A most heartbreaking moment for a principal rises when a parent asks “Is Mr. Jones a good teacher? I want to know because my Susie needs a very good teacher”. With no place to run or hide, a principal knows Mr. Jones is not among the best teachers in the school. I’ve been there and I plead guilty to prevarication. Prevarication is a long and uncommon word to describe how we answer such a question and it hurts to use it. The angst deepens because we know Susie and she really does need our most talented teachers. So, the principal prevaricates and speaks to Mr. Smith’s middling strengths with enough enthusiasm that Susie’s mom nods her thanks.
But we know the truth. Not all teachers are created equally. A school faculty has all-star, backbone, and assignment filler teachers. Schools bask in the excellence of the all-stars, work the heck out of the backbones, and carefully use the roles of the fillers.
I will not go into depth to describe the attributes of each category of teachers. Instead, please consider a continuum of high to low on three professional traits: empathy and care for all children, engagement in the art and science of teaching, and enlightened classroom performance.
| Empathy for all children | High | Sometime | Low |
| Engaged in the art and science of teaching | High | Sometime | Low |
| Enlightened classroom performance | High | Sometime | Low |
Personalize this by considering all the teachers in your personal history – your elementary, middle level, secondary and even post-high school instructors. How does your memory distribute your teachers on these three traits? The fact that you remember some more clearly than others, probably the all-stars and sadly the fillers are most memorable, states the case. All schools have all-star, backbone, and filler teachers.
Principals and personnel directors have work to do
Let the all-stars produce strong learning outcomes. Principals and all-star teachers collaborate to cause the most talented instruction to interact with the most students. Unless there is an ego problem, all-stars don’t need direction. We exploit their talent for enlightened teaching, instructional leadership, and curricular planning. Incidentally, it is true that some all-stars shun leadership and curricular opportunities; they just want to teach. So be it and thank you. We use their luster to add to the reputation of the school. The bottom line is we do what it takes to sustain an all-star’s happiness and satisfaction and reap the rewards of their exemplary work. This is not “babying”; it is respectful recognition and appreciation. We give all-stars as many opportunities to work with our Susies as we can while understanding that children of all abilities want and should be in an all-star’s classroom.
Grow backbone teachers, the heart of the faculty, in their instructional and curricular skills. Principals coordinate with and coach their backbone teachers through meaningful professional development. Respectful relations are essential with backbone teachers, because they do so many things well and deserve constant reinforcing commendations. They also have large potential for growth and Improvement of their teacher talents. We coordinate their pursuit of masters degrees, national board certification, professional workshops, and leadership of district initiatives. Coordination is required because, backbone teachers fill so many roles in the school, they face potential burn out. We weave backbone teachers into the decision making and program development of the school so that the strength of our faculty is invested in the school’s ongoing work.
Our administrative work is to cause all children to be nurtured as learners and to learn from their lessons by gathering the best faculty of teachers we can. Given annual changes in the faculty, the availability of highly talented and talented teachers makes a huge difference in student success and satisfaction.
Principals play general manager with the fillers – grow or go. We are careful with fillers’ instructional assignments. Lackluster teaching can impede the overall teaching enterprise as well as stunt student progress. We are thankful that many fillers are first to accept necessary ancillary assignments such as taking tickets at athletic events, selling in a concession stand, and supervising field trips. They do this to demonstrate their value to the faculty. Principals, however, look more clinically at their empathy and care for all children, the art and science of their teaching, and their achievement of student learning resulting from their teacher performance. Fillers have demonstrated deficits in these three key traits.
Fillers do not go unnoticed. The majority of parent and student complaints about school are associated with filler teachers. Principals observe what critics say about filler teachers. Too many worksheets. Too much sit time. Incomplete lessons that don’t bring student learning to closure. Impersonal student relationships. Lectures or non-directed student projects. Too much lag time in class periods waiting for the bell to ring.
School is a dynamic organism, and its faculty changes every year. Teachers go and teachers come. Ironically, this is the natural sequence that allows principals to upgrade their faculty by hiring an all-star or backbone when a filler leaves. Another force in the dynamics happens when principals take purposeful action to cause a filler teacher to become a backbone teacher or to leave the faculty. Principals construct and diligently supervise tactical plans for a filler’s professional improvement. As a general manager, end their employment to create the opportunity to employ an all-star or backbone teacher.
We have urgency in our work
Susie and every child in school deserves a talented teacher all the time. Principals place Susies with as many all-star and backbone teachers as possible. However, some grade level and course assignments will be with a filler teacher. Some refer this to an “unluck of the draw”. But there should not be luck or unluck in Susie’s teacher assignments. If she isn’t getting quality instruction, she is falling further behind because of her starting points.
A principal’s work with a filler teacher is “pull up your socks” time for both. For teachers, pulling up the socks means finding ways to improve their empathy and care for all children, increasing and sharpening their teaching skills, and delivering complete lessons that lead to measurable student learning. For principals, pulling up the socks means either improving a filler’s work to the backbone level or ending the filler’s employment in the school. In most schools, this is a two-year work effort because of the time and documentation required to terminate a teacher’s employment.
Truth be told, executing a grow or go plan for a filler teacher takes persistence and often the many other issues of schooling allow the filler teacher to slide into yet another contract year. After a time, a status quo emerges, and the filler reaches 10+ years on the faculty and a grow or go process becomes harder to enact.
The final truth is this for principals: moving a filler teacher off the faculty roster makes room for an all-star or a backbone teacher to join the roster. Terminating employment is a business-like process that seems counter to everything else we do in school, but it is necessary work. Its effects on instruction and schooling for children can be a revelation. So, pull up your socks to ensure all the Susies in your school a talented teacher who is empathetic and caring, is a skilled instructor using an array of the arts and sciences of teaching, and who moves Susie’s learning needle in a positive direction.