Last week was an intense week for staff at our school. There was a lot of different activities going on, and a lot of stressful situations on top of that.
Luckily, we had our monthly staff circle on Thursday, which largely deals with interpersonal conflict. Then, the following day we had a scheduled staff development day on Friday, and finally Monday we had our regular once-a-week staff meeting.
The staff circle was intense! The staff is really honest with each other when they need to be, and we got to the core of several conflicts and resolved them.
Then the staff development day we had another meeting, this time a brunch held at the intern house (my house). The most important part of the discussion for me was talking about the way our meetings go. They always drag on so long, and can be very frustrating at times. But we came up with several ways to try to make them better including: taking breaks, prioritizing agenda items, reading off all announcements at the beginning, and having a rotating facilitator each week. We have had a meeting since and it went so smoothly. It really feels refreshing.
We also did a go round and each shared how we help ourselves from getting burnt out. It felt really good for me to come out with the feeling I had been holding that I wasn't connecting with two of the downstairs (older student) staff and that they didn't like me. I just told them that I want to get to know them better, etc. and that felt really good too.
The downstairs staff also resolved to gather at least on Monday mornings to discuss all the weeks activities and to coordinate roles and trips and such.
Well, that is all I have to say about staff development. I don't know how to catch the essence of how important or worthwhile it was, but it has certainly made a difference in the teacher's interactions at school
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