Standard II: Instructional Leadership:
Principals/assistant principals set high standards for the professional practice of 21st century instruction and assessment that result in a no-nonsense accountable environment. They must be knowledgeable of best instructional and school practices and must use this knowledge to cause the creation of collaborative structures within the school for the design of highly engaging schoolwork for students, the on-going peer review of this work, and the sharing of this work throughout the professional community.
Element A. Focus on Learning and Teaching, Curriculum, Instruction and assessment: The school executive leads the discussion about standards for curriculum, instruction and assessment based on research and best practices in order to establish and achieve high expectations for students.
Artifact # 1: During my Principal Residency, I focused on learning, teaching, curriculum, instruction, and assessments as I led the monthly PLCs to discuss standards and best practices as I worked with teachers to investigate and problem solve data for overall school improvement. Below are examples of data charts and graphs I created to drive our discussions, so that the focus could be on student achievement and growth. Utilizing these charts, we were able to identify cohort groups of students, determine areas of weakness, and problem solve data to provide corrective instruction. This was an ongoing process that was informed by previous End of Grade Assessments, Quarterly Benchmarks, and Common Formative Assessments.
Example 1: For the 2016-17 school year, Banks Elementary School had 67% of its students meeting grade level expectations for Reading and Math in Grades 3-5. It was decided in our first School Improvement Team meeting that the school would be committed to improving both Reading and Math proficiency for students in Grades K-5. Their overall goal was to increase the percentage of students proficient by 3 percent for a total of 70% proficiency. In an effort to assist teachers with this process, I created the chart to the left to identify the total number of students who were currently proficient. I shared this information with teachers each Nine Weeks in a PLC meeting. This chart seen on the left list how many students were proficient based on beginning of year student data in Grades K-3.
Example 2: The chart on the left I created and shared with 4th Grade teachers to keep track of how many students would have achieved grade level proficiency based on previous EOG scores and First Nine Week Benchmark Assessments. This chart was used to form remediation groups and chose students for after-school tutoring sessions.
Example 3: This chart I created to keep track of students' Quarterly Benchmark Assessment data and classroom progression towards our school-wide goal of increasing overall student proficiency to 70%. This was also shared and discussed each quarter in a Data Dig PLC meeting with teachers. This chart with data was also used to form remediation groups and after-school tutoring groups.
Element B. Focus on Instructional Time: The school executive creates processes and schedules which protect teachers from disruptions of instructional or preparation time.
Artifact # 1: During my Principal Residency, one of my responsibilities was Testing Coordinator. I created a schedule, which is seen in the artifact below, which provided alternating days between Grades K-2 and Grades 3-5 to allow each group of students to have a Specials class in the afternoon. This allowed either K-2 or 3-5 teachers the opportunity to have at least a planning period every other day during our week of testing. Since most of our Benchmark Assessments were conducted online, providing this planning/preparation time for teachers during the week of testing allowed them the opportunity to review students' testing results and plan corrective instruction immediately following the assessments.
Artifact # 2: Another example of a process I worked with my mentor principal to create and implement in order to protect teachers from disruptions in instructional and preparation time was a rotation schedule for Teacher's Assistants, which is seen in the artifact below. Each teacher was assigned a Teacher's Assistant as her "go-to" person when coverage was needed to hold parent conferences, attend IEP meetings, or coverage for MTSS/PBIS team meetings. This information was shared with all staff and utilized throughout the year as coverage was needed.