She found that issues were rarely raised because no one reviewed any-
thing. So, at the second meeting, the items she had pointed out became
the ones the team dealt with for that school year. Her “lesson” and open
sharing of information had achieved their aim.
She then had the team look at the CEP. The heart of most such documents
is the list of goals and objectives for the current school year and the strate-
gies for achieving them. If any team members present were also on the team
the previous year, she asked them to describe how the previous year’s team
had devised these goals and objectives. She added that in preparing the CEP
for the next school year, the team need not rewrite the whole document, but
concentrate on those areas needing improvement, such as the ones she pre-
viously pointed out. Again, she asked all team members to read the docu-
ment and bring any questions, concerns, and ideas to the next meeting.
In most schools, the budget is an almost incomprehensible jumble of
funding sources, line items, and expenses. Principal Valletta explained
that at a future meeting she would conduct a workshop on how to read her
school’s budget. After all members of the team had a basic understanding
of the budget, and once the committee decided on priorities for the next
school year, they would be able to determine how their budget may be
appropriately tweaked.
During Ms. Valletta’s first few years working with the SLT, the New
York City chancellor asked each SLT what their five priorities would be
if the school was to be given additional funds. This was always the subject
of one SLT meeting. The starting point was the areas for improvement
and then the generation of a wish list. The school was never given ad-
ditional funds. However, the ideas generated formed a basis for revisions
in the coming year’s CEP and budget, within the constraints imposed by
the latter. Even after this request for priorities was discontinued, Ms. Val-
letta devoted a fall SLT meeting to address the questions, “What are our
priorities for next year? What funds would we like to use to address these
priorities?” You might find it useful to do the same.
The next topic for this first meeting of the year was determining the
main agenda topics for the remaining meetings of the school year. The
principal asked each team member what he or she wanted to see on the
agenda. Some topics had been implicitly decided upon: feedback on re-
view of the school statistics; discussion of priorities for the coming school
year; planning the budget; writing the CEP. Others might be added; for
104 Chapter 8