Standard IV: Human Resource Leadership:
Principals/assistant principals will ensure that the school is a professional learning community. Principals/assistant principals will ensure that process and systems are in place which results in recruitment, induction, support, evaluation, development and retention of high performing staff. The principal/assistant principal must engage and empower accomplished teachers in a distributive manner, including support of teachers in day-to-day decisions such as discipline, communication with parents/guardians, and protecting teachers from duties that interfere with teaching, and must practice fair and consistent evaluations of teachers. The principal/assistant principal must engage teachers and other professional staff in conversations to plan their career paths and support district succession planning.
Element A. Professional Development/ Learning Communities: The school executive ensures that the school is a professional learning community.
Artifact # 1: One of the ways during my Principal Residency, I ensured the school was a professional learning community was accomplished as I fulfilled the roles and responsibilities of a MTSS coach for my intern school. I was asked to attend monthly training sessions. Using the knowledge gained from previous MTSS modules and trainings from the state MTSS coaches and NCLA special trainings, I worked with other school staff to train our staff once a month on the Phase One Module of MTSS. The first example below shows the SEA System proposal for one of the initial trainings that I attended. The second example is a screenshot of a PowerPoint that was used in one of our school-wide trainings conducted by the other MTSS coach and myself during an after-school session.
Element B. Recruiting, hiring, placing and mentoring of Staff: The school executive establishes processes and systems in order to ensure a high-quality, high performing staff.
Artifact # 1: As a Principal Resident, I worked with my mentor principal to establish processes and systems in order to ensure a high-quality, high-performing staff. One example of this is seen in the artifact below. In order to comply with the K-3 Legislation, a fifth Third Grade class had to be created. I worked with my mentor principal through the hiring process to interview and choose a teacher to fill this vacant position. I also took the class lists from the other third grade classes to create a roster for the additional class, which included students from diverse ethnic and academic backgrounds.
Artifact # 2: One of my roles as a Principal Resident was to conduct monthly after-school PD sessions for newly hired staff and beginning teachers in an effort to mentor and retain highly qualified staff. The artifact below shows one of the activities that was conducted with the staff to discuss Standard I: Teacher Leadership. Staff completed the activity alone to list examples of what leadership would look like in the classroom, school, and profession, as well as, how they would advocate for students and show high ethical standards. Each table discussed their responses. Then, we shared out whole group. The artifact below was the information staff gave to discuss Standard I: Teacher Leadership. This activity was important because Teacher Leadership is the first standard on the NC Teacher Evaluation instrument. By assisting teachers in gaining a deeper understanding of the standards in which they will be evaluated on, I increased the likelihood that the teachers would be rated at proficient or higher on the evaluation instrument, which could result in higher retention rates.
Element C. Teacher and Staff Evaluation: The school executive evaluates teachers and other staff in a fair and equitable manner with the focus on improving performance and, thus student achievement.