Happy New Year, my friend! This year my goal is to have a positive outlook, no matter the obstacle I come up against. I feel like wishing this virus away will not work; I wanted for that last year, and look where we are! LOL! While I can’t change how the protocol or frustration affects my community and my team, I have to take charge and put my positive foot forward, even on those dark days.
I want to share how I randomly came across something that helped me move past those feelings and get me on a better path.
Last year, around this time, I felt in such a funk. Last January, I struggled with staffing, and I was gearing up to open from 50% capacity back to 100%. The 15 new teachers I needed, plus replacing a few less desirable teachers, felt like the biggest mountain to climb.
Job posts weren’t working. Interviews weren’t showing up. Let’s now talk about the complaints from parents about the quarantine requirements and mounting, positive tests coming in. It was overwhelming, and I felt lucky because I wasn’t covering in the classrooms like many directors were and still are.
I was on social media, and I saw a post by Beth Cannon sharing a conference called The Leaders Lounge Summit. It was a virtual conference over a long weekend. The speaker line-up looked tremendous, and one of the topics was hiring. I signed up.
I started watching and began taking notes of ideas I had. Then I listened to Vernon Mason speak on hiring. First, it was great to hear I wasn’t alone in how I was feeling. I love how he presents. You can tell he understands early education and walks the walk each day as he has so many things that are so relatable. While we’re all trying so many of the same things to find new teachers, he kept saying things that had all these lightbulbs going off. He kept suggesting finding teachers in new places.
Like health care, or another field.
After listening to his training, I went back to my sister and shared what he said. We came up with a plan. We ran Facebook ads targeting health care workers to apply for our Teacher Assistant positions. We offered FREE college tuition to get certified. We were going to take funding from a grant we had acquired and put it towards the college courses required for teacher certification.
We decided to hire 3 and hopefully mentor one to get her certification. It worked! We have 2 new certified teachers on their way to getting certified right now!
When I heard “look in another field for workers,” it stood out to me. Then when I shared it with my sister, she said, “it’s like going back to before we opened. Starting from scratch.”. It became something new to focus on. Would our Facebook ads work to get those we were targeting? Would they apply? What kind of energy would we find in new employees? It was something positive to work towards.
The moral of the story isn’t a hiring path. It’s to get you out of a funk by surrounding yourself with positive, uplifting early education professionals. Attend a conference. Listen to a podcast. Be open to listening to someone else share information. You might not do precisely the entire plan they layout, but you get these nuggets of information that help move you forward.
Find something new to be optimistic about. I’m heading to the conference again on January 14th; it’s free if you want to join me. I’d love to catch up with you in the Facebook group. Tag me after you sign up. HERE’S the link to THE LEADERSHIP LOUNGE SUMMIT. It’s jam-packed with 2 days for directors and administrators and 2 days for teachers. My team and I will be attending this year and taking one of the trainings as a team. We will then be discussing it at our next staff meeting to keep the professional development going and to work on a common goal as a team.
Email me after you attend and let me know what you learned and will focus on bringing the positive out in 2022! customerservice@thedirectorsclub.net
Cheering you on!
Noelle
