Principal Support

Although an Aloha Principals’ Growth and support group is not required for participation in Learning with Aloha, it is very highly recommended, as principaling is one of the most important and difficult jobs in education, and principals both need and deserve peer-group exchange of ideas and moral support. The following suggestions are made on the basis of extensive experience with such groups in a number of different states:

An Aloha Principals’ Group with members from diverse schools within one large district can work quite well if it has the blessings of the district or area superintendent and if participation is strictly voluntary. However, groups with members from several nearby and diverse districts can be even more enriching, especially if there are two or three principals from each district who can travel to and from their Aloha Principals’ Group meetings together. Traveling together affords them more time to think about and integrate their learnings. About 8 to 12 members in a group is usually best.

If at all possible, start with an overnight retreat in a natural setting, such as near a beach or woods. At your first meeting, focus upon getting to know one another as persons as well as professionals. Take plenty of time for really getting to know one another, even though members may be from the same district. Such sharing will pay great dividends to you and your school, probably for years.

Rotate your monthly or twice-monthly meetings among members’ schools. At least two hours need to be devoted to each meeting. If you have not done it already at your initial retreat, the first regular meeting should include ground-rule generation. The following are suggested starter ground rules, but they can be modified by the group at any time:

            1. Host principal mails a suggested agenda ahead of time and validates it at start of meeting.
            2. Host principal facilitates discussions, helping everyone have a fair chance to talk, etc.
            3. Start on time and end on time
            3. No cross conversations. Only one person speaks at a time
            4. Keep everything constructive.
            5. All members are responsible for maintaining ground rules, not just the host principal.

Experience indicates that Aloha Principals’ agendas might do well to include the following:

            • Date, with starting and ending times.                       
            • Host Principal’s and School’s Name and Location (Map included).

            1. Greetings and suggested agenda validation (i.e., are agenda modifications needed?).
            2. School visit: Visit at least one classroom to observe good things happening there.
            3. What’s Happening? Each member has a few minutes to share good things at her/his school.
            4. How’s it going? Open discussion of how Learning with Aloha is going at each school.
            5. Host’s Choice: Host leads a discussion of any other growth and/or support topic desired.

Typically, principals’ growth and support members gain great professional and personal growth and satisfaction from their group. They want their staff members to experience the same kinds of growth and satisfaction and often help one another to develop ways for that to happen beyond the sharing of ideas and support that occurs among teachers who are cross-age learning teammates.

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Lesson Plans:
Teamwork - Language Arts - ESL - Mathematics - Science - Social Studies - The Arts -PE