Faculty Meetings and School Improvement

Seckman is on the brink of a new age.  We recently had our monthly faculty meeting.  It's a regular event that at times has inspired and other times caused people to wish for the Apocalypse.  Our meetings have had several formats and various seating arrangements.  We have had meetings in the cafeteria, the library, the band room and even the multipurpose room.  Some meetings have had elaborate productions using high dollar technology or some that have barely had an agenda.  We have had meetings that have included outside speakers of varying notoriety and meetings that I have been the only one to speak - a feeble attempt to be a "sage on the stage."  But our most recent monthly event was by far the most productive, most challenging, personally demanding, positively professional event that a faculty meeting has ever attempted to embody.  Our meeting lasted about 30 minutes longer than normal, yet there were no complaints.  Our meeting involved sitting on hard chairs around crowded tables, yet no one complained.  There was no food -no drinks - no candy or snacks of any kind, yet no one complained.  What this meeting had was an opportunity for myself to step aside and listen to a staff of professionals share their wisdom with each other.  To discuss excellence in the classroom, what that looks like in our school, what it doesn't look like, how to fix those things that hold our school back and most importantly how to move our school forward.  We have been reading the book "The Fred Factor."  The staff completed a jigsaw activity where they shared their ideas, feelings, and goals about each chapter of the book.  Then they shared these ideas with fellow colleagues in other groups.  There was a genuine discourse among professionals about the things that make education and schools important in the lives of our young people today.  I said in the outset that we were on the brink of a new age.  This is an age where staff are engaged in learning and sharing with each other. It's an exciting place to be and a challenging place to be ... staff meetings will have to change if school improvement and staff development is going to become sustained.  Hip Hip Hooray for the SHS teachers and the huge step we have taken together in improving our school and the opportunities for our kids!