Making Committee Work More Efficient

When I started my role as principal at my school, there were multiple committees working on different schoolwide initiatives, and the same names appeared on almost every committee list. There was a sunshine committee, a Read Across America committee, an after-school programs committee, college and career fair committees, and more.

I was worried that the large number of committees and relatively small number of participants might have been negatively impacting the work they were able to do. I decided to dig in a bit more and talk to teachers about how everything was going.

Teachers shared that it felt like the same small group of people did almost all of the work. I wanted to find a way to share the workload among my full staff and have more perspectives and fresh ideas. While thinking about how to make committee work more effective, I also knew I didn’t want to add to teachers’ plates.

I decided to combine the work of the committees with our regularly scheduled staff meetings to meet the two goals of sharing the committee work among more staff members and ensure that I didn’t unnecessarily add more meetings to teachers’ schedules—plus I hoped that bringing committee work into our staff meetings could make them more effective and engaging.

STRUCTURING staff meetings to include committee work

As I reviewed the work of each of the committees, there were two overarching themes, school climate and instruction. Instead of having committees, I decided to create two teams, the Climate & Culture Team and the Teaching & Learning Team.

At the next staff meeting after I decided to change the format, each staff member chose which team they wanted to be on. The two teams ended up fairly evenly split, but depending on how it all shakes out, you may need to talk to a few teachers about being reassigned to ensure that the teams are both fully equipped. Also, I would recommend offering opportunities for people to change teams throughout the year if anyone is interested in doing so.

implementing a new staff meeting structure

Before going to this new structure, we had a monthly staff meeting during which I would present information and take questions. If there was a project that needed to be done, I would either have to ask for volunteers or assign it to a committee to do. At my school, committee work can only be done by volunteers, as it is a violation of the teacher contract to require teachers to participate on a committee. This made finding help with projects difficult and led to a high level of burnout from the people who had been doing most of the work on the committees.

In the new structure, we maintain our monthly staff meetings, but the structure feels very different. Now, before each meeting I create an agenda for each team in addition to our whole staff agenda. We begin with the whole staff agenda, and then split into the two teams to address the relevant action items.

As the two teams are meeting, I move between them to answer questions and give feedback on items as teams take notes on their agendas for me to review later. Now, the teams are better able to review data, make decisions, and get consensus on how we move forward as a team since there is more input from a larger group.

We wrap up the staff meeting with each team sharing out about their work. This allows the other team to provide feedback in the moment, ask questions, and get clarity so everyone feels aligned. For example, when we were planning a new format for our back-to-school night, we added a schoolwide art project. The teachers had the chance to clarify when and where the project would take place and how to get the supplies they needed.

IMPACT OF embedding committee work in staff meetings

This structure has given staff members an opportunity to assume leadership roles. Without me leading each team for the entire meeting, other staff members have stepped up to facilitate the team meetings. Additionally, teachers have shared that it is easier to say yes to a task when they don’t feel that they need to be in charge of the entire event.

After a few staff meetings, I checked in with the staff to see how they felt about this new structure. They felt like their time during the staff meetings was put to good use, that there was more transparency across the schoolwide decision-making process, and that staff members were better able to connect with one another.

Additionally, this structure has been a huge time saver. In the past, I had to attend about six different committee meetings. As the only consistent member across all the committees, I also had to create cohesion across the different agendas. Now, I don’t have to attend multiple meetings, and our unified staff meetings are more efficient.

With this new structure, the entire staff feels more connected to the school, as they are invited to participate in decision-making, they feel more empowered to share in their teams, and no one is left burdened by doing too much of the work.