The Meeting Your Teachers Actually Need

Let me say something that might land a little uncomfortably: most staff meetings are not good.

I don’t mean the people running them don’t care. I mean the format that most staff meetings follow is the wrong format for what schools actually need from that time together. A leader with information to deliver and a room full of tired people trying to absorb it is not a recipe for connection, clarity, or shared purpose. It’s a recipe for the exact experience that most teachers already have too much of: being talked at while they wait for it to end.

The best thing a leader can do with a staff meeting is make a simple decision before the meeting starts: what does this time need to be for?

If the answer is information, there’s almost always a better way to deliver information than a meeting. A written update. A morning message. A two-minute video. All of those are more efficient and more respectful of people’s time than assembling everyone in a room to hear things they could have read.

If the answer is connection, collaboration, or collective problem-solving, then a meeting is actually the right format. But it needs to be designed for that purpose. It needs a structure that creates space for genuine conversation rather than a one-directional flow of information.

The leaders who do this well start meetings with something human. A recognition. A moment of shared laughter. A question that requires actual thinking rather than a yes-or-no answer. They protect part of the agenda for discussion that doesn’t have a predetermined conclusion. They end with something that leaves people feeling like they are part of something real rather than just informed about it.

The meeting doesn’t have to be one more draining obligation. With a little intentional design, it can be the best thirty minutes of a teacher’s week.