Reflection: Not Just What You See In The Mirror

At the end of each and every school year I ask my faculty to reflect on all that has happened along our leaarning journey. This Principal's Survey was started here by our founding principal and is designed to help us celebrate the wonderful things that have occured, express professional development needs and to get that one thing that really bugged us off our chests. I take the responses from my teachers very seriously and use them to institute changes and plan for our growth and development in the coming year.

These surveys are not anonymous - everyone here is free to have an opinion and share it! As tradition has it, the comments are then organized into a feedback sheet that is published and presented on our first day back to school each year. We celebrate the things that need to be celebrated and talk about the things that need to be addressed. The only problem with this process is that typically most of the responses only pertain to things that happened during the last half of the school year, so the suggestion was made that we take the time to gather Principal's Survey feedback mid year as well. GREAT IDEA!!!

To make getting the feedback a little easier and a little greener we decided to make a Google Form in Google Docs and send the survey out for completion. Teachers don't have to keep up with the paper and can complete the survey from anywhere the internet can be accessed. It will also make the feedback easier for me to sort. In fact the process is sooooo easy that I'll be able to share the information at our State of the School address following Winter Break. Here are the questions from our mid year survey:

1 - I think the best thing that happened so far at Chets Creek Elementary School this year was:

2 - The best thing I have done up to this point in my class/position this year was:

3 - In 2009, my number one objective will be:

4 - An idea I would like to see developed in 2009 is:

5 - Professional Development training and/or experiences I would like to have in 2009 are:

6 - The best Professional Development topic so far this year was:

7 - If I could throw one dart (criticism) within the school for this year it would be:

8 - If I could give one laurel (praise) within the school for this year it would be:

9 - Principal, Standards Coach, Technology Coach, Behavior Interventionist, I need you to:

10 - Additional Comments:

Feedback and reflection are essential elements of what transforms a school into a REAL learning community. The responses from this survey will absolutely be used to map out the next leg of our journey together this year.

Risk...Care...Dream...Expect...