Summit offers opportunity to build your network and share issues of importance.

ACSA will be offering an excellent, no-pain way for younger administrators to build their networks. The Generation X Luncheon Conversation at the upcoming 2008 Leadership Summit will not only give you an opportunity to tell the leadership of ACSA about the issues that are important to you as a younger administrator, but every attendee will leave the session with an address book listing at least 10 new contacts you can reach out to on a moment's notice.

Time after time, experienced school leaders laud the crucial role that networking has played in their careers. But what exactly does "networking" mean? Does it mean hours spent glad-handing people, trying bit-by-bit to build a network of support? Not at all!

Networking simply can be a handy list of contacts you can email or call for advice when you're wondering how to address any of the daily challenges that arise in school leadership.

For example, maybe you need to find a more effective way to reach out to English learners at your school. You can simply go to your "network" of contacts and drop one of them a quick line asking for suggestions on the best ways to do this. Even if they don't know the answer, they are likely to be able to point you in the right direction.

The Geneneration X Luncheon Conversation is for administrators born between 1965 and 1981. It's a small group session, including lunch, limited to the first 40 Gen-Xers who rsvp. ACSA is issuing invitations to Gen-Xers who have already registered for Leadership Summit, but there will be some extra slots available for those still waiting to register. ACSA's Leadership Summit takes place Nov. 6-8 in San Diego, with the Generation X Luncheon Conversation occurring on Thursday, Nov. 6. Please email ACSA's Margarita Magliocco at mmagliocco@acsa.org if you are interested in taking part in this exciting conversation.

Leading effective staff meetings

One of the challenges facing any new administrator is how to run effective staff meetings. All too often, these can devolve into gripe sessions or social hours, and the focus on student achievement gets diminished in the shuffle.

Running effective meetings is a key skill that will greatly serve anyone in their career in school administration. Kathy Ohm, director of the ACSA Planning Center, runs workshops on MeetingsMastery. She said one of the main items any school leader should keep in mind when prepping for a staff meeting is to keep the school goals in mind and ask themselves, "How will I organize this meeting to add the greatest value to our work?"

Ohm offered five key tips for administrators to use to make their meetings more effective.

• Purpose and context. Why are you having this meeting? Well in advance, identify your most important "why" of this meeting or series of meetings and keep it in mind (or on paper in front of you.) The 12-16 item agenda rarely - if ever - adds value.
• Power. Quality questions are at the heart of nearly every effective meeting.
• Engagement. Vary the structure; change the pace. One organization added a 15-minute rule: Never talk for more than 15 minutes. Never stay in one conversation or activity for more than 15 minutes unless your audience (e.g., staff) insists.
• Assumptions. Question ungrounded assumptions before they derail what otherwise promise to be value-added, powerful conversations.
• Be you. Be authentic. You don't need to know everything. And it's OK to laugh, too. Your staff - all of them at one time or another - will help you lead meetings more effectively if and when THEY want to. They want to when you are YOU, not the role but the person.

Effective meetings lead toward effective student learning. This is one of the main reasons ACSA offers MeetingsMastery. As Ohm noted, "meetings are mission critical."

"They are the heartbeat of action. Meetings are high leverage, career-long opportunities for school administrators," Ohm said. "Meetings are not neutral: they add either value or waste. The opportunity inherent in meetings is enormous for attaining outcomes like achievement and satisfaction, as well as increased energy and well being, retention of talented staff, and growing organization capacity."

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MeetingsMastery

MeetingsMastery is an opportunity for administrators to distinguish and engage with fundamentals of action in a new way (and with new research), so you can make the most of every meeting.

Each MeetingsMastery session is limited to no more than 20 participants. Overall, the structure includes both concepts and experiential learning. A part of the day is set up to enable participants to address particular issues and questions within the context of the new learnings.

Two follow-up teleclasses are included, in addition to the daylong seminar, so that participants can continue to build on fundamentals and new ways of seeing and operating that have emerged.

The first MeetingsMastery workshop took place Sept. 23, but there are still two more possibilities: Oct. 2 in Ontario and Oct. 8 in Burlingame. For more information on MeetingsMastery, please contact the ACSA Planning Center at (650) 259-3472, or e-mail kohm@acsa.org.