9 Easy Ways of Getting Principal Buy-In for an Advisory and SEL Program

It would be fantastic if your Principal and/or administration already knew about the benefits of Advisory and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) programs and wanted to support you in implementing effective and engaging programming for your middle school students or high school students. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. You may sometimes need to provide them with the information to convince them what an asset this program would be.

Keep in mind there are some administrations that may not have any interest in adding a program, but it doesn’t hurt to try. You can plant the seed and provide them with the best information you can. I have made it happen and so can you.

This blog post will help provide you with the strategies and ideas to get you started with the information necessary to provide to administration for development of these programs.

The good news is, there have been many successful models and programs that have been developed over the past few decades, so you don’t need to start from scratch.

Getting administrative buy-in for developing an advisory program or SEL requires planning and thoughtful communication. Here are a few strategies you can follow to increase your chances of success:

Schedule a Meeting:

Request a meeting with the principal to present your proposal. Make sure you give them a little bit of information about how you have a great way to help the school and students increase attendance, increase graduation rates, and decrease suspensions!

Start thinking about how you would clearly and concisely communicate the purpose of your Advisory or SEL program, what benefits this program has to offer to your students and community on an individual and school-wide level, and logistics of how the advisory or SEL program will work out in your school. Use your research, data, and testimonials to support your points and always address any concerns raised during the meeting because it will show that you are willing to work with your administration to get this started and be on the same page.

People looking over at a sheet of a paper.

Get to Know Your Principal and Their Goals and Mission For Your School:

The best way to get approval from your principal is to align the goals for the Advisory or SEL program with the goals and mission that your principal strives for. Otherwise, there is going to be a big disconnect and it’ll take more time for convincing! So, if you haven’t done so already, write a list of what they are prioritizing for the school and list of reasons why you believe the school could benefit from this. Then in your proposal, make sure that this is demonstrated and aligned in your objectives and highlight the relevance and potential benefits. Don’t be afraid to open a space for questions from our principal! We want them to collaborate and feel that they are part of this proposal too! Ask them questions on what they think would benefit the school and use your knowledge of advisory programs to connect to their points. We want our school culture to change for the better and this is something that you can highlight to your principal.

Do the Research and Prepare a Presentation with What Info You Gathered:

Principals and administrators want to see successful cases and examples of what a successful Advisory program can look like in their schools. Using evidence-based examples will get a better buy-in from your administration and there is proof in research that you can find online that you can bring up in your presentation.

In Advisory programs, SEL (Social-Emotional Learning) is widely used and CASEL is a great example of an established program to show how social-emotional lessons have achieved the goals of empowering and beneficially serving our youth. You would also want to gather information about successful Advisory programs implemented in other schools or districts. In these case examples, you want to show the positive outcomes, such as improved student engagement, academic performance, or social-emotional development. So, you would definitely want to use this research to strengthen your position. There are many sooooo many Advisory and SEL programs out there that have been successful! Research a few that you think will be a good fit for the needs of your school. I have done many and I can tell you it has truly been successful and rewarding to see the changes made in youth and how much more supported they feel in the school environment.

Middle school and high school students that are growing up in this society are going through tough times. They have to compete with many other students with highly competitive college admissions and they constantly being bombarded with the pressures from social media. We are living in a time where students feel that they need to fit in and compare themselves to what they see on social media. They are spending most of their day in school and this is the place where they can get guidance from us. The more positive student-staff alliances they have, the more confidence they feel in our society. The more connection they have to others, the less likely they feel alone. Successful programs build on this connection and this where real change is made in their socio-emotional and academic well-being. One great example is the Westbrook High School Advisory program is another example of a great advisory programs that supports high school students by striving for purposeful relationships. The Advisory program is personally structured so that it can build on each students’ needs for academic achievement and college readiness. You can read more on the Westbrook High School Advisory program here.

According to Rachel A. Poliner’s and Carol Miller Lieber’s Advisory Guide: Designing and Implementing Effective Advisory Programs in Secondary Schools, to strengthen your case, especially in schools where most of your students come from disadvantaged backgrounds (e.g. socio-economic), you can bring up the point that your students have not had the luxury or supportive background at home or in their community to learn skills than students who are from more of an affluent background that have had more extensive resources. Poliner and Lieber had also pointed out in their research that there are achievement gaps between students of different socio-economic standing, race, culture, and english-fluency. The mission is to create an environment that promotes safety and community by opening up communication.

Develop a Clear Proposal that Would Grab Their Attention:

You want a quick elevator pitch to get them interested! Your proposal should outline the purpose, structure, and expected outcomes of the advisory program. Using real life examples, talk about what trends you’ve seen in student needs, academic support, readiness for a college or career path, and social-emotional well-being. I know you have plenty of examples that could share and if you need assistance you can ask staff if there are any examples they would like for you to share. Another area you should Include are details about the time commitment required from students, teachers, and other stakeholders. You would want to lay out the timing of when it will all take place and how long it would take place (e.g. class time, classes in a week, and months it will take). There are different ways an Advisory program or SEL program could look like, it depends on what works for your school!

This is really the information that your principal would want to hear about. Make it clear and direct on what they would see changed in student behaviors and the school climate. There are so many benefits that you could mention that would entice them to start a program in their own school. From my experience, I’ve seen improvements in student-teacher relationships, a sense of belonging in the school community from students, an increase in interest in academics, and a positive sense of self from the students.

Here is a continued list of positive school-wide outcomes that you can name during your proposal:

Increased in graduation rates
Decreased in behavioral incidents (i.e. school conflicts, suspensions, and expulsions)
Increased academic engagement
Increased school engagement
Increased attendance

Additionally, here is a list of how it positive benefits our students on an individual-level:

Increased leadership skills
Increased positive sense of self
Increased engagement in the classroom and in the school community
Increased sense of community and willingness to seek help when needed

As you probably know already, our principals and school administration colleagues want to see change in our student culture and know that students are set up for success. They want to see smooth transitions throughout the year and this can appear overwhelming. Your principals want to see data and outcomes showing that this is going to work. Show recent data using similar programs within your area with similar demographics that have been successful.

6. Address Potential Concerns:

There were many times during my pitches where the principal would bring up certain concerns in which an event could potentially happen or ways the program could fail. This is completely understandable. Addressing any potential concerns or objections is a great way to collaborate and include their ideas and knowledge to create a more successful Advisory program. There are a couple of topics of concern that I have seen that have been brought up during my proposal meetings. Some of these are concerns about funding, grants, and access to resources. For example, if your principal is worried about whether your school has the resources to have this going, you could present a plan that outlines how the program can be implemented within existing resources or suggest known alternative funding sources (be sure to bring up this research as well). You would also want to provide some sort of evidence of the cost-effectiveness and long-term benefits of this advisory or SEL program. Remember that you want to show data and outcomes! Also, use your role to demonstrate what you can bring to the table. Have an activity or lesson plan ready to show during your proposal to draw that connection and show that you have the knowledge to make this successful.

7. Seek Support From Your Colleagues!:

Another great way to get principal buy-in is getting support and involving your colleagues who share the same vision and mission for an Advisory or SEL program. It would be beneficial to have your coworkers be in your pitch process in order to add different ideas and understand the array of mindsets in the school culture. You would want to hear from all staff such as teachers, deans, school counselors, social workers, school psychologists, speech learning pathologists, librarians, etc. Even gathering information from your school community partners like organizations that run after school programs and healthcare centers could be an amazing added boost to your pitch. They have interacted and created connections with your students already. They have also observed trends on what could be improved in the community. Some examples that I have received from staff over the years included frequent accounts of bullying, relationships, and worry about the lack of career preparedness. Although not a colleague, caregivers who you have positive relationships with can also provide useful opinions on what they observed within their children and the school community as a whole. To illustrate the array of experiences and ideas, you could gather testimonials or letters of support from educators, parents, or community members who see the value in such a program. If the principals see that this is highly asked for by the community, it would be hard for them to turn this proposal down.

8. Offer to Pilot the Advisory Program at Your School:

There may be a possibility that your principal would still be hesitant to start the program on a school-wide scale before seeing it in action first. What they may be thinking is that they would like to test out the Advisory program first and if it is successful they would then take it from there. What you can do is pilot the program on a much smaller scale for a limited time. If you are a counselor and have had positive outcomes from students in small group sessions, show what changes in student behaviors you have observed and draw from those experiences to do this pilot program. You could show examples of activities and lesson plans you would use to work with these students and give them the number of students you would be working with. This approach allows you to demonstrate the program’s effectiveness and collect data to support its expansion.

Be clear that programs have to be implemented correctly. If they don’t have a solid foundation they will not get the desired outcomes and could fail. This is an evidence-based program that uses best-practices and we want to show that. Advisory and SEL programs are not a study hall (This is not a time for students to do coursework or study for that upcoming math test). They are also not 10 minutes long (This is not enough time or affective to cover any topics and have meaningful discussions or team-building activities).

9. Keep Calm and Carry On! Follow-Up and Persistence:

There is a possibility that there may be needed follow-up and persistence to get your buy-in. See it as this being your first pitch to “plant the seed.” You could also use this extra time to gather more information that was needed to cover concerns that were brought up from your first pitch meeting. If you show your persistence and ongoing communication about your dedication to start an Advisory or SEL program and how it would benefit the school and your students, it could help get the program started.

You want to connect to your principal in ways where you both are on the same wavelength when it comes to priorities (i.e. concerns with student overall success and yearly goals for the school). We all have the same goal and that is to see our students and school succeed academically, socially, and beyond. Advisory and SEL programs are great interventions to form connections with our students in an impactful and personal manner. We see our school as unique and acknowledge the vital role it brings to our students and community. Tailor your proposal and communication to highlight the unique benefits an advisory program can bring to your school community.

Remember, don’t doubt your capabilities. It is well worth the effort for your students to develop Advisories and SEL programs.

Now that you have all of these strategies and ideas, what are you going to do to get principal buy-in?

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