Changing instructional practice is at the heart of improving
learning outcomes for underachieving students; describe your experience with
shifting a culture of practice. As a teacher leader, building or district leader, where do you begin - how do you know you're making progress, and how do you build trust to collaboratively progress toward the goal(s)?
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Welcome to The Principalship EAF 485 Summer 2012: What exactly would I do...?
Welcome to The Principalship EAF 485 Summer 2012: What exactly would I do...?
If I were to become principal tomorrow I would certainly have a great deal of work ahead of me. I am not connected to a building at this time but my office is in an early childhood building. Since the majority of my experiences are at the elementary level through high school I would need to do some extensive research in regard to the rules, regulations, and best practices at this age level. Although I have covered the building as the principal this year I would in no way be prepared to take on this task without doing my homework.
With that said if I were to take over I would have several lengthy meetings with the current principal and early learning coordinator. I would make sure that I have a detailed list of questions for the administration after I had talked to several local area early learning principals. I would look at the building goals as well as three year building plan to see the direction they are headed in. My next step would be to discuss the building strengths and needs with the staff to see where things stand. There have been many changes with staff and procedures within the past few years in this building so it would be beneficial to discuss these changes with the staff.
When I look to the first year as the administrator I would try to keep changes to a minimum but focus on the motivation and desire to make a school of learners for both the staff and students. I would emphasize the need to grow together in order to be better!
If I were to become principal tomorrow I would certainly have a great deal of work ahead of me. I am not connected to a building at this time but my office is in an early childhood building. Since the majority of my experiences are at the elementary level through high school I would need to do some extensive research in regard to the rules, regulations, and best practices at this age level. Although I have covered the building as the principal this year I would in no way be prepared to take on this task without doing my homework.
With that said if I were to take over I would have several lengthy meetings with the current principal and early learning coordinator. I would make sure that I have a detailed list of questions for the administration after I had talked to several local area early learning principals. I would look at the building goals as well as three year building plan to see the direction they are headed in. My next step would be to discuss the building strengths and needs with the staff to see where things stand. There have been many changes with staff and procedures within the past few years in this building so it would be beneficial to discuss these changes with the staff.
When I look to the first year as the administrator I would try to keep changes to a minimum but focus on the motivation and desire to make a school of learners for both the staff and students. I would emphasize the need to grow together in order to be better!
Thanks, Christi - your post is up and live on our blog! For others who need help, I'm going to ask you to problem solve and generate your own solution - as principals (and teachers) due hundreds of times every day. There are several help links that I found when I googled "add new post to Blogger":
http://www.blogger.com/features
http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=12507&parent=12457&ctx=topic
http://www.blogger.com/features
http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=12507&parent=12457&ctx=topic
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Positive Changes
Our school will be facing some pretty significant challenges in the coming year. While the changes are exciting, I feel it would be extremely difficult to facilitate the acceptance of everything new. We will be going one-to-one at the high school with iPads that will roll out to all students in January. Distribution to teachers will happen within the next week.
We are also working on some very major curriculum overhauls district wide. This includes writing end-of-course assessments for all courses at the Junior High and High School level that align with the new common core standards. It also involves looking at data k-12. Working in 3 different buildings, I have observed that the high school staff has been the least willing to embrace this challenging task - mostly out of fear of the unknown. They are so uncomfortable with the idea of coming up with these things on their own. Although we talked about it all year, only a few went out on a limb to come up with a working document.
Our school district has also been talking all year about the prospect of new facilities - both short and long range planning. The long range plan includes possibly relocating some grade levels and constructing a new high school. In order to facilitate this, the short range plan includes building a new football stadium - surprise! The whole community was involved in this discussion, as there are still a lot of emotions involved with the recent consolidation in 2005. The possibility of relocating grade levels begins to stir those emotions again.
With all of this talk of change, it seems like there is an underlying lack of trust in the administration to follow through with what they said they were going to do.
I think if I had to step in today, I would do everything I could to help the administrative team gain trust among the teaching staff. Before entering any conversations, I would spend a significant amount of time reflecting on my values as an educator so that I had something to fall back on in the decision making process. I would work hard to be transparent with the faculty and the community at large. I might survey the staff about possible issues we might have with each of these big new things - getting a much better grasp of their worries and concerns would help to guide decision making about how to use professional development and staff meetings. I would also be sure to recognize how very ahead of the curve our school is because of the hard work of each staff member. The reality is that we are lucky to be working in a place where we're not sprinting to catch up with everyone else, we're working hard to stay ahead of the curve.
We are also working on some very major curriculum overhauls district wide. This includes writing end-of-course assessments for all courses at the Junior High and High School level that align with the new common core standards. It also involves looking at data k-12. Working in 3 different buildings, I have observed that the high school staff has been the least willing to embrace this challenging task - mostly out of fear of the unknown. They are so uncomfortable with the idea of coming up with these things on their own. Although we talked about it all year, only a few went out on a limb to come up with a working document.
Our school district has also been talking all year about the prospect of new facilities - both short and long range planning. The long range plan includes possibly relocating some grade levels and constructing a new high school. In order to facilitate this, the short range plan includes building a new football stadium - surprise! The whole community was involved in this discussion, as there are still a lot of emotions involved with the recent consolidation in 2005. The possibility of relocating grade levels begins to stir those emotions again.
With all of this talk of change, it seems like there is an underlying lack of trust in the administration to follow through with what they said they were going to do.
I think if I had to step in today, I would do everything I could to help the administrative team gain trust among the teaching staff. Before entering any conversations, I would spend a significant amount of time reflecting on my values as an educator so that I had something to fall back on in the decision making process. I would work hard to be transparent with the faculty and the community at large. I might survey the staff about possible issues we might have with each of these big new things - getting a much better grasp of their worries and concerns would help to guide decision making about how to use professional development and staff meetings. I would also be sure to recognize how very ahead of the curve our school is because of the hard work of each staff member. The reality is that we are lucky to be working in a place where we're not sprinting to catch up with everyone else, we're working hard to stay ahead of the curve.
What exactly would I do...?
Welcome to our class blog for EAF 485 The Principalship (Summer 2012). I'll usually have the post up a week in advance of the date it's due - but since I'm just building this blog for us, that won't be the case with our first blog assignment. It won't be due until Friday, May 25th.
Thanks for sharing Tuesday about what you want to take away from this course. Those of you who have responded to the survey on Survey Monkey have offered some important insights for me, as well, as I will continue to adjust our curriculum to meet your needs, individually and as a class.
Please respond to the following questions in this first blogpost:
If you became the principal of your school tomorrow, what would be the most significant challenges facing you? How would you prioritize them?
Thanks for sharing Tuesday about what you want to take away from this course. Those of you who have responded to the survey on Survey Monkey have offered some important insights for me, as well, as I will continue to adjust our curriculum to meet your needs, individually and as a class.
Please respond to the following questions in this first blogpost:
If you became the principal of your school tomorrow, what would be the most significant challenges facing you? How would you prioritize them?
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