A Day in the Life of a High School Administrator: October-Walk On By-Dionne Warwick

Getting into classrooms is one of the most important things a school administrator can do. Unfortunately, with all of the meetings to attend and crises to deal with, it is often one of the first things to fall by the wayside in hopes of getting to it later. To combat this trend, our principal set a lofty goal for our admin team to do 200 walkthroughs in the month of October. A walkthrough is when an administrator will visit a classroom for 10-20 minutes to gain a quick glimpse into what is happening in the class. The focus of the walkthrough varies greatly, but generally the idea is to get a quick snapshot of instruction and learning.

200 walkthroughs meant that each of our administrators would need to do 40 walkthroughs, averaging about 10 each week for the entire month. Ten may not sound like a lot, but it was challenging to fit them all in. I'm excited to say, we exceeded our goal getting into over 200 classrooms! Also, we made sure every single teacher received a walkthrough at least once during the month. Here are some highlights from the classes I visited.

In Latin, students were practicing vocabulary, then creating voice-recordings which they emailed to the teacher so she could listen to their pronunciation. Every single student was engaged and often they were working collaboratively to practice before their recordings.

In Human Geography students were participating in an online discussion forum with classrooms from around the world discussing current global issues and how to solve them.

Art I students were learning about introductory art concepts by describing different works of art to each other while their partners drew an interpretation as they listened to the descriptions. Ceramics students were working on the coil stacking technique.

During lunch, many students can be found enjoying the newly renovated Mandeville Creek on a sunny day.

The band was practicing a piece of music while AP Music Theory students were identifying music scales as they listened to short excerpts of music.

U.S. History and English III combo classes were just returning from a field trip where they had visited a local cemetery. Students had prepared presentations on local historical figures to help them better understand the historical context at the turn of the 20th century. It was a cold day so they were enjoying hot chocolate upon their return to school

Advanced Bio-Med students were dissecting and labeling sheep brains.

Government students were registering to vote in anticipation of an upcoming election.

English students were working in small groups to interpret the narrative style used in the House on Mango Street.

In between all of the classrooms, I was also busy with other logistics like displaying student work, making sure classes all had American flags for the Pledge, tracking down students who did not have the proper immunizations as required by a new Montana law, learning more about Bozeman's school lunch program as part of the Superintendent's Commission on School Lunch and Nutrition Education, listening to department ideas about curriculum changes, and of course-more books and more email....