C. Make your six-week calendar.

You have your focus areas and your goals. Now you need to put them into action. Take the school's six week calendar of events and see how to integrate your goals into that calendar.

Ensure that not only the school's activities are on your calendar, but also consider District activities which may involve you. District principals' meetings, steering committees, property or construction committees, governing board meetings, etc. You will not attend all of the activities or all of the meetings, but you will need to be aware that they are happening.

Putting together an overview on your six-week calendar will help you to see the scope of the task and to begin thinking about how to deploy your administrative team, how to communicate with all of the various parts of the school community, how to ensure that jobs are distributed evenly and take advantage of staff strengths and interests, and how to establish priorities for the use of your time.

As the principal you have a different purpose than you have had before, a new role to play at each event you attend. You will be taking a broader view of school operations than you have ever done. You will be looking for what staff need in order to do the best possible job and what students need to achieve at the highest levels.

As you make your calendar, ask yourself the questions. What days and times can you visit classrooms? How will you communicate important issues discussed at district meetings? What opportunities appear on your calendar already that will help you achieve your purpose? What other activities do you need to add? And what is the magic end-of-six-weeks date when you need to set aside personal time to review what actually happened and what you were able to accomplish during that time?