Communication

The 2025-2026 school year began with a first annual in-service day specifically for Success staff.  During this time, program staff (teachers, paras, skills trainers, therapists) were able to collaborate, celebrate, plan, and recommit to the mission, vision and values of Success's four areas: environment, relationships, learning, and behavior response.  New this year was the development of Commitments to Students in each of these areas, which are posted in all classrooms.  Each weekly meeting focuses on one of these commitments and staff are given an opportunity to share how they put the commitment into action in their location.

Uniquely, contracts for SMEC support staff are 12-month, allowing SMEC to plan and implement extended-school-year programs all summer long for each member district, as well as SMEC level III and IV programs, and consortium-wide summer credit-recovery options.  When support staff are not working directly with students, they are tasked with school materials or facility preparation projects.  These activities allow staff to get to know students and staff in programs they don't normally work in, and ownership over the preparation and planning for the upcoming year.  At minimum three afternoons a week, these staff participate in trainings identified, developed and delivered by teachers and staff peers.  I was able to develop and present two training presentations this past summer, "Behavior Basics" and "SMEC Classroom Management".

I have found, both in my prior career path and education, two of the most common communication failures are, 1) responding before you have all of the information, and 2), using your platform to "preach", rather than inform and discuss.  As issues arise, it is essential for school leaders to gather information from stakeholders to ensure clear understanding of the question or concern. When responding, your information should be objective, consider the audience (background knowledge), and allow for discussion and questions.  During the Operations and Personnel Administration course, I prepared a presentation addressing a recurring issue in SMEC districts; loss of facility space for SMEC level III programs.  The presentation attempted to be straightforward, objective, transparent, included a recommendation with pros and cons.