, oh, what's going on?
I had more time.
It bought me a lot more time.
I was prepared, but I was like oh dear.
Thomas Boles: yeah, that's not good for continuity or setting things up.
But our first day, I mean, I got lucky.
My first job my very first mentor.
Was Vince Sweeter, who's now at St. Monica?
Shout out to Vince.
Sweeter.
He's so
methodical.
He's so, calculated and procedure wise.
He really like took us all in our wing.
The thing was our upstairs faculty schools separated in two sections.
Our upstairs faculty was almost all new, so there was nobody to teach us how to do things, but Vince took that upon himself.
So we kind of had a really easy day, and my first days were like, you know, I had the kids straight for three days before we did anything else, so I got to lay down the law and all that other good stuff.
But it was less about having those systems and it was, you know, somebody like Vince.
Making that system happen.
And I think that's what we really want to focus on is if it's not already part of the routine to bring people in and walk them on that journey into the school, then we really gotta make that a priority and kind of systematize it.
I think it's so important because without Vince, we would've all been lost.
I mean, we had no, there was no continuity to what was before.
There was no before.
You know, there was we didn't have any of that to go to lean back on, except for Vince who had been there for a while, was that guy, but he did it himself as opposed to, here's our official process on welcoming new teachers.
I.
Becky: Oh right, and I know you just constantly say this to me, but.
Set up systems.
Once you have the system set, then it is something that everyone could depend on.
And because of my experience, I wouldn't say it was a bad experience, but it was kind of funny to have a story to tell.
But since I was unofficially in charge of new people only because.
Now the first thing everyone needs is a school email and or some sort of device, right?
So because I'm usually the first point of contact of saying, and it could be even before the teacher steps into the school, because we we've done a lot of interviews and hired people over Zoom.
So, I'm usually the first point of contact and because of, you know, my experience being a new teacher and being a new staff person on a school site I knew what it was like to, you know.
Get a grip of, or just like start a new job.
So I set up a system at my school basically a hub where you could look everything and anything up.
And I know you said, Hey, let's put a checklist together.
And that's what I did with the HR person that I sat next to.
It's like, she was talking about like, there's so much paperwork and just like remembering like.
All the different steps.
Even something as simple as like the keys or the alarm code.
So we put everything on a, just a Google Doc, and it would be a checklist.
We'll just duplicate that Google Doc and just go through the steps.
And we'll share it with the new employee just to make sure they know, like, oh yeah, I better check in with the vice principal for, you know, whatever academic support and whatnot.
I know that even before they step into school, they need to do all the paperwork.
Like what do they need to bring, you know, driver's license pass, like two IDs, whatnot.
So it's to help them prepare and it saves a lot of time because you don't want that same employee or the new teacher to keep having to drive in and out or come back because they for had forgotten a document or whatnot,
Thomas Boles: Yeah.
You don't have to give that document right the first time.
Right.
You can.
You can build upon
Becky: Oh, yes.
Oh, absolutely.
And anytime there's changes, we'll change that one document and we'll keep duplicating it.
And I love lists because I always forget, like, or I hate it when I say, oh no, I forgot to tell you about this, but it's on the list so we never forget.
Thomas Boles: Yeah.
Yeah, that's so important.
I mean, the small things like, you know, where do you go in the morning?
How do you check in now with all the time card business, like this is the computer that you're gonna sign in on and you know, all those little
Becky: Oh right.
Thomas Boles: right?
All those little things.
Even like, you know, when's it okay to go get your coffee?
Right?
Or who's allowed to touch the coffee machine?
I know everyone's got the Keurigs now, but back in the day, man.
I was not allowed to make coffee for the faculty.
There was one person who did that.
She did a, she did an amazing job.
But I
that those good things too.
Your role.
Becky: that's so funny because I guess there's like that one role for every school because when I started at my tech coordinator position, no one was allowed to touch the copy machine.
I was like, oh.
Okay.
I was like, it's okay.
I don't need to make copies, but it's good reason.
We don't want people to keep breaking the copy machine so everybody would give their copies to the admin and they would make the copies.
I was like, how do you get your other work done?
You're just making copies for everyone all day, but everyone has that special role or just protocol.
So those are things you, we would like to put on the checklist.
Just for starters, if you don't have a checklist, here's a short list.
Put first day of school expectations.
You know, what time do you expect the teacher to come in the morning?
What time do they leave?
Funny or not, I get a lot of people going up to me and go, is this okay to leave?
Now?
I'm like, oh it's four o'clock.
Sure.
Just to know what time to come in.
I know when I taught at St. Mary's, we had our principal came at like five 30 in the morning every day.
I was like, oh my gosh, that's really early.
School started at eight o'clock and I was the worst one.
I showed up at seven 15.
I was like, oh, no.
But when I went to a different school it was different.
School started at eight 10.
The first person in was at seven 30, and I was, I came in around 7 45.
So everyone, every school has its own nuances, you know, or like expectations.
So, set the schedule so that people weren't, you know, confused by like what time they should come to school, what time they should leave.
Thomas Boles: Yeah that's a good one.
I back to teaching summer school and this was outta public school.
They, you know, I was the kind of guy who would stay after school.
I would stay until like five or six.
I mean, as young, single, you know, nowhere to go.
And I'm, and I'm a, I'm not a morning person, so I'm all, my energy is still in the afternoon, the evening,
so I would just stay.
And I work late.
So I'm teaching summer school.
It's the first day.
And the plant manager not quite a, he wasn't, he was more than a custodian.
He kind of took care of
Becky: Mm-hmm.
Thomas Boles: The alarm is going on at 15 minutes.
If you are not out, the police will come and they will escort you out.
And I was like,
whoa.
I was like, okay, I guess I'm gonna take my stuff to go, you know?
I was like, you need to get outta here.
Like, school gets out at three, you need to be out of the building by three 15.
I was blown away.
I was like, wait, I was gonna stay here.
Do some.
No, there's no staying here.
I'm leaving and the cops will come and get you out if you get stuck inside.
I was like, okay.
So that's a good thing to know.
He had he not taught me that, then I would be stuck inside that building or maybe even arrested for trespassing.
Who knows?
But yeah, that's an extreme
Becky: I had a more pleasant version of that.
I was told, get out of your classroom by four 15 Chinese school starting, or four o'clock, actually Chinese school starting at four 15.
I was like, oh, okay.
Or four o'clock.
So, yes, please tell your new staff member, doesn't it even have to be a teacher?
Get, tell them what's going on and where to send the kids to.
You know, if a child doesn't get picked up by a certain time, where should they go?
Do they go to office?
Do they go to Extendicare?
And those are just little things we take for granted, especially when we're at the school for a long time.
But for new teachers, they don't know.
Set the schedule, have it posted, be clear about it.
The second thing is like having procedures, like we talked about, like a copy machine, a coffee, you know, those are little things.
Had a funny story about coffee.
We used to have jobs as teachers, you know, like after school, every someone always gets assigned to clean the coffee maker, and it's a big, huge coffee maker.
I would take like 30 minutes to clean that coffee maker after school.
Just like your expectations.
What do you need?
Your team to do whose turn is it?
Have a schedule for, like, who cleans the faculty room, you know, who cleans the coffee maker?
Who's in charge of taking notes for the faculty meeting?
Thomas Boles: I think it's important.
Don't throw those people under the bus right away.
Like that new person.
You're not throwing them on that schedule right away.
Like give 'em some leeway.
Like, we're gonna give you a few weeks, but then we expect you to, you know, to jump in on that.
Like, that's not you can tell them about that process, but I would hope that they, you know, first day of school, they're not cleaning the toilets.
Becky: Oh yeah.
So, I would say use a Google calendar, so it's posted everywhere.
So, we had a dedicated like faculty calendar that's not public, you know, on your website.
Like, oh, Mrs. Wong has to clean the coffee maker This.
So just create a separate Google calendar for those items so that teachers can refer to it.
So they know it's their turn for, you know, yard duty.
It's their turn for whatever it is.
Thomas Boles: I think that's a good point too.
Like you, you talked about, you know, here's some information that you're gonna need.
And I feel like at the beginning of a school year, you know, they, you sit down at a faculty meeting and there's like a binder of stuff, right?
There's just so much stuff given to you and it's almost like.
It becomes part of the, you know, first few days and then, you know, you've ingested that and it's like gone.
But you know, I know for a fact that you would put together a website for the teachers and having a hub where that information can live beyond that moment, I think is huge.
'cause that ultimately, you know, no one cares about that calendar beyond that first week.
I mean, if it's the first week of school, you're trying to get your classroom ready, you're not thinking about like what's happening in the middle of September.
You're like, how do I get through tomorrow?
Or How am I get through next week?
And so, you know, having that stuff to be able to come back to and not have to worry about where did I look for that paper?
All that stuff is centralized, systematized is beautiful.
Becky: You know where that hub came from.
It's like my days in teaching.
So we all had our mailboxes every Friday.
So we'll put a piece of paper in my mailbox.
It would be like, oh, the weekend preview.
So when I became a tech coordinator at my new school, I was like, oh, we don't have, or we actually had a newsletter that everyone had to read, but it was for the whole school and for parents, I was like, oh, why don't we have like a weekend preview?
So, so everyone knows what's going on next week.
And then we don't get mad at them because they were late for the assembly or.
Whatnot.
So I created a digital version of it because, you know, like as a young teacher in my twenties, I was like, what is this paper for?
I just read it.
I was like, oh, that's nice.
It has nothing to do with me.
I was like, okay.
No one told me about it, but it was in my mailbox.
I read it.
I was like, I don't know, just like, it would just be like random information.
I was like, nothing to do with fifth grade.
Okay.
Maybe occasionally it'd be like, oh, this math for.
Whatever I was like, okay.
So one thing I really wanna focus on is like communication.
Not just like having the a point person, but also like how are we communicating with our teachers or new staff members and what are the expectations?
A lot of times it's kind of, it's funny and almost not meant to be mean, but we always teach the new people or like, we're like, they have a
question, we're like, oh yeah, make sure you check that we can preview or the hub because we post a schedule on that and if they're like, oh wait.
Did you say that we were having masks this week?
We're like, did you check the hub first before you asked the principal?
Because they'll always get teased.
That's the first thing she would say to them.
Did you check the hub?
Or, and they're like, no.
So we train our new staff members to always check the hub first.
I would always post the schedule probably noon on Friday, so everyone knows what to expect.
And what's great about it is that.
And I use a Google site.
So I also had an archive of what happened the week before, so that if we have a special event there are directions I just have to refer back to the previous year or the previous event.
I just copy and paste so that information's always archived, is always available.
And it's great for new people, especially if they all of a sudden are in charge of something.
One time we said, here's the two knee teachers.
Good luck.
You're in charge of grandparents' day.
They're like, what is Grandparents' Day?
I was like, oh, don't worry.
Check the hub.
Here's the written directions.
Here's the Google Doc that went with it.
So they were able to duplicate it and just modify it.
And it was like, oh no, but think of the hub as like a backup.
It's, you know, it's your historical knowledge.
And on there I'll even have like, SIS information sometimes.
We don't have someone that walks our new teacher.
Through the steps of like how to set up their grade books.
So I had all the directions there, like, oh, how do you set up, you know, all of the standards and whatnot, and.
I even had the report card template.
So when we have like a new kindergarten teacher, they have no idea, like, here's the standard, what does the report card even look like?
So it's all there.
And I even like, wrote a little memo so that anytime we had a. New teacher, like lower grades.
This is your directions for your grade books upper grades.
These are your directions for your grade book.
I had trimester, end of trimester reminders, beginning end of the school year, reminders, so it's all there.
And basically it's there to save me time and it's to make sure that we're all on the same page.
Thomas Boles: and that's, I think that's great.
I mean, I think the real highlight we've got so far going is that everyone needs a hub, right?
And then secondly, you know, is there some sort of email group, some faculty email group?
Is there, are you using Google Classroom?
I've seen a lot of principals use Google Classroom to keep track of like faculty
meeting minutes.
Things like that.
So there's lots of ways that we can do this, but the idea is there has to be a repository of information and a way for people to access that on their own, but also then to communicate, okay, this isn't in the repository, this isn't in the hub.
Who do I reach out to?
I can reach out to the faculty group and send an email.
Okay, that's great.
Or however it works at your various schools.
But it's important that we have those, you know, various chains and that we're keeping track of that stuff because as you say, the historical knowledge is gonna go out the window if people leave.
You know, retire or whatever.
You need to be able to keep that stuff going.
And how awesome is it to say, oh, you know, you're in charge of grandparents day.
Here's your script, or the typical one, hi, brand new teacher.
Guess what?
You get the yearbook this year.
Good luck.
Becky: Oh yes.
Those are big
Thomas Boles: So just having a checklist for that.
Even like, this is how, this is what you need to call, this is the program that we use.
You know, feel free to look up other ones, but these are the ones we tried in the past.
They're no good.
Like, all that kind of stuff does just save everybody a little bit of time, you know, in doing that, and especially if you're gonna give 'em the worst jobs and so important to give them some leg up, right?
If you want to offload your terrible job to a new teacher, then you've gotta be able
to.
Give.
Becky: Yes.
And another thing you could include in, in your hub are maps.
So you have a whole school event.
Could be a Christmas program, could just be mass, just having a seating chart it just posted so that the new teachers aren't lost.
And they're not sitting in the wrong spots.
Having at your emergency protocol also posted on that same hub, those are just like some basic things that you can add.
And I really like that you mentioned that.
Some schools use Google Classroom because you might not have a. Time to maintain the whole website.
You know, putting things in Google Classroom, it's such a time saver and everybody can access it and it encourages your teachers to use Google Classroom with their students.
Thomas Boles: It's such a great tool.
I love, and you know, we can again talk about this in terms of communications.
I love when you're able to put together that agenda ahead of time and something like Google Classroom or even just a Google Doc where people can, you know, comment ahead
of time before you have a faculty meeting to be able to get, these are the things I think that are important that we need to talk about, so let's get that out there.
So you put that out in front of people, they have time to think about it so they're ready for that faculty meeting instead of.
But this is like, this isn't the thing we need to talk about, so we have to worry about this, you know, upcoming event.
Like, you know, you get time to kind of sort that out.
And I think it's such a valuable tool.
Google classrooms wonderful, and if teachers aren't using it, you know, that's a shame.
But I think it's a great one for principals as well.
Becky: Yes.
And it's kind of funny that we don't think of it that way because like we always say, oh yeah, Google Classrooms, that's what you use if there are students.
But when we do PDs, we use Google Classroom as well to dispense information and just have everyone on the same page.
This seems all overwhelming.
I know it's a lot, but Thomas, what are some other things we can do in terms of support for teachers?
You know, like someone new, like what were some good experiences you had?
Thomas Boles: I think it.
Important to support.
You know, we tend to feel like we're, you know, we're overwhelmed just trying to get people hired to take on these roles that it's okay, get in the door and like, good luck, you know, and it's, there's not all that support.
So, you know, we've talked about the nuts and bolts and things like that, but you've gotta give them some, you know, support in terms of the emotional and.
They're, you know, obviously at a Catholic school, spiritual too, to be able to support them so that they want to be here long term.
I mean, it's much easier to keep somebody than it is to keep rehiring for the same spots.
So I think it's important that, you know, I look back on my own experience and, you know, it's funny talking to Vince Weers later when he first met me.
He is like, who's this goofball that's coming to, you know, work with us?
You know, I was just a kid coming outta college.
And then later, you know, finding out that like, you know, I was a sponge and ready to learn.
And so having that mentor just eating up everything that they were giving me was a key piece.
So, you know, obviously, you know, the new faculty member's gotta be willing to be mentored.
But I think it's important that you have the mentorship and I think you need to formalize it.
You know, first off, who is that point person, like you talked about?
But then can we partner them up with, you know, here's the teacher who's next door to you, or who's on the same level as you.
They're a good influence.
They've been teaching a while, they've been teaching a year longer than you
you know,
so
just like anybody who's ahead.
And so you have like that peer person.
But then there might also be like the, you know, we wanna introduce you to the person who is historical knowledge, you know, at our school at that point, the secretary.
Was the person who knew everything about the school.
So it was like important, like if you ever had, you have trouble, come talk to this person.
I know that those folks have mostly retired out of schools these days, but it's it's so important to find that person who is the historical look to, like, how is this done in the past?
How should we do it going forward?
And like, it's important to have those kinds of people.
I think it's also important to find.
You know, you have that peer mentor, you have their other mentors.
Can we help them find teachers in other schools around the archdiocese?
Can we help them find people in the community who
Might be a good influence.
I know that we've benefited from that in the tech group, but like if I was a new second grade teacher, how would I find other second grade teachers?
Like, that's not immediately available to me.
But aside from all of that, like professional development things like, this is how we do school here.
I think it's so important that we, you know, we think about how we're going to nurture them going forward.
So it's like, number one, let's not slam them with all the horrible jobs.
You know, bring your toothbrush tomorrow and you're gonna clean out the toilets.
Not like we can't give 'em that job.
You know, we can't dump the yearbook on them right away.
Give 'em a
student
council right away.
Give them some time to get it acclimated and you'll see like where people are excited to be there, where they can take.
Take that opportunity.
But I think it's important that it's beyond that first couple weeks that we're still there.
So I would say that you build in those mentors and then as a principal, or in my case assistant principal, I would've taken that person and we would've set up some one-on-ones and we would've had time to meet with each other over a period of time.
And maybe there's a lot of those at the beginning.
Like maybe we were meeting once a week or twice a week at the beginning just to make sure they got everything.
You got your lesson plans.
Do you know where you're putting your stuff?
Do you feel like you're, you know, you're getting through the days easier?
Do you understand the flow?
How are you doing with parent communication?
Like those kinds of conversations.
And I think by the time you get to like month two or three, maybe those are a little bit more spread out and you're starting to just have a little check-ins.
Like, Hey, you know, we talked about last time about something that you were working on.
How did you feel that went?
You know, what are you planning for next?
And I just, I feel like you need to just carry people along.
I'm a big proponent of having those one-on-ones anyway.
We should have talk to your people all the time.
But your new people especially need to have a little bit more.
Becky: And it could just be simple things like, Hey, let's meet up for lunch this week.
Or just even telling the new faculty member, like, oh, lunchtime's here's a faculty room.
You know, here are the microwaves.
Just inviting them into the school community and just making sure that I know I'm concerned about this for my children.
My real children is like, make sure they have friends in the school and that they feel accepted and welcomed.
And you brought up a good point, the mentor, the point person doesn't have to just be one person.
It could be different people for different things.
Like, hey, there's like an office person, you know, or like me, like a tech person that just kind of knows like overall operations.
But they do need someone for like emotional support and academic support in terms of like curriculum.
Like, Hey, here's a curriculum guide.
This is here's all our resources.
So those are really important too, and I feel like people take that for granted.
You know, when I started teaching, I'm like, okay, here's this giant binder.
Okay, here's the books.
And I just pretty much went from page one to 100.
But that's not how we teach now, where we pull resources.
So just having that person to say, Hey, this is my favorite app.
A lot of times.
Each we pair people based on grade level.
Like if you're a new third grade teacher pair them up with a second grade teacher and they can tell you the personality of the kids, you know, what were some of the tools that they used that were effective with that particular group.
So those are those were resources and people that will help your new teacher.
Thomas Boles: Yeah, I think there's, you know, the surrounding, the people, surrounding them with people who are positive and are pushing things forward, I think is very good.
I think you can do a lot at the beginning, especially with social
things.
You know, making them feel like, you know, a little bit more part of the community.
I think it's also like, this is a silly one, but I think it's true.
If you know that this kid, that this teacher's taking over this classroom, you know, pointing out to them, a couple kids who are on the straight and narrow are gonna be diligent, who can probably help them.
Like, you know, what's the bathroom policy again for your class that I'm, you know, if this person's taking over for maternity leave in January and it's like.
I don't know what your policy, like, how I, I don't, there's a lot to think about.
So it's like, no, we're supposed to grab this pass.
We're supposed to wait till they, you know, like you to point out those couple kids who can kind of help them with the routines.
I think that's, I think it's another little simple thing, but it's so big just to help with the flow.
I remember my first day, you know, the end of the day, the kids all look at me.
They're like, do we put our chairs up?
And I was like, I don't know.
Do you?
And they're like, we normally do.
That seems like a good idea.
Let's put the, you know, the tables on the desks or the chairs on the desk and and you know, just simple things like that, you know, wouldn't be necessarily in a manual, but it's just something that we do.
I think there's a couple kids who are gonna, you know, be the good and honest, and we can point them to those folks too.
So just trying to like, you know, we as, we don't want parents who are snowplow parents, but we do want.
Snowplow principals, let's make our teachers' lives as easy as possible, right?
Because if they're happy and there's less friction, especially unnecessary friction like bathroom time or like walking to church, like those things, like why should there be any friction there, right?
Let's make life easy.
Let's keep them happy because there are gonna be hard moments that are big and important that we need them to be at their best for and not have them, you know, broken down by.
Bad coffee or.
Becky: Yes.
And I love that you mentioned like the kids they know so much and they're so honest.
Like I just subbed yesterday and the kids, we had a worksheet and the kids were like, can I take this home?
I was like, that's a good question.
Does Mrs. Tago usually have you pass the paper in or do you take them?
So the kids are like, oh yeah, we usually pass it in.
I was like, okay, well let's pass the papers in.
So having the kids there because they know the procedures, you know, if we taught them correctly, they know like, Hey, this is the pair we do at the beginning of the day.
This is what we do at lunch, and we can learn so much from them.
Thomas Boles: Yeah, I think that's key.
And I think that, I mean, that kind of rounds things out.
You know, if you think about.
You know, we took care of all the nuts and bolts that's important.
And we really should have good documentation for that, right?
We should have our communication down like the no teacher should feel like, I don't know who to talk to about X, right?
But then we really wanna make 'em feel like they're a part of that community and every chance we can to, you know, keep them, inviting them in and making them feel supported, I think makes people want to stick around.
And if they love a place, they, you don't have to get buy-in, buy-in's already there.
They're gonna be around for a.
Becky: Yes.
And I just wanna make teachers' job as easy as possible because I just want them to focus on teaching, not worry about like, oh no, I have to rush to traffic duty at the end of the day and you have to run outta class.
But one thing that you and I as text.
We really set up a system for teachers, especially new teachers, just like explaining to them all the texts and tech and equipment in their class.
A lot of times, like I'll walk into a classroom and someone will ask me, what's this?
I was like, oh, that's a document reader.
They're like, oh, really?
How do you use it?
I was like, no one told you what it was.
So just having a list of things.
And some schools issue devices or laptops to teachers.
Some schools don't, but just have, setting a standard, letting the teacher know like, oh yes, you need to bring in your own device.
Or if you prefer to bring in your own device because the school device is, you know, not what you're used to or.
Like old or slow or whatever.
Letting them know like appropriate use for school devices.
A lot of times I notice even at my school, teachers are doing like their banking and social media on it.
I was like, oh, you might wanna just do that on your phone because if you ever leave, or if ever, you know, you need to bring it into service all your.
Your personal information's on there, or like your photos and whatnot.
So just make sure you set the expectation for teachers and let them know in advance telling them about their Google accounts.
You know, sending email, like what's what's the response time to it?
A parent just again telling them you know, a schedule, a timeline and most importantly all, I know, it's not your favorite, like how to
print, where to print to one of my favorites, like, don't print 30 copies to the printer, make print one copy and go to the copy machine.
You know, just little things like that.
The other thing is like how to mirror your computers, like.
How to show your Google slides what apps are available to them.
So those are things we take for granted, but a new teacher could use and get started very easily.
Thomas Boles: So true.
Do you have any final thoughts about how we can make sure that we're onboarding teachers well enough?
Becky: Oh for sure.
Make sure they know that there's someone to support them and they're not alone.
Again, a lot of times people we just assume because we just hired them, we're like, here's your classroom.
Good luck put up bulletin boards.
But just make sure they know that they can always come back and ask questions.
The other thing is include them into the community.
I think what you said about just making sure they feel welcome, and that they'll stay long term.
It's like how painful it is to just keep getting a new third grade teacher every year because, you know, it was really hard or it's really tough Teaching wasn't a good fit for them.
When we take care of our teachers, they'll, you know, like you said, we don't need them to like convince them to stay.
They'll have buy-in.
How about you?
Any takeaways?
Thomas Boles: Yeah, I think mostly, and I think, I feel like I'm coming back to this in many.
Of our episodes is, you know, if you think about the journey of a person in our communities, you know, it really should be intentional all the way through.
You know, the way we invite parents into the community and we take care of them, and ideally we take care of them for, you know, 10 years plus.
Maybe they have another kid, you know, maybe somebody's part of our community for 20 years and then they become alumni families.
So maybe it's like 60 years.
All of that should be intentional, I feel like.
We're in this transactional way of hiring teachers, and it's just like, I gotta get somebody.
And a lot of times this is happening in August and you're like trying to hire somebody in this, you know, teacher shortage and all this.
We're not thinking about that process intentionally.
Of course.
You know, no knock on anybody's hiring process or anything like that.
It's just that how once we've got them in, like you, you check the box off finally.
Okay, I've got a fourth grade teacher.
Oh, thank heaven.
Now what?
You know, like, let's take, make sure that we make this intentional and treat them as good if not better than we would treat, you know, our parents.
In fact, let's treat everybody as if they're like truly part of our family, like the good side of our family, the family that we always talk to, invite over, right?
So we want them to feel
like they've got all the information they need, they have everything they have they that they need to be successful.
If we provided that, we've thought that through.
And we can just continue to improve it, right?
It's, we're not inventing the wheel.
Every time
somebody new
comes in, especially like somebody who's coming mid-year, here's your opportunity to try somebody out.
Like you get a test run with a teacher for like four months.
Maybe they slot into an aid role going forward, or maybe there is an opening next year.
And guess what?
They were awesome in this fourth grade role.
Now they're gonna take over your third grade, you know, full time.
There's such an incentive for us to think about this process and be really diligent about it.
So I think that's what I really wanna put out to the world.
Becky: Oh yes, for sure.
We just wanna take care of our people and make sure, and in the long run, you know, when the teacher's happy, our kids are happy.
Thomas Boles: So true.
Well, what I wanna think about next is, especially we're talking about all these things, I feel like we could probably do an episode on, well, what do you do with your faculty, like the rest of the time, right?
So they're not just new, but like, how do we take care of the people, you know, for 30 years, let's say somebody's gonna work at our school.
So I think that's probably a future episode down the road, but
I think some people could listen to.
Similar, when we talk about this journey of a teacher, they could probably listen to our parent engagement episode and kind of get that same feel.
Like, let's talk about this journey a little bit more intentional.
And then we just had an episode with Gustavo Torres called Joy Wondering Curiosity, which is the theme of their school.
And he
talks a lot
about how the very good one.
how he incorporates teachers in the conversation to build things.
I think that would be a good one to listen to if you're thinking about conversations with.
Groups in your school.
That's a great one.
And he is a lot of fun to listen to.
Becky: Oh, and always remember, check the show notes.
Thomas Boles: Yeah.
We're gonna have you know, all the lessons that we pulled together from this episode today will be in a document.
We can kind of have you know, maybe not a full example of what the hub would look like.
'cause that would take a lot of time.
But we'll give you some ideas about what might be included in such things.
And, you know, a guide for onboarding the teachers.
So please check out the show notes, download that.
It's all free.
We would love to help you figure these things out.
If you need help, feel free to reach out to us.
Otherwise, we'll see you on the next episode.
Thank you, Becky, for all of your knowledge and sharing your stories.
Becky: Oh, you welcome.
Talk to you soon.
Thomas Boles: See you next time.
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