From the Desk of our Associate Executive Director

FROM THE DESK OF OAESA’S Associate Executive Director

Connecting the Schoolhouse and the Statehouse Don’t Miss the Chance to Collaborate with Your Legislator

BY MARK JONES

There are many leadership qualities necessary for you to be successful in your role as a building-level or central office administrator. You’ll need to have enough technical expertise to perform in your capacity as a leader. You must have already mastered the “soft skills” that allow you to effectively manage not only the people under your supervision, but also all the other daily interactions you have with parents, colleagues, and community members in a positive way. You definitely will need to tap into the well of tenacity and perseverance that can carry you through a task when the work becomes inevitably challenging. And you’ll need to possess both the self-confidence to know that you can do the job, as well as the appropriate amounts of humility and selfreflection to recognize when you have fallen short. But if you truly want to succeed at the very highest level, there is one other essential skill you need more than ever—the ability to build collaborative relationships. As any great principal will admit, you simply cannot do this job alone! So, let’s consider with whom you typically collaborate. For building-level administrators, your first response will probably be your teaching staff, or perhaps the other support staff in your school with whom you coordinate all the daily operations that keep your programs running smoothly. Next you might mention your colleagues in the other schools across your district, or those at the central office level who assist you in various aspects of your role. You might even think about your relationships with corporate or community partners, or with parent groups, that add to what your school can offer students in your care. Those are all natural stakeholders that a school leader would obviously need to collaborate with on a regular basis. However, we urge you to consider making a specific effort to develop a collaborative partnership with yet another key stakeholder this school year, for it is one that can potentially be a game-changer for education. Who is this mystery stakeholder? We at OAESA believe it is imperative for every school leader to reach out to your legislative representatives in an effort to build positive and productive relationships between our schoolhouses and our statehouse. In a recent survey of principals from across Ohio this spring, we found that less than 20% had taken the opportunity to invite a state Senator or member of the House into their building this year. Now, just think about this for a moment. These are the people who are responsible for providing nearly half of the revenue that your school uses to operate each day. These are the people who regularly pass laws that govern how our schools operate, including everything from what should be taught, to how we assess our success. These are the people who hear from business and industry about how good of a job we are doing in preparing the workforce of tomorrow. And, for many of these people, their perception of what school is like today is based upon their own personal school experience...from twenty or thirty years ago! If you believe that the pressures we face today are very different from those of a few decades ago, and if you recognize the pivotal role our legislators play in both funding and governing our schools, why would we even hesitate to engage with the people who are so critical to our work? Toward that end, OAESA is committed to increasing the level of engagement between our members and Ohio’s legislators. We have developed a toolkit, available on our website, which will assist you in extending an invitation to your legislator to come and be part of your school. Ultimately, we would like to see every single school visited at least once each year by their state Senator or House member. We encourage you to check out our Principals Advocating with Legislators (PAL) toolkit, and begin planning to build a new collaborative partnership with your local legislator today! “We at OAESA believe it is imperative for every school leader to reach out to your legislative representatives in an effort to build positive and productive relationships between our schoolhouses and our statehouse.”

13 fall 2019