Making The Sale

Today, I found myself, once again, at the front of a classroom. In the minutes before we began, I rediscovered that familiar nervous feeling as they began filing into the classroom. I quickly reviewed my notes, reminding myself of the major points I needed to cover. As they sat down and looked in my direction, I realized all over again that I was in charge, but they were in control.

While the feeling was a reminder of my days as a teacher, the context was slightly different. My class was the entire upper school faculty at Hyde Leadership Public Charter School, our pilot site. Today, I had the opportunity to present Reach's approach to all the upper school teachers. Since we plan to hire contract teachers from Hyde, I was placing a lot of pressure on myself to get everyone in the room excited about next year's plans.

As is standard, I then forgot everything I was going to say, spoke way too fast, and totally ignored the notes I had written before speaking. Awesome. Despite my perfectionistic tendencies, overall, I was pleased with the exchange. The teachers asked some good questions at the end and several teachers made a point to speak to me at the conclusion of the meeting - both those interested in working with us and those interested in referring students. By the time I left, I was pleased with the meeting's outcome.

With each day, we take another step toward program launch. Today was a big one. It's exciting to think that one or today of the teachers that heard about Reach today may one day be working with us to create better outcomes for our future students.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark