How many emails did your staff get yesterday? If the answer is "too many to count," Toby Shepherd has a different way.
Toby is the Founding Head of School at PVD Prep, a public charter middle school in Providence, Rhode Island. His team runs almost the entire school on Slack: daily communication, behavior response, teacher coaching, and updates for staff and stakeholders.
His guide walks you through three Slack workflows you can build this month, plus the teacher and coach competencies behind PVD Prep's feedback culture. Fill out the form below to download it free.
Why Slack works for a lean team
When information lives in a dozen inboxes, things get missed. Slack gives every staff member one place to look for what is happening today, who is out, and what matters this week.
The real power is in Slack Workflow Builder. It turns repeat requests into simple forms, so every request arrives in the same format, in the same channel, every time. Nobody has to wonder what information to include or who to send it to.
Workflow 1: The daily morning message
Every morning, Toby posts one message to his staff. It opens with the date and a quick connection question (like "What's a food you couldn't stand as a kid but love now?") and asks staff to reply so he knows they saw it.
From there, the message covers who is out of the building, links staff need that day, a reminder of the school's three big instructional pushes, and what is coming up in the next week or two.
Repeating the big goals every single day is the point. When the same three priorities show up each morning, they stop being a fall PD slide and start being how the school works. The guide includes a copy-and-paste template so you can post your first one tomorrow.
Workflow 2: A one-minute behavior support request
When a teacher needs help with a student, they should not have to write a paragraph. PVD Prep's behavior support form asks just three questions:
Who needs support?
Where is the student right now?
What kind of support is needed?
That last question is a dropdown with four options: in-class support, a check-in where the student returns, a removal where the student does not return, or elopement. Teachers can submit it in under a minute, and the culture team takes it from there.
The lesson here is restraint. Every extra field slows a teacher down in the moment they need help most.
Workflow 3: Real-time feedback for teachers
PVD Prep's coaches use a Slack observation form built on two simple prompts: "It was effective when..." and "Next time try..." Each action step needs a clear WHAT and a HOW.
When a coach submits feedback, it goes to the teacher and to every instructional coach in the building. That transparency means the whole coaching team knows what each teacher is working on, and teachers hear one consistent message no matter who walks into their room.
The competencies behind the feedback
Feedback only works when everyone agrees on what great teaching looks like. Toby shared PVD Prep's 2026-2027 instructional competencies for teachers and the leadership competencies their coaches are held to.
The teacher competencies cover five skills: intellectual prep, routines and procedures, giving clear directions, habits of discourse, and academic monitoring. The coach competencies cover six, from supporting lesson prep and looking at student work to building a positive adult culture.
It all starts from a belief that shapes the whole system: teachers grow the most when we reinforce what is already going well.
What is inside the guide
Why PVD Prep runs its school on Slack
A sample daily morning message and a copy-and-paste template
The three-question behavior support form, with setup steps for Slack Workflow Builder
The real-time observation and feedback form, field by field
PVD Prep's five beliefs about instructional coaching
PVD Prep's teacher and coach competencies
A four-week plan for getting your school started on Slack
Meet the leader behind it
Toby started his career teaching second grade in Brooklyn with Teach For America, then worked in public policy before founding PVD Prep with a clear, simple mission: prepare a diverse group of students for college preparatory high schools. His conversation with me is on Episode 62 of the CheckBox Pro Series, Keep the Mission Simple.
Make it sustainable
Slack workflows save time once they are built. Getting them built, keeping channels organized, and posting the daily updates is exactly the kind of work a CheckBox Pro Virtual Executive Assistant can carry, so you can spend more time in classrooms and less time in your inbox.
Download the free Run Your School on Slack guide
Three workflows, two sets of competencies, and a four-week launch plan, all in one eight-page guide from Toby Shepherd. Share it with your leadership team and pick the workflow you will start with this month.
