Standard III: Cultural Leadership:
Principals/assistant principals will understand and act on the understanding of the important role a school's culture plays in contributing to the exemplary performance of the school. Principals/assistant principals must support and value the traditions, artifacts, symbols and positive values and norms of the school and community that result in a sense of identity and pride upon which to build a positive future. A principal/assistant principal must be able to "re-culture" the school if needed to align with school's goals of improving student and adult learning and to infuse the work of the adults and students with passion, meaning and purpose. Cultural leadership implies understanding the school and the people in it each day, how they came to their current state, and how to connect with their traditions in order to move them forward to support the school's efforts to achieve individual and collective goals.
Element A. Focus on Collaborative Work Environment: The school executive understands and acts on the understanding of the positive role that a collaborative environment can play in the school’s culture.
Artifact # 1: During my Principal residency, I understood the positive role that a collaborative environment can play on the school's culture. The school staff encompasses much more than just the teaching staff. Each and every person in my building play an important role in the academic success of students. As a principal resident, I had to oversee the custodial staff, which meant assigning roles and responsibilities to county employees along with contract cleaning services. Below is one version of a custodial schedule that I developed to ensure that the school building was kept clean and remained a representation of the pride we held for our Bulldog students and staff. By collaborating with the county employees and contract cleaning staff, I made sure that each classroom was clean, which also ensured that the environment was conducive to teaching and learning.
Artifact # 2: Another example of how I worked with school staff to ensure a collaborative work environment is seen in the artifact below. These minutes were taken from one of our PLC meetings where I discussed focus areas and road blocks for implementing our Guided Reading Small Group Instruction Plan for Grades K-2. Since the District had made K-2 Literacy a focus for the 2017-2018 school year, my mentor principal and I wanted to ensure the success of this initiative. Addressing any concerns of the teachers and working with them to overcome any roadblocks through a collaborative partnership was a top priority for our administrative team. Based on the feedback from the teachers, additional training on how to conduct Guided Reading groups was needed. In future PLC meetings, I shared resources with teachers on the foundations of Guided Reading, as well as, videos of Guided Reading groups being conducted with fidelity.
Element B. School Culture and Identity: The school executive develops and uses shared vision, values, and goals to define the identity and culture of the school.
Artifact # 1: As a member of the School Improvement Team (SIT), I attended monthly meetings and participated in the decision making process throughout my residency, which allowed me to develop and use our shared vision, values, and goals to define the identity and culture of our school. The artifact to the left shows notes that were taken from one of our SIT Team meetings which occurred at the beginning of the year where I participated in the discussion to set our school-wide PDP goal for the 2017-2018 school year. Based on the school-wide goal, which I helped to develop, teachers were to focus on instruction to ensure that 70% of students in Grades K-5 were proficient on grade level standards by the end of year. Increasing overall student achievement, as well as, making or exceeding growth is a goal at Banks Elementary. Based on school report card data for the 2016-17 school year, Banks Elementary had 67% of their students proficient in Reading and Math in Grades 3-5. It was decided in the initial SIT meeting, that we would set the school goal to 70% proficiency for all students in Grades K-5. I was apart of that decision making process as I attended and participated in this meeting.
Artifact # 2: Another way in which I was able to develop and use our shared vision, values, and goals to define the identity and culture of our school is seen in the artifact below. One of our assignments for the Distinguished Leadership Program or DLP was to conduct an "Educational Garage Sale." The artifact below shows the teachers' responses to the Educational Garage Sale, which was done during one of our PLC meetings. Each grade level engaged in the activity where they listed on sticky notes parts of our school culture that should go to a museum, be placed in the garbage can, put up for sale or barter, kept (not for sale/repaired), or placed in the toxic waste hauler. The results of this activity were shared with the staff in a Staff Meeting. As a follow-up to this activity, the School Improvement Team discussed the teachers' responses. Specific notes were taken about plans for next year and/or next steps to address concerns expressed by teachers while completing the Educational Garage Sale, which was included in the School Improvement Team notes. This information will be used as we make decisions for next school year as a School Improvement Team about programs and practices that should be kept or discarded based on the goals and values of the staff expressed in the Educational Garage Sale.
Element C. Acknowledges Failures; Celebrates Accomplishments and Rewards: The school executive acknowledges failures and celebrates accomplishments of the school in order to define the identity, culture and performance of the school
Artifact # 1: During my Principal Residency, I had the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the accomplishments of the school in order to define the identity, culture, and performance of the school. One of my duties as a Principal Resident was to oversee the buses and student behavior. As a PBIS school, I had the pleasure of celebrating the Bus of the Week who had earned the most bulldogs. This included incentives at check points up to 180. Below is a spreadsheet used to keep track of PBIS Bulldogs. When a Bus Driver would submit her Weekly Bulldog Count slip to me, I would update the spreadsheet, distribute the PBIS reward to the Bus Driver, update the Bulletin Board in the cafeteria for the Bus of the Week, as well as, make the announcement on Monday or Friday of which bus had earned the most PBIS Bulldogs for the week. This created a spirit of healthy competition among the seven buses at my intern school.
Artifact # 2: Another way that I celebrated the success of teachers outside of the school is seen in the picture below. I attended the Tri-County Mini Grant Ceremony in the absence of my mentor principal, who was out on maternity leave. I submitted this picture to our Digital Learning Specialist (DLS) who then posted it on our Banks Elementary School Facebook page. I also recognized the teachers who had received mini-grants by announcing their names over the intercom the next morning during announcements.
Element D. Efficacy and Empowerment: The school executive develops a sense of efficacy and empowerment among staff which influences the school’s identity, culture and performance.
Artifact # 1: Utilizing the concepts of True Colors, I conducted an inventory with the staff at the opening meeting. This information was used throughout the year by my mentor principal and I while making decisions about staff members and forming groups for projects. One example of how the True Colors Inventory was used to form teacher pairs is seen in the next artifact below.
Artifact # 2: One example of how the True Colors Inventory was used during my Principal Residency is seen in the artifact to the left. I used the True Colors Inventory as I considered which teachers to pair together for a Peer Observing Peers or POPs activity. For example, I strategically placed a "Green" who is a logical thinker with a "Blue" who is a feeler or emotional thinker. This pair of teachers would each bring a different perspective to the learning activity. During my residency, I decided to engage K-2 teachers in a POPs protocol to allow them the opportunity to learn and grow as they began to experiment and try out a variety of reading strategies to increase student engagement and interaction with authentic texts. The chart to the left, which I created, was used as documentation of teachers' effort to observe and provide feedback to their peer once a month while implementing a new reading strategy which was previous learned in a district-wide professional development session. Once a month in a PLC meeting, we began the meeting by discussing what new reading strategies teachers had implemented and/or observed. Documentation of the POPS practice was recorded on this chart.