Principal Brian Jones: Helping a Struggling Teacher

Like many school principals, Brian Jones has dealt with underperformance from his teaching staff at some point. As the principal at Guilford Elementary/Middle School Pre-k-8^th grade in Baltimore, Maryland he collaborated with stakeholders to define the school’s goal and facilitate continuous improvement in all areas. Principal Brian Jones also provided evaluative feedback for twenty-nine instructional staff.

"I have transformed a low-performing school into a school that fosters high expectations for both teachers and students,' he added.

So, how can you help under-performing teachers?

Provide honest feedback

Providing an accurate assessment of the teacher's capabilities is important. Providing this feedback requires you to be specific and focus on the main issues. This also applies when you want to point out conduct issues as well.

Focus on particular areas

Thanks to the specific feedback you provided, the teacher has an area of improvement to focus on. But what if you identified numerous sectors that require intervention?

In such instances, you don't want to overwhelm the teacher and impede progress. While you ought to point out all the areas, you can make things more manageable by focusing on a few areas that would bring significant change quickly. If there's a lot to handle, take a few steps at a time to build confidence. If they are struggling to keep up, you don't want to overload them.

Visualize success

You need to agree on what constitutes success. Numbers are good because they are objective, but not everything can be measured numerically. You are encouraged to discuss what will signify the accomplishment of individual goals; a picture of success, if you will. The clearer this picture is the better the chances of the teacher achieving them.

Provide support

It sounds easy, but can be implemented poorly in reality. As Principal Brian Jones knows, you have to work in close collaboration with the teacher to understand the kind of support they require. Just like students, teachers have their preferred ways of knowing things.