Sarah Stolfi

Posted on 12/27/13

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On 12/08/13, Agree or Disagree? wrote:
> I have had principals who discouraged faculty from getting
> together in frequent faculty meetings, across-grade-level
> meetings, or other types of groupings for fear that they
> would become too unified and then rebel. Then I've had
> others who made time for teachers to be together and
> rearranged everything from schedules to furniture to
> encourage conversation among faculty. I recently heard
> someone say that a good leaders will always encourage his
> staff to become united, and that only a weak leader would
> fear the power of a united faculty. What do you think?
This is a very interesting scenario. For starters, a
positive work climate is established when staff feels
supported by their administration and time is allowed for
collaboration. I believe that teachers, faculty, and all
stakeholders should be allowed to collaborate. There needs
to be an appropriate amount of cross grade level and faculty
meetings to get the "business" of education done. An
administrator should not discourage a meeting that is
productive and effective. I certainly do not want to make
assumptions about the climate or culture of your building,
but is it possible that your building leadership is missing
the value of frequent faculty meetings? It appears that the
administration may not see the meetings as productive. If
the faculty is not providing the administration with the
agendas, minutes, outcomes and an invitation to the meetings
being held (for record keeping), then the administration may
perceive the teachers are united against them. This can
directly result in distrust of the faculty. The
administration cannot disagree with a meeting that is held
to promote student success, has a productive outcome and is
inclusive. I have attended meetings that are disorganized,
and have quickly turned into blame/complain and
socialization sessions. In the school where I teach, we
have established a professional learning community model
where teachers and administrators have more productive face
time with each other. Each faculty member is assigned to an
interest group related to our school's theme or their
classroom teaching content. We are also assigned to content
and grade level data teams, as well. This has virtually
reduced our need for full school faculty meetings. Now we
meet in smaller groups and report out to the whole school.
This has increased our ability to handle school and student
issues timely and effectively. As a school this has
certainly changed our culture and most of our teachers say the
climate has improved also. Therefore, instead of a monthly
faculty meeting we now utilize this time to hold professional
development seminars where teachers share and discuss
educational trends and effective teaching strategies. This has
created an environment where there are performance gains for
all.

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