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This article was developed with contributions from SchoolWorks Director of Quality Reviews, Jay Adams.

 

The moment before a new school year kicks off holds promising opportunities. The challenge, according to research summarized by Instruction Partners, is that most principals spend only 15–20 percent of their day on instruction, with the rest pulled toward the school’s operational work.

That gap isn't a failure of leadership. It’s simply what happens when the day-to-day demands of a school are loud and immediate, while the big-picture work is quiet and easy to postpone. The good news is that this gap can close, and the start of a new school year is the best possible time to close it.

Whether you’re a new school leader or a seasoned veteran, the start of a brand-new school year brings excitement and joy and—absolutely—a little anxiety. The beginning of the school year can feel like standing in the middle of a forest, surrounded by trees.

The trees might look like: a teacher needs help with a schedule. A parent has a question. A student’s transportation plan isn’t working. Someone needs a key. The copier is down. The master schedule has a problem. And somehow, you’re supposed to think about long-term instructional improvement while simultaneously figuring out where the extra desks went.

But effective school leadership requires something more than managing what is directly in front of us. It requires getting above the trees.

Getting above the trees doesn’t mean ignoring the day-to-day work. It means creating enough space to see the larger landscape, identify what matters most, and recognize connections between seemingly unrelated decisions so that today’s work is moving the school toward where it needs to be.

Take a few minutes now to consider these five key priorities that can help your leadership team stay ahead of the school year’s inevitable daily noise.

 

1. Establish a Crystal-Clear Instructional Vision

Before the year gets moving at full speed, make sure you can answer a deceptively simple question:

What should great teaching and learning look like in our school?

Your instructional vision should be clear enough that every educator can articulate it, and it should connect directly to your organization’s goals, school improvement plan, strategic priorities, and the needs of your students.

Make those connections explicit before the school year begins.

What are we trying to accomplish? What will students experience as a result? What instructional practices will help us get there? And perhaps most importantly, how will teachers know we’re making progress?

A clear vision becomes the compass for the year. It helps your team distinguish between work that moves the school forward and work that simply keeps everyone busy.

 

2. Spend Time in Classrooms (Not Just Offices).

If you want to understand what’s happening in your school, go where the learning is happening. People before paperwork. Anything that has to do with interactions with students, staff, or stakeholders, do it during the day and attempt to save paperwork and operational tasks for mornings or after school.

Frequent classroom visits allow leaders to see instruction up close, notice patterns, celebrate effective practice, and identify opportunities for support. Not every visit needs to be formal. Some of the most valuable information comes from simply stopping by, asking students what they’re learning, and seeing teachers in action.

The key is consistency.

Create a formal and informal observation schedule, and stick to it. When classroom visits become a regular part of the school culture, they create opportunities for ongoing conversations about instruction, student engagement, and professional growth.

Remember: you can’t lead instruction from a distance.

 

3. Protect Collaborative Planning Time

Great instruction rarely happens in isolation.

Teachers need time to plan together, examine student work, analyze data, share strategies, and solve problems. Yet collaborative planning is often one of the first things sacrificed when the calendar gets crowded.

Collaboration is important, so be sure to put it on the calendar and protect it.

Establish consistent weekly planning time across grade levels, content areas, departments, or teams. Then set clear expectations for how that time will be used:

• What should teams accomplish?
• What pre-work (data, instructional plans, student assessments) should they bring?
• What are the desirable outcomes (aligned lesson plans, small group assignments, planned common assessments)?
• What will move the work forward (educator commitments, next steps)?
• Who will champion the work?

Simply putting teachers in a room together doesn’t guarantee meaningful collaboration. Productive collaboration requires protected time, clear purpose, and thoughtful facilitation.

 

4. Build Relationships Ahead of Needful Moments

August is about more than getting the building ready. It’s about getting the people ready.

The relationships you build with your staff at the beginning of the year will influence how they experience your leadership when the year gets complicated. Trust established in August can pay dividends when November gets busy, January brings challenges, or difficult conversations arise.

So, leaders: pull out the happy cart. Roll into teachers’ classrooms during that first week with a selection of snacks and drinks. Cater lunch if possible, or better yet, see if your PTA can help make it happen. Be visible during those first professional learning days. Greet people. Learn names. Ask questions. Listen.

And don’t stop there.

Build team-building activities into the year. Celebrate successes. Recognize great work. Create opportunities for people to connect that have nothing to do with a spreadsheet, an initiative, or a deadline.

These things may seem small. They aren’t. People are more willing to follow a leader when they know that leader sees them as people, not simply as positions on an organizational chart.

Use those first few weeks to communicate: “I’m glad you’re here, and we’re in this together.”


 

5. Look at the Data Before You Need to Problem-Solve

Data conversations often become urgent after something has already gone awry.

A student is struggling. Attendance is a concern. Test scores come back lower than expected. A grade level is underperforming. Suddenly, everyone wants to know what the data says.

But by then, the data is telling you about the past. Use beginning-of-year data to help anticipate what might happen next.

Yes, state assessment data can be painful to look at. But you asked students to take the test, so use the data.

Student diagnostic information, attendance patterns, enrollment and attrition, discipline data, previous assessment results, and other indicators will help your team understand where students are starting.

Then use that information to ask better questions:

• Who needs additional support?
• Where are the instructional gaps?
• What patterns are emerging? And what’s the root cause?
• What can we do now rather than waiting until later?

The goal isn’t to predict the future perfectly. It’s to recognize patterns early enough to act.

 

Get Above the Trees

There will always be trees. The unexpected email, the schedule change, the staffing issue, the parent concern, the technology problem, and the meeting that somehow couldn’t have been an email.

That’s school leadership. But if we spend all our time responding to what is immediately in front of us, we can lose sight of the larger landscape.

So, as you begin this school year, find opportunities to get above the trees.

Step back. Look at the vision. Look at instruction. Look at the time you’re protecting for collaboration. Look at the relationships you’re building. Look at the data that can tell you where your students are headed.

Then ask yourself: Are the things taking up our time actually moving us toward the school we want to become? You’ve got this.

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To help you get started today, we have developed a free resource to support your work:
Access the SchoolWorks New School Year Leadership Planning Tool 
 

This article was developed with contributions from SchoolWorks Director of Quality Reviews, Jay Adams.
 

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SchoolWorks provides leadership and school supports to help educators and learners succeed. We welcome conversations anytime. Feel free to reach out to us at hello@schoolworks.org. We cannot wait to meet you.