Making The Most of February

Brad Rathgeber

Ever since I moved into administration, I’ve felt that February is the toughest month of the school year. It is the month when the challenges of the current school year peak (student challenges, a global pandemic?!?), and when the planning for next school year is most intense (getting curriculum guides out, hiring, making admissions decisions). The weather doesn’t help either, at least where I’m writing from in the northeast United States. 

These challenges make it the most difficult month to be proactive and engage deeply in our own professional development.  And yet, if we don’t work proactively, we run the risks of doing the same thing (and making the same mistakes) year-over year.  

A couple of years ago, we developed On-Demand programs to allow independent school educators to quickly understand key issues in our field. Participants start whenever they are ready on a four-hour journey into a topic, and have thirty days to complete their course. These more “bite-size” programs help administrators align their work to best practice quickly. We find that most participants do the programs over a weekend.

Given the challenge of this time of year, here are three programs that might be of help right now:

• With our friends at NBOA, we’ve developed “Interviewing and Hiring.” This program, facilitated by Grace Lee, Partner at Venable LLC, helps administrators, department heads and others who are responsible for interviewing and hiring school employees to create a hiring process that is deliberate, thoughtful and respectful. Participants learn what they can do and can’t during the hiring process, and when they should reach out for legal advice.
• Peter Gow, our Independent Curriculum Resource Director at One Schoolhouse, has recently released a new course to help schools navigate the curriculum review process. Curriculum Review: A Process for Meaningful Evolution helps schools develop a blueprint for a comprehensive, inclusive, and (above all!) mission-informed curriculum review process that addresses not just content and pedagogy but also the learning culture of the school as a human community.
• The Change Cycle™ is a model that depicts the predictable and sequential behaviors that humans experience as they move through personal and professional change. Knowledge and awareness of the Change Cycle™ creates a shared understanding amongst a school community. In Change Cycle - Communication During Times of Change participants learn new skills and tools that allow them to communicate more effectively with  individuals and school communities to adapt and thrive in changing environments.

Whether you are an administrator, department chair or a classroom teacher, this is your chance to learn something new and improve your practice.

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