c) Extended School Leadership

A school is staffed with highly educated and dedicated teachers. Teachers will generally have earned college degrees in their subject areas. Many will have masters degrees as well. If you can unleash the potential of your teaching force, they will do amazing things for their students.

Think about it. In many schools, teaching is a solitary act. The teacher struggles alone daily to meet the needs of his/her classes, including children with learning or physical disabilities, brilliant and gifted children, children who don't speak English, children who live on the street, children whose parents are involved and anxious, children who are bored, etc. Teachers also, by their very nature, love to learn and love to grow. They did spend all that time going to school to become certified. A system that locks its teachers up alone behind the classroom door with their students' very challenging learning needs is unlikely to see much progress toward improved student achievement. That may be one reason that large numbers of very talented teachers leave the profession in the first five years.

The challenge of the school principal is how to tap into this enormous resource of knowledge and talent that rests within your teaching staff. Think about how to provide leadership opportunities for teachers. Here are some ideas to get you started:
Find out who has particular expertise in an area--literacy, math, science, technology, etc.--and provide incentives and time for those teachers to share their expertise with others.

Encourage and provide time for teachers to observe in other teachers' classrooms.

Provide training on peer coaching skills that help teachers talk about their craft with each other in a non-threatening and reflective way.

Use the bulk of staff meeting time for topics, trainings, and discussions related to instructional issues; have your teacher leaders plan and orchestrate these meetings.

Consider purchasing release time for teacher leaders--one period at a secondary school; one day a week (with a shared teaching assignment) at an elementary school--for planning, coaching, training, working in new teacher classrooms, etc.

Teacher leaders in the school are a part of the expanded leadership team, bringing the classroom teacher's perspective to problem-solving and decision-making at the site. Their presence will bring richer discussions, a broader scope of interest, and a classroom focus to leadership team deliberations.