I spent my day today in a training for team leaders for our cluster (our school district is so large we are broken into eight clusters). On the whole there was a lot of good information and I didn't feel like my time was wasted. To be honest, I had expected to feel that way so I was pleasantly surprised.
By the end, however, I walked away pretty peeved. Today's training included teachers from all the schools in our cluster, elementary, middle, and high schools. In many ways I think we are expected to be doing many of the same things.
When I was last team leader, many years ago now, it was a pretty basic role, mostly a connection between the team and the administration. I don't think that's what it is now. I think team leaders are expected to truly lead their teams, to plan meetings, to collaborate with the administration, reading and math coaches, counselors, parent liaisons, and anyone else who might need to work with the team, and to attend other meetings. In other words I think it is a much more demanding job than it was in the past.
I don't actually think that's a bad thing. I think there is a lot of potential in that.
Middle and high school team leaders, typically called department heads, have extra time and/or money to make the job easier. Elementary team leaders do not. We are expected to do our regular full-time job just like everyone else and the team leader responsibilities on top of that. And that is why I'm peeved.
6 comments:
i'm peeved along with you, that is just unfair....talk to your union rep
I would be peeved too!!! How is that fair in any way?!?
Any opportunities to bring this to the attention of the powers that be?
ya ya's mom & Sarah, Thanks for your sympathy. It is greatly appreciated.
Paul, I mentioned my concerns on our survey at the end of the day. Not much but it felt like I was doing something. For the moment I'm holding off to see how things go. I have enough years in the system and enough weight to feel like I can speak up. I'm giving it a bit of time.
I would also suggest that the training was not as ok as it seemed at times. Both presenters were smooth (more or less) and so things "felt" good, but when I consider the actual content, I am not sure that I walked away with much more than I already possessed. The sum of this thing was less than the parts.
Mr. Chair, in many ways I completely agree with you. I guess the biggest thing I walked away with was a better sense of what was expected of us as teams and of me as team leader. That doesn't really seem like something that should have taken an entire day, though.
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