Critical friends is a reflection-oriented, collaborative problem-solving protocol that we had been using as part of our administrative professional learning community. Because our administrative team - composed of four district leaders and all four building principals - believed critical friends was such a valuable tool, we had all agreed to be there for one another whenever one of us needed an emergency help session, thus the impromptu meeting in Paul's office. [...]we spend the first 15 minutes just chatting - about anything related to our schools or the district
