Erin Bigler Administrative Internship
Do what you feel in your heart to be right–for you’ll be criticized anyway. —Eleanor Roosevelt
Human Resource Management Artifacts
Reflection & Learning
Through the Human Resources class at Saint Mary’s, I learned the importance of hiring high quality teachers in schools and the value of putting time and resources into retaining good staff members. I never thought about the financial impact of losing good teachers and how much it costs a school district to onboard new teachers. Additionally, it is a very expensive, lengthy, and complicated process to get rid of a teacher who is underperforming.
After finishing the HR course, I had the opportunity to be involved in various interview teams, both at the elementary and secondary levels. Insights I took away from the interview included having the right people represented on the interview panel, and ensuring that the principal has an organized system for interviewing, and knowing how to ask effective questions during the interview. I was also reminded that anything written down during an interview becomes a record that can be requested to be seen by the candidate - something to remember to remind my own team, when I am in the position of leading interviews. Lastly, I learned that administrators must use due diligence, and take extra steps like contacting multiple references, or using followup phone calls when necessary, to make the best decision for their school.
A separate experience that was also very beneficial was conducting classroom observations with my principal. I was surprised at how powerful it was to observe a teacher alongside a partner. The followup conversation about our observations was really powerful because we both had different perspectives - we each noticed different things about the lesson. Without the shared experience, my own reflection wouldn’t have been as deep. Allowing teachers to pair up and visit a classroom together is something I would like to try within my instructional coaching practice, too.
My biggest takeaway from the evaluation process was within the post observation meeting. I noticed my principal often delivered critical feedback in the form of a question, instead of delivering prescriptive advice. This places the cognitive load on the teacher, in terms of what they might do differently next time. Often, the teacher knew exactly what could be changed without needing to be told.
Staff Observations
I had the opportunity to conduct several observations with my principal throughout the year. Here, you can see one of the evaluative observations forms my principal allowed me to complete.
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Another way we observed staff was by conducting informal walkthroughs. This year, one of our goals is ensuring that guided reading is happening in every classroom. In order to support teachers in implementing guided reading, we used the walkthrough form, pictured below, to guide our classroom observations and collect instructional data.
Interviewing
Hiring a teacher is a difficult decision that cannot be made lightly by a school administrator. The advice I have heard again and again is do not cut corners. Getting rid of a poor hire can be timely and cost a school district hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Insights I took away from the interview process included having the right people represented on the interview panel, having an organized system for interviewing (a clear process was outlined by the administrator, including emphasis how how the decision would be made, and interview materials were provided to the team). I was impressed with Arthur's idea to have our media specialist take each candidate on a short tour of the school. This gave the candidates a chance to connect with a potential colleague in a relaxed atmosphere, which can also be very telling, and gave the courtesy of allowing candidates to avoid bumping into each other in the front office area. I was also importantly reminded that anything written down during an interview becomes a record that can be requested to be seen by the candidates - something to remember to remind my own team, when I am in the position of leading interviews.
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I have linked several sets of interview questions my principals have used to hire candidates. These will be helpful resources when the time comes to organize and conduct my own interviews.