School Administrators: Bring About Academic Success in SpEd and EL Students. BONUS: Retain Teachers!

How School Administrators Can Bring About Academic Success through Protecting Planning Time and Using The Experts they already have in their schools.

Teachers love this, so it results in increased Teacher Retention!

Teachers are your Experts

Just last week I held my first Administrators Webinar, and I wanted to make sure to blog about this so those of you who don't have time to sit through a delightful, stress free, fun and engaging webinar, could still benefit by spending a few minutes reading this blog post!

I have spent over two decades as an educator, mostly as an ESOL teacher, (English for Speakers of Other Languages), and I found that while I enjoyed using my skills and expertise to plan and teach effective lessons for my student population, I could help my students much more by helping their mainstream teachers plan with accommodations and modifications. So, I did both. I found that in helping teachers plan for their Multilingual Learners, I was also helping them plan for their students with IEPs and 504s. In fact, as we worked, teachers who worked with me shifted their mindset from one of seeing students who learned differently as having disabilities, to one of recognizing the immense potential in tapping into those differences. As a result, they found learning differences in all of their students and new ways to set all of their students up for success!

So, what can YOU do as an ADMINISTRATOR to bring this success about?

Tip #1 - Use Your Experts

You've got a lot on your plate, make room for teachers to do what they do best!

Who are the experts in your schools? A principal on the webinar yesterday answered, "Interventionists . . . actually ALL the teachers are experts." Extra points for understanding the assignment! You don't have to be the expert for each of your teachers, your job is just to tap that expertise and set up the system that allows them to help each other. So, set up a scheduling system that makes sense for your school. Special programs teachers could pop in to individual teacher's planning one to two times a month. Or each department has an expert available to them a specific day of the week to aid in accommodations. Depending on the size, grade levels, and make up of your school, you know what would work best.

When you ask your Special Education Teachers, Reading and Math Interventionists, and EL/ML Teachers to show you their schedule for serving each student, don't stop there. Make sure they include when they will help the mainstream teachers with planning. It is important to emphasize that these are not meetings. They aren't there to discuss theory or give a workshop, they are there to plan together. Mainstream teachers should know when their special programs teachers will be planning with them so they can be ready with their curriculum and with questions for how best to accommodate for every student.

Tip #2 - Protect Planning Periods

You can tell it's important because it's alliterative :)

This second tip will be your TEACHERS' FAVORITE! There is nothing a teacher hates more than being given more paperwork or a new mandatory way of teaching when they don't have enough planning time to begin with! You probably have an afterschool time set aside for meetings. Tuesday, is it? Use those Tuesdays. As much as teachers love a sudden realization that they have a random Tuesday afternoon free, they love it even more to know that they actually have the 45-55 minutes that you promised them in their contract held sacred every day. So keep your school and department meetings in their scheduled times, and let teachers know that you understand that good teaching takes good planning.

Your special programs teacher can hold trainings and workshops, that's what those meeting and inservice days are for. Training and continuously planning with teachers is not just part of the job of your special programs instructors; if you want every student in your school to succeed academically, it is the BEST use of their time. To protect this time for special programs teachers, you will need to get them help with paperwork, or translations, or proctoring exams. Hiring an aide to take on some of those responsibilities is a cost effective way to make sure that your certified experts can spread their expertise throughout the faculty.

Bonus: Retain Excellent Teachers!

If you follow Tip #1 and Tip #2 you get contented teachers who will want to stay

Keeping planning time for planning means that the teachers will be happy and productive. With consistent expert help, they will find that meeting the needs of all of their students becomes automatic. This sets the students up for success, which sets the teachers up for success. Lack of planning time is a MAJOR factor in teacher retention.

"Survey results from the past several years (and across a range of instruments) indicate that teachers consistently identify increased planning and collaboration time as one of the top features that would support teacher retention and job satisfaction: "

– Shayna Levitan, National Council on Teacher Quality

Giving teachers adequate planning time and time to collaborate with colleagues reduces teacher burnout. It's all very logical and within your power as an administrator. Teachers who have time to plan, don't get burned out. Teachers who collaborate with colleagues feel supported. Teachers who are asked to use their expertise feel seen and respected.

That's It - For Now

This blog only covered a portion of what we talked about in the webinar - so if you want more great tips, you should really go to the next webinar. Let me know in the comments what kind of webinar you'd be most interested in attending. One that focuses on practical ways to implement accommodations and modifications in the classroom, or ones where we discuss fun ways to celebrate the diversity we have in our schools?

Teachers need and want good consistent training that makes planning easier and more effective. Follow this link to get an asynchronous online course for teachers with tons of practical advice. (The first course module is FREE).