The Assistant Principal Podcast

Today I’m joined by Brenda Byrd, an Assistant Superintendent for School Leadership (and a former South Carolina Elementary Principal of the Year and a National Distinguished Principal). Brenda works for Greenville County School District in Greenville South Carolina. Brenda is here with us to talk about what makes an AP great.

 

“Gone are the days where you are mandating new initiatives across the board. It needs to be few and far between when we take that approach. We really need to start looking for those teacher leaders, those early adopters, who may be interested in doing work like that, and let them help you work out the kinks and look for those success opportunities.”

 

“You do have to have effective practices with operational and management to be able to transition more into that instructional leadership.”

 

“I think time management is one of the most important skill sets that effective leaders need to have, and that is so true for assistant principals”

 

“You really have to manage your time well because if you don’t, then you are just in response mode all the time, you are just being reactive. You have to plan proactively to schedule your responsibilities. Start by scheduling the most important tasks because if you don’t, if those are left as an afterthought, like classroom observations, they’re not going to happen consistently”

 

“Good intentions are just the beginning… you’ve gotta have develop systems to plan and execute your responsibilities”

 

“A good portion of our job as administrators is responding to whatever the immediate needs are and we have to realize that those aren’t interruptions, that’s part of our job… and we have to be able to adapt and respond to those needs when appropriate.”

 

“We need school leaders who model their own desire for professional learning”

 

“Children who are willing to invest in them. Adults need people who genuinely care about them and who take the time to develop relationships.”

 

“I was a principal at a large school, and I wanted to be sure that at some point during the year that at some point during the year that all of my staff members got a handwritten note. They didn’t know it, but I kept a little checklist of that just so I could keep up with that and make sure that I had shared some love and appreciation with each person through a handwritten note.”

 

“Assistant principals need to ask for what they need”

 

“You cannot underestimate the power of the relationship… if we don’t have relationships with students and the adults we serve, we can’t do the work”

 

“When we think about our pipelines and our gap between assistant principals and principals, it’s that managing change and instructional leadership are two of the biggest pieces”

 

“One of the things I see from assistant principals is that they are so eager to help everybody, that they overcommit and then they can’t follow through”

 

“Lots of people have good ideas. But who is willing to do the work?”

 

“Positivity is “it’s going great” when it’s not, optimism is “We’re going to get through this””

 

“the message to all assistant principals out there is: you’re interviewing everyday.”

 

“The best people in our business are still working on their craft and still trying to get better and they are taking risks to get better… every AP and principal out there should be willing to take some risks to continue to grow and improve their craft”

 

My email: frederick@frederickbuskey.com 

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html 

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