Lori Perez - Pivot Principal: A Principals Guide to Excellence

Pivot Principal

A Principals Guide to Excellence

Lori Perez

Rowman & Littlefield Education

A division of

Rowman & Littlefield

Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Plymouth, UK

Published by Rowman & Littlefield Education

A division of Rowman & Littlefield

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom

Copyright 2014 by Lori Perez

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Perez, Lori, 1955

Pivot principal : a principals guide to excellence / Lori Perez.

pages cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-4758-0646-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4758-0647-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4758-0648-9 (electronic) 1. School principals. 2. School management and organization. I. Title.

LB2831.9.P47 2014

371.2'012dc23 2013040686

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America.

Contents

Preface

Todays principals feel overwhelmed by the journey that lies ahead of them. They sincerely want to transform their culture in order to shape consistently positive student, parent, teacher, staff experiences at their sites but the task feels daunting. With the right mind-set, their goals are achievable.

I am writing this book for the many good people who come into our position with great optimism but soon feel that they are merely paper shufflers and middlemen conveying the latest dictates from on high, tossed about in the sea of e-mails, phone calls, and social media. That, my friends, is not what being a leader is all about. Leaders successfully develop school cultures against tough odds. In short, the most critical of all leadership skills can be found in your own thinking. Developing and maintaining a compelling vision, having the guts and perseverance to withstand resistance, having a mind-set to be service centered and inspiring excellence through compassion and your own hard work is leadership.

To create a service-centered culture, start with a compelling vision, muster the courage within you, sharpen your analytical thinking skills, and fuel your passion for doing whats right.

This book is divided into eight chapters. The journey is in somewhat of a circle that takes you from reflecting on myths and truths about schools through taking action on planning, implementation, assessments, and developing your freedom to truly lead. The book pauses to acknowledge the challenges and joys within leadership, then picks up with cultivating your riches by providing a structure for success, one day at a time.

Throughout the book you will pause to take notes, reflect on your thinking, and plan for next steps. It is only through reflective practice and recognition of what works and doesnt work for you and your team that you will find ultimate success.

At the end you are guided to develop your own Just Do It plan. Without taking a first step, a marathon is never run. Now is your time to take hold of an opportunity to not just shape the lives of your immediate community but of the country and the world. Yes, you are that influential. Any less thinking is much too narrow in scope, limiting your ability to be effective in your position.

Acknowledgments

Without love, life, and laughter, a heart is devoid of songs. The simple fact is you have to follow your heart and believe. A leap of faith is powerful and takes deep courage. My freedom learned outside of the system can give power and strength to those still remaining within to take action for our future or be lost forever. Being the pivot is being bold enough to make a difference now.

Living in excellence with your learning community is understanding and working with the nuances of change every day; seeing it, breathing it, moving in the direction to benefit all children by being bold in your vision and passionate about inspiring those you influence. You , the principal, make the ultimate difference, not because of your knowledge of content or pedagogical theories, but by your ability to connect and collaborate with people. Connect and inspire for measurable, joyful results, be a pivot for excellence!

Thank you and with loving gratitude to:

Arthur A Perez

Taylor James Foster

And my mom, Verna Garey.... Because she has always believed in me, even

when I didnt believe in myself.

A Note to the Reader

I have three assumptions about you:

1. You are invested in the future of education

2. You want to personalize learning at every level of education

3. You are willing to work with the one person who can make the most positive gains in your school and your career, you .

If indeed my assumptions are correct about you, this book is for you; come on in. We will be exploring the immeasurable but palpable soft skills that will propel you to new heights of fulfillment and even joy including development your own good habits of thinking. You will learn how to work a plan for success. You will learn to recognize and develop the community riches of finance and staffing. You will be introduced to a structure for daily success to keep you balanced and flexible on the sand you will walk in everyday to practice excellence with team members across your community from students to leaders. Lets start with an analogy of water and education.

Think of a lake, a pond, even a fishbowl. All have the common elements of water, limits within and without its boundaries and life. The system of education is no different. The shiny surface is reflective of the life outside the body of water, not within itself. The ecosystem has no way of changing this pattern and function; to do so would mean the demise or collapse of the structure. A pebble dropped into the center or skipped from the edge ripples through the entire system, causing greatest change in the immediate area of impact and continuing throughout until the last of the waters edge has felt its movement. The water itself cannot cause change above or below its surface without the introduction of an outside force before settling back to the glossy surface reflecting the potential of the outside world. A lake, a pond, even a fishbowl, mirrors the life outside its defined confines, so like the educational system within which I have worked for nearly thirty-five years.

The reforms of recent years have demanded that the system look within itself to reflect upon rituals and routines that complete the balance of nature within education. The reforms have not given the life within the boundaries of this delicate ecosystem the tools to accomplish the task satisfactorily, for there are few real rituals and routines that truly are worth repeating. My favorite quote I heard so often in the district hallways is if the horse is dead, get off and walk. The truth is education as we know it simply cant get off its horse, its been dead a long time.

Built on the now failed top-down business models of old, education is simply stuck. The traditional public education model does not have a model outside the structure that has protected the weak, pushed out the bold, and forced the innovative to continually reinvent the same message. Eventually even the most optimistic will feel their spirit fade into resignation, submission or early retirement.