SchoolOps’ Post

As somebody who came into the School Operations world building the plane as I flew it, I always felt that I would have served my students better if there had been a program to train and coach me towards success. Now, SchoolOps gets to build this program, and I need my network to help me find the perfect candidates. The Washington State School Operations Leader Fellowship will train a cohort of Fellows through a year-long apprenticeship with an experienced Operations Leader at a high performing school. By shadowing this leader and participating in an intensive year's worth of SchoolOps professional learning and coaching, candidates will end the year prepared for an Operational Leadership role in a school. We'll continue to support our Fellows in their first year of being an Operational Leader, coaching them through how to be successful in this difficult role. This is a full circle moment for me, building the Fellowship I wish I'd had when I entered the School Operations world. There is no job more difficult and more fulfilling than making school excellent for students every single day. If you know anybody who would be great, please send them this posting! A systems-oriented teacher who is ready to improve the behind-the-scenes work that makes their school run? Perfect. A gets-stuff-done professional outside of education, ready to change tracks and want to explore bringing their skillset to a school community? Perfect. A school staff member working in an office, cafeteria, transportation, facilities, finance, or other operations role, who is ready to be developed and make the leap into leadership? Perfect. There are so many ways to be an amazing School Operations Leader, and we're excited to select a cohort of Fellows, give them the core skills they need, and them grow into a powerful and authentic leader. Thanks so much to Washington State Charter Schools Association (WA Charters) and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for all you've done to make this a reality. https://lnkd.in/gnZXKB3b

Washington friends - come join SchoolOps and our fellow Host Organizations on Friday, May 3 at the Airport Hilton to kick off this year's Washington State Charter Schools Association (WA Charters) conference with a Happy Hour! Link to register in the comments if you haven't already.

Great opportunity for somebody looking to dive into School Operations in the greater Seattle area! SchoolOps is supporting Why Not You with enrollment, so this role will be supported by our coaching and resources! https://lnkd.in/gaajjJE6

How do you evaluate and hold accountable bus drivers, janitors, IT specialists, cafeteria servers, maintenance workers and other school staff when you’ve never done their job? On any given day – even as schools teach students to read, build their character, and prepare them for careers and college – these institutions are undertaking the monumental task of keeping their operations running smoothly. They are providing transportation to many of their students to and from school (not to mention field trips, athletics, and special events). And if it’s a charter school they may be transporting students from all different parts of town. They’re feeding these students two meals, following strict guidelines to ensure that they meals qualify for federal reimbursement, and doing their best to make them as delicious and nutritious as possible. For some students, these are the only meals they're receiving that day. They’re maintaining a facility that is typically tens of thousands of square feet. And I can promise that you can’t even imagine all the creative ways students will find to put that facility to the test. They’re supporting staff and student technology, ensuring that hundreds of laptops are working properly safely able to access the internet, and every classroom has functioning projectors, document cameras, speakers, etc. They’re cleaning up any messes that students haven’t taken care of themselves, and making sure that no matter how hectic the day before was, students come to a clean palace of learning the next day. For my friends who can’t quite wrap their mind around it, I say that running the operations of a school is like throwing a 500-person wedding every day of the week for 9 months. And typically, the person who supervises all of these functions – A Director of Operations, other Operational Leader, or sometimes just the Principal – is also responsible for overseeing finance, budgeting, staff recruitment, student enrollment, procurement, inventory, events management, HR, daily logistics, attendance, scheduling, staff coverage, and standardized testing logistics. Thanks to Daniel Casselli and the BuyQ team for having me on their podcast to talk through strategies for leading a million different workstreams when you can’t be an expert on all of them. We discuss how to manage staff and vendors with responsibilities that we don’t have experience with, and maintain operational excellence across the board with the limited time we can dedicate to each workstream. Get in touch with me and SchoolOps if you want to think through how to train your team on these skills, and listen to all the episodes of Charter School Insider that you possibly can – it’s like free Professional Development for your ops team! https://lnkd.in/gXXynzFy

It has been a joy partnering with the Washington State Charter Schools Association (WA Charters) to create our state-wide Operations Community of Practice. As a school-based Director of Operations, this was the kind of high quality professional learning and peer community I needed so desperately. Now, with SchoolOps, I'm lucky to be able to provide this space to other operations professionals who are engaged in the difficult and often unsung work of making schools run smoothly. Take a look at this write-up of our Community of Practice, and get in touch if you're thinking about operations learning in your state, district, CMO, region, or school! https://lnkd.in/gTty7Bbr

I’ve always felt that it was important to do the work first, then talk about it. So now, having worked with teams from nearly 30 schools, having built great partnerships in both the traditional public school and the charter school world, and having refined a model for operations professional learning, it feels like time to launch a public presence. SchoolOps.com is now live! If you have SEAs, LEAs, CMOs, charter associations, regional education organizations, education support orgs, individual schools, or anybody else in your network that could benefit from high quality professional learning and coaching for their operations teams, please connect them to me! While most other staff members in a school will have access to a wide range of professional learning, and often attend a full two-year graduate school program, operations staff are often left to “figure it out”. It’s time to make sure that this critical component of school success receives the same investment we’d give to anything else driving student outcomes. Reach out anytime to chat through what professional learning might look like for your operations team!