During 2015 I wrote three Day in the Life posts, capturing what three very different days looked like in my job as a district administrator. In November, I changed jobs. I am still a district administrator, but in a larger secondary district, as opposed to a smaller elementary district. Here is what one of my days looked like during my first month on the new job!

7:15AM- Arrive to work for an early morning final round interview with a candidate for a position I will be supporting. Three of us had an honest chat about the work and then the job was offered and accepted!

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7:45AM – Race out of meeting to drive across town for a site visit with a high school principal. I’ve made it my goal during my first month or so to meet with each school principal individually, at his or her site, to get to know people and sites. The principal and I discuss the school’s vision, current professional growth needs, and then go out to visit classrooms. I found out later that one of the teachers I observed is married to a teacher from my former district (small world!).

9:30- After leaving my first site visit, I stop by to visit with a former colleague since I was literally driving by my old office. We have a quick chat about our work and then I’m off to the next site.

10:00 AM- Now I’m at a middle school that happens to feed into the high school I visited this morning. It was great to see signs of articulation and discussion between the principals. During classroom visits here, I met a teacher I had already connected with on Twitter, which was fun!

11:15AM – After this site visit, I head back across town to the district office. During this first month I have driven over 100 miles around my new district!

11:45 – I eat my lunch while I catch up on some emails in my office.

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12:20- After lunch I head over to another school, my second middle school visit of the day. For this visit, the principal invited me to sit in on her weekly meeting with her instructional leadership team. This was a great experience for me, as I am getting to know the site and the district work. I loved hearing a group of teachers plan how they would facilitate the staff professional development day the following month! The principal has built capacity within her site for teacher leaders to step up and be confident in their leadership.

3:30PM – I return to my office to do one of the hardest, but most important tasks I have. Today is the day I am calling the people who interviewed (for the position I offered this morning!) but were not selected for the job. While I never enjoy these calls, I find it important for me, as the lead interviewer, to call and give personal feedback to all who made it through multiple rounds of interviews. Interviews can be so stressful and we had many great candidates for this particular position, so it was easy to give positive and constructive feedback.

4:30PM- Tonight our district’s administrator group is hosting a gathering, so I head out (adding more miles onto my tally for the week!) to meet some of my new colleagues. I see some familiar faces in the crowd, including some people I had just met this morning on site visits, which was nice.

7:00PM- By the time I get home, it is dark and I am tired of driving! But I am happy about all the classrooms I visited and the people I met today. All these visits remind me of how much I loved teaching middle school! I end my day by vegging out in front of some mindless TV before getting ready for bed (and my usual 5:00 AM wake up alarm!).

What does a day in your work life look like?