The benefits of district leaders being visible in their district

By: Kevin Dooley

In July 2016, I’ve moved to the district office level and no longer work at a school as a principal. To make matters more complicated I work in a completely new district – most adults didn’t know who I was, and certainly none of the students knew me. I’ve always believed that relationships come first, before solid relationships the work with curriculum, classroom design, thoughtful integration of technology and anything else really can’t happen with fidelity.

Our students are our business…our bottom line…our revenue stream – they’re the reason we work in education and just because we work in the central office doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know any of them, or any of them know us. We should break the myth that the central office is the ivory tower.

Source: District Leaders Should Get Out of Their Office! – Finding Common Ground – Education Week

I’m very guilty of this, and need to do a better job of getting out of the office and into the schools and classrooms. That is, until I get the robotics club to build me a virtual presence device like Sheldon’s:

“Be a lamb, will you?”