Tiffany Stewart Kline

I am an AACPS: Assistant Principal, Mary Moss @ J. Albert Adams

At the beginning of the school year we shared with our staff that we will conduct community building circles or morning rally circles at the start of every day with all of our students. Our leadership could sense that some staff members were not excited about the new initiative. As the school year continued, our leadership team continued to model and push our staff to conduct morning rally circles. One way that we have encouraged our staff to see the value in community building was to create our own “Morning Huddle!” Every morning our entire staff gets into a circle for 7-10 minutes. Each morning we celebrate students and each other. We share stories, important events and strategies! It is now part of our morning routine and our staff looks forward to giving  “shout outs,” learning about new students coming to our school, and having courageous conversations! We also now have “buy in” for morning rally circles with our students. I believe this is a direct connection to having our staff participate and understand the value of community building first hand!