Electronic mentoring: three school leaders across upstate New York advise each other through e-mail

School Administrator, Nov, 2003 by Paul Riede

Superintendent Stephen F. Day had some timely advice for second-year high school principal Bonnie Hauber as the first day of school approached two years ago:

"Don't be surprised that you are totally whipped after the day.... My guess is you will be flying until about 3 in the morning just absorbing all of the emotional and subconscious information. Remedy: Have two glasses of Shiraz and go to bed."

Unusual counsel, perhaps, from a superintendent to a principal to start a new school year. But the message--sent by e-mail from Day's office in Portville, N.Y., in the state's southwest corner to Hauber at Maine-Endwell High School 170 miles away--was the beginning of a journey that has helped lead three New York administrators to a deeper understanding of themselves, their jobs and their relationships with their colleagues, both near and far.

Day, Hauber and James R. Thompson, principal of Wolcott Street Elementary School in the village of LeRoy near Rochester, have established an electronic mentoring relationship that has now entered its third year. The three have been together in the same room only twice, but through constant e-mailing--each writes the others at least four times a week during the school year--they now refer to each other not only as trusted confidantes but, in Hauber's words, as "dear friends."

They believe they have developed a method of networking and mentoring that can be a model for school administrators across the country, where the idea of mentoring for administrators has fallen far behind that of mentoring for teachers.

Candid Discussions

The three call their approach a "journaling triad." Day came up with the idea after the three met at an administrators' conference at Wells College in Aurora, N.Y., in the summer of 2001. He and Hauber began corresponding that August and later that month invited Thompson to join.

From the start, the e-mails were frank.

"Observation," Hauber wrote to Day in one of the first messages in August 2001. "I'm becoming more aware of how much time I spend in managing the building and tending to the paperwork that constantly lands on my desk and how little time I spend on reflection. I'm not planning properly because I'm not reflecting properly! You seem to have a much better grip on this problem."

Hauber may have been reluctant to acknowledge that shortcoming to colleagues in her own school district. But because the triad cuts across district boundaries and job descriptions, the three administrators have the freedom to be open and frank with one another.

"We're all in different districts and different positions and whatever we say cannot be evaluated other than how we evaluate each other," Day said during a recent afternoon of face-to-face interviews with all three participants. "It's a safe environment to get some really critical feedback."

"There are many, many gray areas in what we do, and at those times you want to analyze them with someone whose opinions you trust," Hauber agreed.

A Rare Opportunity

When the triad started two years ago, she was beginning her second year as a suburban high school principal in the south-central part of the state after working as an assistant principal. Day was starting his eighth month as a superintendent in a rural, 1,200-student district near Jamestown, N.Y. Thompson was in his 14th year as principal of an elementary school in LeRoy, which he calls "a Mayberry small town" about 30 miles southwest of Rochester.

None of those districts--and few nationally--have formal mentoring programs for administrators. Thompson, who writes and lectures on administrative mentoring, says that is a glaring omission, particularly since so many new and inexperienced administrators are entering the field as those in the Baby Boom Generation retire.

"We're proud to talk about our mentoring program for new teachers because the power of mentoring to help accelerate the growth curve and help somebody with survival skills with the job is beyond reproach," he says. "Well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. We don't have those formal mentoring programs for novice administrators."

Day agrees. "I think networking among professionals is probably one of the most important things we don't do, and if you don't do it it's a disservice to your job and the people you work with."

Dennis Sparks, executive director of the National Staff Development Council, says the development of leaders has been generally neglected throughout the educational community.

"We assume that if somebody is a pretty good teacher then they'll be a competent administrator," he says. "But almost always they're inadequately prepared when they step into the job."

The kind of relationship the New York triad has forged can be a boon to school leaders who often have no one to turn to for frank advice, Sparks says. "Sometimes people in those roles cannot admit vulnerability. Having someone to whom you can just say, 'I don't know,' is a huge gift."

Terry Orr, an associate professor in educational leadership at Columbia University's Teachers College and co-director of the school's Superintendent's Leadership Institute, agrees. "The expectation is that you already know everything," she says. "To seek a learning approach can be seen as a weakness."