STANDARD SIX:
External Development Leadership
A. Parent and Community Involvement and Outreach: The school executive designs structures and processes which result in parent and community engagement, support and ownership for the school.
Angel Tree
RES is staffed with compassionate and dedicated professionals such as counselors. For the past eight years, the school counselor has been organizing the Angel Tree project for our school. Every year, she asks our RES parents, if they would like to adopt or contribute to the Angel Tree by purchasing Christmas, presents for our students' families that won't be financially able to afford to. She has the process organized and timed so that gifts are delivered to the school the Friday before the last week before Christmas break. Parent volunteers do not know the name of the student they are purchasing for, they are only given a copy of the response form also sent out to parents. Wrapped presents are dropped off with coded and they literally take up her entire classroom! The work then begins. The presents are organized according to the codes (some families have multiple children and multiple donors). She evaluates the piles and determines if a child anything more or if presents haven't been delivered yet. I helped her at this point in the process. I made follow up calls with parents who agreed to participate and had not dropped off gifts. I double-checked that they were still able to participate. Because she was so organized, we were able to get what we needed for all of our students and if not, she reached out to our staff, who were more than generous! The day parents were assigned to come and pick up their gifts was the afternoon before Christmas break, a half-day. Any gifts not picked up by the parents were delivered to the student’s house. This year, she was also able to provide five bikes to our students. This outreach to our community by our community was touching. In working on this project with her, I learned a lot about the kinds of families we have at our school, and the parents who came to pick up gifts were so grateful that their children would be celebrating on Christmas morning. Being a strong school leader means being compassionate and dedicated to service and committed to the community.
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RES PTAEstablishing a good relationship with the PTA is one way a school can help to have a stronger relationship with the community. School leaders are so busy running the school, they need help with bringing in the community stakeholders, especially parents. At RES, the PTA is a strong organization that does a lot to support the school. I have never worked in a school with a PTA and so this was a huge eye-opener for me. Parents actually want to be involved and make the school a better place for all children. RES PTA has organized events that benefit our school community such as school supply drive, book fair, silent buddies, field trip buddies, food drives and they always remember our teachers and give us small thoughtful gifts which help to generate morale. RES PTA is also a huge fundraising entity. They have been able to fundraise and purchase interactive boards for our teachers, Chromebooks, furniture and agree to support other events the school would like to participate in such as the district Spelling Bee. The PTA also supports the school by helping with communicating parent information through their Facebook page. A strong and viable PTA is the foundation for a strong school community.
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B. Federal, State and District Mandates: The school executive designs executive protocols and processes in order to comply with federal, state and district mandates.
Fire Extinguisher Training-OSHA
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires employers to provide an "educational program" covering the general principles of portable extinguisher use. As a school leader, this responsibility falls upon me. I attended the district training where I learned all about the fire extinguisher and was able to use one! This was a very informative training and I wish I could allow my teachers to also practice, but time is always an issue. So I thought I would make a video for the training for my staff. I made the video and realized that it wasn't the right information, I goofed. So, on the day of the training, I just presented my video speech under 5 minutes. My video goal was less than five minutes and I did the same with an audience without the goof. The presentation was informative and I believe it was effective. This strategy of training is way school leaders can comply with mandates and keep to the planned agenda!
Seeking the Sign-Off
At the beginning of each school year, all JCPS employees are to read through a variety of district policy documents and sign off that they have been read. Different schools filter these documents differently. At RES, one-half day is used to update employees on any changes to the policies. Staff members are to review the documents and sign off for the district on their own. In Oct, the Principals were reminded that every employee must sign off as part of their professional duty. I was given the responsibility of communicating with employees who were not on our list. I decided that I would create my own process in achieving this mandate. First I emailed staff whose names were not on the list the district gave to the schools. The teacher assistants and teachers responded right away and signed off. When I looked at the list of remaining names, I realized many of the staff members were brand-new hires, child nutritionists, or custodians. I decided to seek them out as they were hard at work. I carried a laptop with me so they could sign off on these documents right then and there. I discovered many didn't know their JCPS email addresses, so I helped them, and we were able to sign off together. The decision to seek out the staff instead of wait for a response was a wise choice. I would not have discovered the technological gap with our classified staff which informed my communication with them for the rest of the school year.