Goals of the Department Chair Meeting
Provide a forum for addressing problems.
Identify and prioritize issues
Discuss issues of school-wide or district-wide importance
Formulate written recommendations for addressing perceived problems
Improve Communication between Administration and Department Chairs
- Allow the administration to inform the department chairs of developing issues before they become fact
- Allow the administration to update the department chairs on administrative resolutions
- Allow the department chairs to advise the administrators on developing school and district issues before they become factual policy
- Allow the administration to collect input to convey to other administrators in other forums
Improve Communication Among Department Chairs
- Allow the department chairs to share ideas and sentiments with each other
- Allow the department chairs to relate departmental issues to a school-wide context
- Allow the department chairs to formulate informed positions on issues
- Allow the department chairs to develop unity of purpose through formal recommendations and informal discussion
Improve Communication within Departments
- Give department chairs clear information and recommendations to convey to their departments
- Clearly identify the information department chairs should solicit from their departments
Improve Communication within the Administration
- Give the administration clear information and recommendations to convey to administrators in other forums
- Clearly identify the information the administration should solicit from other administrators and classified staff.
Structure of the Department Chair Meeting
Administrative Half of the Meeting
- Facilitated by an Administrator and recorded by an administrator
- Addressing topics determined by the administration in ways determined by the administration.
- Perfunctory news reports from departments are specifically discouraged.
- Use of email and memos for perfunctory school news reports is specifically encouraged.
Department Chair Half of the Meeting
- Facilitator
- Facilitator role rotates among department chairs on a voluntary basis, and is assigned by topic
- Plans some appropriate structure for discussion of the topic
- Facilitates discussion of the topic
- Keeps discussion on topic and moving toward a conclusion, perhaps identifying side-tracks as issues for later discussion
- Organizes, often with the secretary and other participants, a written recommendation or statement on the topic
- E-mails a reminder to all department chairs about what to bring to the next meeting; this should be done the week before the next meeting
- Secretary
- Secretary role falls on the facilitator of the previous topic
- Take minutes
- Use on-line template established during first meeting
- Make note of date, time, attendees
- Take notes on what was said during discussion, including if possible who spoke and when
- Summarize the next steps that department chairs need to take, including what materials will be necessary for the next meeting
- State what the next topic(s) will be, who will be the next facilitator, and who is on deck to facilitate
- Type up notes in Microsoft Word (can be done during meeting)
- Save notes onto the computer in room 15 to be later posted on the department chair web site. Minutes can also be e-mailed to: [email protected].
- Work with facilitator and other participants to produce a written recommendation or statement on the topic
- Generalized Agenda
- First five minutes
- Identify and prioritize new issues from the floor
- Discussion of first topic and recommendation for action
- If this is incomplete it continues next meeting
- If this is complete, proceed to second topic
- Last five minutes
- Identify the next two topics on the priority list: these are the items that could come up in the next meeting
- Solicit volunteers to facilitate these next two topics
- Identify information department chairs and administrators should gather concerning these next two topics.