Combines in Schools?
Recruiting #1 Draft Picks
By
Kyle Barrentine
Principal,
Decatur Middle School
MSD
of Decatur Township
PhD
Student
Department
of Educational Leadership
Bayh
College of Education
Indiana
State University
&
Ryan
Donlan
Assistant
Professor
Department
of Educational Leadership
Bayh
College of Education
Indiana
State University
The NFL Draft is still three months
away, yet the screening of prospects and the ranking of “applicants” have
already started. In reality, recruiting
#1 draft picks is an ongoing, day-to-day process, where NFL scouts, general
managers, and coaches keep track of prospects all year long. Consider the following:
Ø
This weekend, college football seniors
will participate in the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama where they will be
evaluated by hundreds of NFL scouts. These scouts will be projecting players’
abilities to be successful in the NFL.
Ø
In another month, players who have
declared for the NFL draft will come to Indianapolis, Indiana to once again be
evaluated by hundreds of NFL scouts and coaches. Players will be poked, prodded,
interviewed, and challenged in both physical and mental tests.
Ø
After the Draft Combine, NFL teams will
host targeted players for more intense testing and interviewing; some NFL
prospects will even host a “pro day,” where they set the schedule and the
activities that they will complete during this time.
The goal of it all is for teams to find the very best
players to join them, so that they can achieve at higher levels. Isn’t this what principals should be doing
when they search for teachers to employ . . . to find the very best teachers so
that their school teams can achieve at higher levels?
We think so. In fact,
we believe this process, borne of football, can bear fruit, yielding positive
results in any given K-12 school.
In order to accomplish this, principals MUST look for a #1
draft pick, each and every time they have a position open. Every hire must be better than the last. As our friend Dr. Todd Whitaker notes,
principals should want their schools to become more like their new teachers;
new teachers ideally would not become more like their schools.
Anyone disagreeing probably isn’t a Pro-Bowler in the first
place, let alone one that should be starting.
In order for principals to repeatedly find #1 draft picks, they
must have specific, intentional processes that they follow for recruiting,
screening, and interviewing. It can’t
exist only in the spring and summer at the height of the hiring season; not
unlike the NFL, this process must be an ongoing, yearlong experience. Recruiting consistently and intentionally can’t
be emphasized enough. Principal-as-TALENT-SCOUT
is the only way to play the game, as finding the best candidates and having systems
in place to locate them, is what instructional leadership is all about.
How’s it done? Rather
simply, really.
One system that principals could use would be to create,
compile, and update a database of potential teaching candidates. Destination
events provide the low-hanging fruit. As
principals attend teacher recruitment fairs, they could create a database of
candidates that would look similar to the one below.
|
Name
|
Teaching Area
|
College
|
Rating
|
Contact Info
|
|
Chad
Champion
|
English
5-12
|
GreatU
|
9-10
|
|
|
Alison
All-Star
|
Social
Studies
|
AvgU
|
4-5
|
|
|
Etc.
|
Etc.
|
Etc.
|
Etc.
|
Etc.
|
Principals might further populate this database any time they
have student teachers, or even substitute teachers, in the building. They might create a running list of students
who declare interest in teaching, when they graduate from high school. Deft principals may even begin the recruiting
process with elective classes in middle school or high school that allow those
interested in teaching to work with students in younger grades, under the
guidance of the best teachers. They
might even offer these younglings a more formalized observation or evaluation,
as part of their class grade, similar to what their teachers experience as part
of their profession.
What a great opportunity to observe teaching in the
classroom and to have informal conversations with those impressionable and
energetic! What a great way to influence
mindset and the possibilities of lifelong service. After all, don’t most NFL players dream of the
big league while still in school? Why
should those who end-up as educators wait until their undergraduate experiences
to dream a dream . . . to visualize?
When principals then have openings in the teaching ranks,
their lists (databases) could be the first places they go in order to begin recruiting
and screening. They would be the
equivalent of the NFL’s draft board. Maintained and updated from year to year,
a principal’s database of candidates would grow as a rich resource.
So would the list of kids wanting to come home to their alma
maters, moving back into their communities and raising families. Place-bound educators “by choice,” with civic
ties and community connections . . . it
just doesn’t get any better than that.
Of course, having a draft system is
one thing; the next, critical step in the hiring process would be the
interview. Principals, like NFL coaches,
need to bring their own version of “game” to everyone’s first impression. Lazlo Bock, Senior Vice President for People Operations at Google,
shared Google’s goal when interviewing:
Remember too that you don’t just want
to assess the candidate. You want them to fall in love with you. Really. You want them to have a great experience, have
their concerns addressed, and come away feeling like they just had the best day
of their lives. It’s always worth
investing time to make sure they feel good at the end of it, because they will
tell other people about their experience—and because it’s the right way to
treat people. (Bock, 2015, p. 90)
The interview is really the step that
closes the deal for your #1 draft pick. The
process should be appropriately challenging for all candidates, loose/tight in
its format, while consistent to a certain degree. It must be fair and legal, yet malleable
enough to allow for a candidate’s creativity and diversity to shine.
Since principals are hiring people to
teach, and thus in a sense, to better lives through inspiration, it is
important that principals actually SEE what teachers can do, as opposed to
hearing what teachers think they can do, or
university professors said they can do.
The interview process should include an evaluation of the prospects’
abilities to “bring game” to the subjects for which they might compete. We pose that this competition might involve
students as commentators, more often than not.
In his book, What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell wrote
that there really isn’t anything an interviewer can learn about candidates
before they start that will predict how they will perform once they’re hired,
so how do people really know whom to choose (Gladwell, 2009, p. 317)? We respectfully note that much can be predicted
accurately, if principals and teams are willing to take the time.
The Super Bowl is just
around the corner, and thus, another great season of NFL action is about to
conclude. Well . . . from our sides of
the television sets, anyway. It’s
anything but time off for those who consider themselves only as good as their
next day’s best work, which must include achieving a bit more than last season,
with folks who can run a bit faster, compete a bit longer, and score more
effectively, as that is what the profession demands.
Combines in Schools, and
recruiting #1 draft picks, can offer the same levels of success, with
persistent leadership effort in growing a portfolio of viable recruits, and a
selection process that works to garner the best.
References
Bock, L. (2015). Work rules!: Insights from inside Google that will
transform how
you live and lead.
New York, NY: Hachette Book Group.
Gladwell, M. (2009). What the dog saw and other adventure.
New York, NY:
Little,
Brown, and Company.
___________________________________________________________
Kyle
Barrentine and Ryan Donlan are vigilant in their efforts to make each day
better than the last, and each year more productive and successful in the
education profession. If you have ideas
on how you are ensuring the best possible draft picks, as well as processes, in
your school, please contact them at kbarrentine@msddecatur.k12.in.us or at ryan.donlan@indstate.edu.
They would certainly like to borrow a page out of your playbook.
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