It may be hard to believe we are already in the middle of October. For me, it seems like just a couple of days ago, I was in shorts and boat shoes playing with my sons in the sand with the ocean breeze around us.

What a change a season brings.

With the onset of fall, there has been a clear shift from the heat of the summer to the brisk bite of autumn air. The beach gear is packed up for next year, and in its place, sweaters, cardigans and jackets help combat this new, chilly weather.

We layer up in the fall.

So, too, do we layer up in school leadership.

Our forecast in the classroom will continue to call for layers of support for children and their learning—opportunities for enrichment and intervention. Last month, I shared the importance that we all Empower, Trust, and Verify.

With that as our foundation, let’s add layers to that leadership model:

Anticipation – Successful leaders have a grasp on their school dynamics and continuously assess the culture of the building. Anticipating needs and tweaks (minor or significant) play a major role in preparation for mid-year mastery. Anticipate the blind spots.

Adaptability – Leaders are flexible and adaptive. Our reactions to unexpected changes and developments set the tone for our team, teachers, and of course, the environment we provide for students. Are you being adaptive for the sake of success? Remain adaptive, always.

Act – Let’s not wait until the third nine weeks to illustrate the courage to make instructional and structural changes for children. Though our data sets still may be limited this early in the year, your day-to-day work with your students, your classroom visits and team/content meetings have provided other forms of formative information. You and your leadership team are decision-makers.

Let me also add that leadership layers, much like our fall choice of clothing layers, are not always needed at once. The weather hasn’t yet called for a jacket and a sweater per say; you may just need one and not the other. So, maybe anticipation is more prevalent for you in your building right now.

Conversely, just like a stray cold streak causes us to break out the winter gear earlier than expected, this year you too may have started off the month of October already adapting a great deal more than you predicted.

Whatever the climate in your building calls for, let me encourage you to layer up today and continue to make a difference for students and teachers every day.

By the way, a suit jacket happens to be my layer of choice…not to mention, I can’t wait to pull out my sweater vests.

Happy fall, team! Leadership matters…layers do too!

Rashard Wright serves as the Chief Schools Officer in the Department of School Leadership. Wright pens the monthly Leadership Matters column for Kaleidoscope, which you can find posted on the 15th of each month. For more leadership insight, follow Wright on Twitter @VAeducatorRJW or find the hashtag #LeadershipMatters.

 

 

 

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