Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Huddles and Meetings

It goes without saying that communication is important.  In addition to our use of the application Slack, which has cut our internal email down dramatically, we like traditional face-to-face meetings in order to connect.  Our Academic Leadership Team has three types of meetings: (1) A Daily Huddle; (2) A Weekly Meeting; and (3) A President's Council Meeting.  

The Daily Huddle is comprised of myself, our Principal, and our Director of Wholeness.  This is a meeting of no more than 10 - 15 minutes in length where we check in and talk through any special events of the day.  We try our best to stand during these morning meetings to keep the blood flowing.  This huddle is operational in nature. 

Our Weekly Meeting is where we look at the week and review events.  We allot about 60 minutes for this meeting which ensures that we have plenty of opportunity to dialogue and reconnect.  These weekly meetings are more tactical in nature.

Finally, our Academic Leadership Team combines with other heads-of-departments to form our President's Council.  This is where we talk about larger school issues and where we test out ideas.  Most importantly, we have an opportunity to support and align with one another once collective decisions are made.  These meetings are also an hour long and are strategic in nature.  

We take a copious amount of notes and keep a running agenda.  This ensures that the meetings do not become cumbersome.  An agenda-less meeting is a recipe for unnecessarily lengthy meetings!