You Can't Find What You Need If You Don't Know What You're Looking For
J. Renee Gordon
We offer K-12 schools & educators * Recruiting & Retention Best Practices Training * Pro-active Building Leadership Recruiting * Out-source Recruiter on Call * Career Navigation
Without a doubt the most difficult thing that I do as a recruiter, be it with a client or with a candidate is helping them to define what it is that they are looking for.
A candidate may know that it is time to move on but what they are looking to move to other than up, becomes the challenge. " More responsiblity" is a good goal but it tells me nothing. Helping them figure out their ultimate goal and then developing the road map is the initial step. I have seen educators who were in no way prepared promoted because the district lacked another choice or because they met "the profile" which means they looked like the students in the school.
With schools and districts the shift is quantum. Schools post the most generic job descriptions. If a district has multiple opening for the same grade level in various schools they use the same post. There is zero consideration given to who the students are, who the staff is and what that schools challanges are.
No where is this more apparent than in the search for leadership especially at the building level. This is easy to see when we look at the success or lack there of, of turnaround principals. Of the schools who recieved funding from the $3.55 billion in SIG grants, 1/3 of the schools improved, 1/3 stayed the same and the last 1/3 actually got worse, as if that was even humanly possible.
It really all starts with when you know what it is that you are looking for. The following is a posting from what a district was looking for in their turnaround principals.
A turnaround principal skillfully demonstrates . . .
● the competence to collect and analyze appropriate data sources to inform decisions to achieve outstanding results in a short amount of time;
● the versatility to be able to anticipate and respond to the changes related to curriculum and instruction at all levels (district, state, national)
● the commitment to allocating higher percentages of funds towards the direct instruction of students and job-embedded, teacher-specific professional development (classroom-based coaching);
● the capacity to rigorously create and sustain a well-orchestrated system of ongoing data collection and analysis to inform a continuously responsive and adaptive system of tiered instruction attentive to students’ specific academic needs;
● the talent to skillfully use student and skill specific data to inform the evaluation and pursuit of instructional practices – used both across the school and by individual teachers – that directly benefit student learning;
● the motivation and drive necessary to ensure that instructional-specific conversations are taking place throughout the school through practices intentionally designed to focus conversations and efforts on improving the instruction of every teacher (including the ability to motivate others and positively influence their behaviors);
● the talent to build a professional environment that is one of: *mutual respect *teamwork, including shared leadership and responsibility *accountability;
● the skill to foster collective responsibility by mobilizing structure, strategies, practices, and the use of resources for the ongoing evaluation and improvement of instruction;
● the desire and ability to work in a multicultural, urban setting and develop a rapport with students, staff, parents, and the school community;
● commit to the relentless pursuit of increasing staff and student learning and innovation
● prioritize student-learning needs over the customs, routines, and established relationships that can stand in the way of necessary change;
● the power to stay visibly focused and self assured despite the barrage of personal and professional attacks common during turnaround;
That's right, they want one person to do 12 things well. I must commend the district though as state's DOE list of what they looks for a turnaround principal has 15 areas and just for good measure they look for that individual to have the confidence to lead and possess in 5 additional compentencies
To demonstrate how well this model is working in this district for 2015-16 7% of their students were proficent in all subjects on state test. In 2016-17 it was 6% and by 2017-18 is was 5 %.
These long wish lists do not set clear expectations either in what skills this person needs to have demonstrated or what the initial steps to success are. They ask too much of one person. At E Squared we limit the number of items in both areas to 3 or 4. When you go through this exercise you will know exactly who it is that you are looking for and they will know exactly what to do to put them, the school and their students on their path to success...or at least competency.