Tag Archives: organization

Appreciate the autonomy

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One of the elements of being part of a large system is that is that sometimes you lose autonomy for operational efficiency. It’s hard for an organization to allow everyone to do things differently and still both display some consistency and provide meaningful support.

In our district all of our schools are getting an update to their websites. The new sites are a lot more user-friendly and do provide a bit more choice. However when our tiny school, Inquiry Hub Secondary was built, our cofounding principal, now an Assistant Superintendent, decided that the school needed a different look online and we chose to build an Edublogs site, based off of WordPress. Our website looks nothing like any of the other schools in our district. And, we use it quite differently than most school do.

Two examples of how we use our website differently are that we emphasize the kind of projects students do on our website and we provide our PAC – Parent Advisory Committee with a very flexible WordPress blog as their ‘Parent Portal’.

Yesterday I got a call from our district principal in charge of the website transition for our schools and it was a great conversation where we discussed if our school was going to make the transition. It wasn’t a directive, it was a conversation. It was an opportunity for our school to participate or to keep autonomy.

I can’t express how much this is appreciated. It is challenging for large organizations to allow this kind of freedom, and often small, unique programs need to ‘toe the line’ and follow along so that operationally things go smoothly. For example, we are a Microsoft Office school district and if one school wanted to be something different, it could be a nightmare for tech support to provide trained support. However, all of our high schools already use Edublogs, so our website choice isn’t adding anything new with respect to support.

So, we were given a choice. It might seem like a small choice, but I understand the challenges to complexity it creates and I truly value being in an organization that provides such choice when it can.

Scope and sequence

As a principal of two very different schools, I juggle a lot of timelines and deadlines that are different for each school. My ‘regular’ school isn’t so regular, being very small and having year-long courses unlike the rest of the district high schools that have 2 semesters. My online school has thousands of part-time students, and 3 different funding periods compared to just one for all the other schools in the district. For that school, I have over 30 teachers in the 8 other high schools that have to meet different funding criteria for me compared to what they have to do for courses they teach in the high school… Everywhere I turn, I have timelines, expectations, and differentiated learning opportunities that are not the same in other schools.

As I approach retirement in the next few years, I realize that my position would be somewhat overwhelming to come into. This is true mostly around understanding the timing of everything needed to be done. The reality is that there are many people I know that could step into my job and do great things… but they would also feel like the first year was only about managing all the pieces and not about actually leading.

So, I’m starting the year with a focus on scope and sequence. It’s time for me to track all the timelines that for me are on autopilot, and I just get done. I’m going to lay out a year long plan for items and procedures that I normally just do, with a specific focus on the things that are not part of the usual processes that happen in other schools.

I enjoy the environments I’ve worked in with these two schools. There is a lot of opportunity for out-of-the-box thinking. With that comes some diverse needs and skills that really fit outside of ‘normal’. A detailed scope and sequence will help make the transition into this role much smoother than it would be without one.

Abe’s Boxes, a video Daily-Ink (and double post)

Too tired to write this all down, so here’s today’s post in video format.

Update: So, this will be a double post, two-days-in-one… The video was created yesterday, but at over 1 gig, I was having issues loading it to YouTube from my phone (it was taking way too long), and after a long shower I’m finally putting it on my laptop. I am too tired to get this done now, at almost 4am, it can load onto YouTube while I sleep. So, the above video is for August 17, and below is my August 18th Daily-Ink.

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Today was absolutely exhausting. Loaded 164 boxes, each about 45lbs onto a UHaul and then took it to a recycling plant. I was able to use a dolly to get them on the truck 4 at a time…

But had to toss them out one at a time…

Doing the math, that’s 7,380 pounds of paper I threw out, and unfortunately there’s still a bit left behind.

Then after getting back to my parent’s house the basement cleanup started. We filled a friend’s trailer…

Truck…

And even his cab…

With everything from steel rods, a plasma cutter, tool boxes, solar panels, magnets. And more power transformers and duplicates of tools than any one person should ever own. There are two things my dad did that were beyond compulsive: one was printing and filing things he had read; and the other was compulsively buying far more of an item than he needed. If he needed one item, he bought three. If he needed 5, he bought 20. I wish that was an exaggeration, but it really isn’t.

My friend and sister joked that the local Staples and hardware stores were going to struggle financially now that my dad is gone.

I’m so glad that I was able to help out and get this stuff cleared out. It was cathartic, but also a little sad. First dumping his files that he spent decades collecting, then sending items off to auction likely for pennies on the dollar for what he paid. I’m glad the family is getting together for a memorial in October because I wouldn’t want the memory of today to linger.

Off to bed soon. I catch a plane back to Vancouver in the morning, then head directly to the ferry to visit my daughter I’ve barely seen since she returned from France in June. Tomorrow is going to be another busy day!

A messy desk

I’m not good with paper. I tend to have a desk filled with not-so-neatly piled papers. The piles accumulate and accumulate, then about 2 months after my last desk clean I look for something on my desk and I can’t find it, and that’s my cue that it’s time to clean it up again. Before that point, someone can ask me for something and I instantly find it, even if I have to go down a few layers. But when I have to start searching, not knowing where something is, that is no longer acceptable.

I also write notes on post-its and tend to have anywhere from 6-12 of them on the go at any time. It’s not efficient, and could be a lot more effective. I’ll find a first name and a phone number on a post-it note and have no memory of who the person is, and what I called them about. But, I didn’t throw the post-it away and it’s on my desk two months later.

I remember taking an organization course online that taught a filling system where everything went into a monthly folder. I failed to use this effectively for about 3 months, but the useless folders stayed on my desk for many more months after that… just a constant reminder of my inability to use them effectively.

Starting this coming week I’m going to try something new. I’m going to set two daily alarms, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon. The morning alarm will be to tidy my post-its so that I have a maximum of two post-its on my desk, with one being my ‘To-Do’ list for the day. My afternoon alarm will be to organize any paper that came my way, and get it in a folder or off my desk.

I’m setting a calendar reminder to look back at this post 2 months from now, that should be long enough to see what my desk looks like after after I do the clean-up on Monday.