Flip the Script on Classroom Visits

I still remember the sound of his voice before I even saw him. “Meg! Meg — wait!”

I was walking down the hallway between periods, half-thinking about my next meeting, when a classroom door swung open and a teacher literally stepped into the hall, motioning for me to come closer. His students were still inside, mid-transition, backpacks slung over shoulders, energy buzzing.

“I tried the thing we talked about,” he said, barely catching his breath. “It went really well — but I know it could be even better.” He paused for half a second, then added, “Could you come back during fourth period and watch it? I’d love your feedback.”

I stood there for a moment, almost stunned. Not because of the request — but because of what it represented. Before I stepped into that leadership role, classroom visits in that school had been stiff, evaluative, and quietly feared. Observations were laden with judgment, compliance, and unspoken power dynamics. Teachers braced themselves. Feedback felt disconnected from real growth. It was more of a box-checking exercise than a learning conversation. When I started, I made a very intentional choice to disrupt that pattern. I visited classrooms with no notepad. No checklist. No evaluative tool.

When I left, I wrote a simple, handwritten Post-it note and placed it on the teacher’s desk — something specific I noticed, something I appreciated, something that signaled I saw you. The feedback was immediate and unmistakable. Teachers felt visible instead of measured. Valued instead of inspected. Human instead of managed.

That first week, I made it a point to visit every teacher at least twice — not to monitor, but to normalize presence, curiosity, and relational trust from day one. So when that teacher stopped me in the hallway weeks later, excited instead of anxious, inviting feedback instead of avoiding it — I knew something had shifted. Experimentation had stopped feeling risky. Learning had started feeling shared.

That moment didn’t happen because of a framework or a protocol. It happened because the conditions around feedback, safety, and relationships had quietly changed.

And once that door opens, it’s very hard to close again.