STANDARD ONE:
Strategic Leadership
A. School vision, Mission and Strategic Goals: The school’s identity, in part, is derived from the vision, mission, values, beliefs 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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My VisionKnowing who you are as a school leader, your beliefs, your strengths, and your weaknesses is critical to the sustainability of one's career. Articulating this understanding of one's self is difficult especially without experience. In ELP 551 we were assigned to write a vision statement that synthesized our learning from the program to date. This assignment forced me to consider who I am as a person, and who I intend to be as a leader. This assignment, although aspirational at the time, has become prophetic.
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The Golden Platter Award RES School Vision states "Riverwood Elementary School staff will inspire students to be responsible and compassionate citizens." As a staff, we were noticing that our students were not being responsible or compassionate when it came to their awareness in the cafeteria. Students were not cleaning up after themselves and leaving trash and mess for the next class to sit around. In our RAM Matrix, cleaning up after self is one of our cafeteria expectations. I thought about how we could reward those students or classes who did make the effort to keep their area clean, and the Golden Platter Award was created. Classes who exhibited the expectations would be rewarded with a golden platter. Students would be evaluated on Fridays, during their Duty-Free lunch. The winners announced Monday morning. Classes who held the Golden Platter would bring it to the winning class where it would reside for a week. I believe if students are challenged to be better, they will rise to that challenge. If students were rewarded for changing behavior, it would make a huge difference and others would notice. This award not only brought accountability to individual students, but it also improved accountability collectively. As a group, classes would make a huge effort to meet the expectations set forth by their teachers, their administrators, and their classmates. In turn, the school nutritionists were grateful because their job became easier.
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B. Leading Change: The school executive articulates a vision and implementation strategies for improvements and changes which result in improved achievement for all students.
Classroom WalkthroughsConducting classroom walkthroughs is one way for a school leader to accurately provide feedback to teachers in a timely and meaningful way. At my school site, we were very intentional about the focus of our walkthroughs and how it connects to the School Improvement Plan and the school's vision. I created this simple paper form to be used in the moment. All information aligned with the digital tool we used to send the feedback to teachers. Our walkthrough tool offered three data points for feedback: student collaboration, student engagement, and student level of thinking. These are the three instructional activities believed to make the biggest impact on growth for our students. During my residency, I shadowed my principal during walkthroughs and we calibrated our findings between each classroom. This helped us to develop a synchronized perspective as a team.
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Planning for School ImprovementELP 551 School Improvement took a deep dive into what are the elements school leaders must consider when looking to make positive change within a school. As a final assignment, we were challenged with determining the areas a new principal needs to examine and the guiding questions for that examination. As a new leader, I determined four areas I would examine as part of my process of improvement, School Culture, School Data, Professional Learning Communities, and Professional Development. I believe that these four areas are the most critical supports of a successful school.
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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.
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Action Plan for SIP GoalEvery School Improvement Plan is only as good as the actions taken to complete and show the movement of the goals within the plan. At my school site, every decision is connected to our SIP Goals and School Vision. Our focus this year in addition to the academic growth of our students was to create a culture where student's emotional needs are just as important as their academic needs. The process started with a plan of action, but as the school year progressed, we were able to adjust the plan to meet the needs of the teachers so our students would be positively affected by their learning and growth. This evidence shows the action steps that we have identified as ways to create this culture of SEL. These intentional actions and events have moved our teachers to more awareness and discussions that include a deeper look into a child.
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Clubs at RESAs part of the action plan, organizing the clubs for the school was one of my charges. I used the process used in the past but updated all steps and forms. This process first required surveying the teachers for the interest of the clubs they would like to advise. In some cases, teachers needed additional guidance as to how to streamline their initial ideas. The next step was to get students to sign up for the clubs. I created the document that included a short summary of the club, I distributed the document to the teachers to distribute to the students. As the sign-up forms were returned, I placed students into one of their top three choices! Rosters were sent to all the teacher advisors and formatted letters that I updated were sent for advisors to send to their club members. This schedule I created for our school secretary to use as a resource for parent questions. This document shows the organization and variety of clubs offered at RES this school year. All clubs connect to our SEL SIP Goal and afford students an opportunity for additional support.
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D. Distributive leadership: The school executive creates and utilizes processes to distribute leadership
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Understanding Distributive LeadershipExamining the importance of Distributive Leadership was one of the primary components of the ELP 550 Leadership course. As a class, we looked at different kinds of leadership theory. Distributive Leadership was a key theory that we spent a great deal of time understanding. Prior to the class, I could have guessed what Distributive Leadership was by the denotation of the title, however, I learned how complex and challenging distributive leadership can be in practice. As a school leader, it may be easier to get the job done alone, and in the way you would prefer it done, however, the slow negative effects of that choice may result in a culture of dependence and is simply not sustainable. Sharing the responsibility of school improvement with other school leaders creates a better investment in the work and shared accountability for achieving school goals. As a leader, distributing the work is important to the overall success of the school. This evidence is part of a project I presented in class, key points for leaders to remember as they lead any group.
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