Standard I: Strategic Leadership:
Principals/assistant principals will create conditions that result in strategically re-imaging the school's vision, mission, and goals in the 21st century. Understanding that schools ideally prepare students for an unseen but not altogether unpredictable future, the leader creates a climate of inquiry that challenges the school community to continually re-purpose itself by building on its core values and beliefs about its preferred future and then developing a pathway to reach it.
Element A: School vision, Mission and Strategic Goals: The school’s identity, in part, is derived from the vision, mission, values, belief and goals of the school, the processes used to establish these attributes, and the ways they are embodied in the life of the school community.
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Artifact #1: To learn more about how a school's identity can be derived from the vision, mission, values, beliefs, and goals of the school, the picture to the left shows a school visit to Selma Middle School in Smithfield, NC. This school visit, along with the NCLA course work and guest speakers that addressed school culture, allowed me the opportunity to take lessons learned and implement them into my Principal Residency school. An example of a lesson learned taken and applied into my residency school is seen in Artifact #2 below.
Artifact #1: To learn more about how a school's identity can be derived from the vision, mission, values, beliefs, and goals of the school, the picture to the left shows a school visit to Selma Middle School in Smithfield, NC. This school visit, along with the NCLA course work and guest speakers that addressed school culture, allowed me the opportunity to take lessons learned and implement them into my Principal Residency school. An example of a lesson learned taken and applied into my residency school is seen in Artifact #2 below.
Artifact #2: The principal at Selma Middle School created a sense of urgency. As a School of Transformation. it was imperative that all staff be engaged in the work of total school improvement. In order to gather input from the teachers at my residency school about urgency and link to previous learning made during the school culture visit, I assisted in an activity which was entitled, "Urgency Matters." In our PLCs, my mentor principal and I conducted an activity where each staff member completed the following statements: Urgency is... Urgency is not... The following week in our staff meeting, we discussed the teachers' responses as a group. We then had teachers form groups and design a poster that illustrated what urgency should look like in the classroom. This activity was very helpful in determining the goals and values of our staff as it relates to the school culture. Since my mentor principal was new this year, and the Mission and Vision statements for Banks Elementary had already been established, this information will be used to help revise the current school's Mission and Vision statements for the 2018-2019 school year. Artifact examples are included in the pictures below.
Element B: Leading Change: The school executive articulates a vision and implementation strategies for improvements and changes which result in improved achievement for all students.
Artifact # 1: As a principal resident, I engaged in the implementation of strategies for improvement and change which resulted in improved achievement for all students. The artifact below shows how I worked with my mentor principal to create an additional Kindergarten class. I compiled the data below and shared it with my mentor principal. We used data to drive our decision making process as it relates to which students were selected from each of our four current Kindergarten classes, as well as, a timeline of implementation for the change to occur. Our decision to make this change mid-year was driven by the K-3 Legislative mandate, but our rationale for student selection resulted in a smaller educational setting to address specific needs to ensure improved achievement for all students.
Artifact # 2: The examples below show how I engaged in the implementation of strategies for improvement and change which resulted in improved achievement for all students. As shown in the first example, in our monthly PLC meetings, my mentor principal and I decided to require teachers to administer a common formative assessment (CFA) once every two weeks for Reading and Math. Using the lesson progression, seen in Example 2, I assisted teachers in developing from the Lenoir County Public Schools Curriculum Maps, teachers created CFAs and administered them to students as requested. My mentor principal and I conducted CFA meetings with teachers to discuss the results of their assessments. As seen in the third example below, I also developed a schedule of when Specialist teachers had an additional planning time, so that they could be utilized for a 30 minute intervention block for students in grades 2-5. By utilizing the Specialist teachers in grade levels without a Teacher Assistant, this provided another layer of support to ensure improved achievement for all students.
Example 2: Lesson progression I assisted teachers in developing during a PLC meeting, which was later used by teachers in an effort to design and deliver Common Formative Assessments (CFAs) every two weeks during a Nine Weeks grading period.
Example 3: The highlighted areas listed in the chart to the left are times the Specialist teacher was not currently assigned a class. He or she could "push into a class" during those times to offer additional help in Grades 2-5.
Element C: School Improvement Plan: The school improvement plan provides the structure for the vision, values, goals and changes necessary for improved achievement for all students.
Artifact # 1: I participated in the School Improvement Team meetings where we discussed options to address the K-3 Class Size Legislation and the need to create an additional Kindergarten class. In order to honor the values and goals of my Principal Residency school, I worked with the SIT team to address the issue, as well as, make an informed decision that would keep us aligned to our vision, mission, and goals, as well as, help us achieve our 70% student proficiency goal, which is apart of our School Improvement Plan. Below is the list of possible solutions which was generated by myself, my mentor principal, other Kindergarten teachers, and the SIT Team members to address the K-3 Legislative mandate. In the end, my mentor principal and I chose to move our STEM teacher into a Kindergarten position. I compiled student mClass data, which was used to drive our decision-making process on the student selections. In an effort to continue our progress towards having at least 70% of our students meeting grade level proficiency by the end of the year, my mentor principal and I chose students who were currently yellow in DIBELs and would most benefit from a smaller group setting.
Artifact # 2: The School Improvement Plan for Banks Elementary is informed by the Teacher Working Conditions Survey. Prior to beginning my Principal Residency, I conducted a School Profile where I identified areas of celebrations and areas to target for improvement. This helped to inform me about the goals and values of this school prior to meeting and working with the staff. Below is a copy of the 2016 Teacher's Working Conditions Survey, which was used to develop the profile of my Residency School. As noted in the survey results below 74% of teachers either agreed or strongly agreed that class sizes were reasonable to allow teachers time to meet the needs of students. This was considered in the decision making process used to determine the solution to address the problem of student enrollment in Kindergarten, as seen in the artifact above. Rather than pulling a 4th or 5th grade teacher to create a fifth Kindergarten class, which would have resulted in larger class sizes in that particular grade level, my mentor principal and I chose to move the STEM teacher into the newly created Kindergarten position. This solution had the least impact of 4th and 5th grade level class sizes, which was important to the staff at Banks Elementary.
Element D: Distributive leadership: The school executive creates and utilizes processes to distribute leadership and decision making throughout the school.
Artifact # 1: Each school executive must create and utilize processes to distribute leadership. This can be accomplished through the School Improvement Team. During my Principal Residency, my mentor principal assigned me to be the chair of the Dimension E Parent Involvement SIT Team. Leadership responsibilities were distributed to me as I helped to plan and carry out a Title I Parent Night in my first semester of residency and a STEP Up Parent Night during my second semester of residency. As the chair of the Dimension E Parent Night Committee, I also delegated various tasks and demonstrated distributive leadership by assigning various roles and responsibilities to staff for each of the Title I Parent Nights. The examples below, which include committee notes, staff assignments. schedules, and flyers from the two events, demonstrate the distributive leadership and decision making process I exhibited throughout my Principal Residency.
Example 1: I distributed leadership roles and responsibilities to each Grade Level SIT Team member by giving them the autonomy to design a presentation for parents which included the following topics listed in the artifact to the left. I shared this handout with each Grade Level SIT Team member in a digital format during one of our Partnership for Parents Dimension E planning meetings.
Example 2: I assigned roles and responsibilities to each of the Specialist teachers and Support Staff listed in the chart in the artifact on the left. Since all K-5 teachers and Teacher's Assistants would need to be present to greet parents and students in their classrooms, I chose to assign Specialist teachers and other Support Staff to the roles of parent greeters and directors in the hallways during the Partnership for Parent Night in September.
Example 3: In the artifact to the left, you will see notes that I shared with each Grade Level SIT Team member in one of our planning meetings prior to the STEP UP Night, which was held in March.
Example 4: As seen in the artifact to the left, I worked with the Third Grade Dimension E Parent Involvement representative to craft a letter which was sent home with every student informing their parents of the upcoming Step Up Night.