Standard 2 - Instructional Leadership
Principals set high standards for the professional practice of 21st century instruction and assessment that result in a no-nonsense accountable environment. The school executive 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 IIa. Focus on Learning and Teaching, Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment: The principal/assistant principal 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.
At Bethesda, our Instructional Leadership Team supported PLCs through an all-day planning sessions for each grade level in K-2 and each content level in 3-5. We pre-planned an agenda, participated in conversations, collaborated with teachers, provided resources, and provided support in order to promote academic success in each grade level and content area. The agenda below outlines the ways in which we used data, focused on instructional planning, created assessments, and commitment to a combination of both whole group and small group instruction. At Bethesda, I lead individual teacher data conferences based on i-Ready growth and proficiency data collected at the Middle of Year (MOY) benchmark in January. During each teacher's conference, we spoke about what was working, looked at fidelity of use with the program, and decided on next steps for instruction and planning based on high-yield strategies. I also had the opportunity to prepare the MOY data presentation that our administrative team presented to all of the staff members which included academic, behavioral, and attendance data. At Neal, our Instructional Leadership Team used staff meeting time wisely by sharing strategies for best practices in the classroom including formative assessment, PLCs, and online programs. This standard is highly important in order to continually increase and highlight my own personal responsibility for performance as well as encouraging it in others.
Element IIb. Focus on Instructional Time: The principal/assistant principal creates processes and schedules which protect teachers from disruption of instructional or preparation time.
One of the best opportunities that I had in middle school was seeing the amount of planning time that middle school teachers have as compared to elementary school teachers. In order to promote student achievement it is imperative for teachers to have adequate time to plan both individually as well as in PLC. Below is a schedule that I drafted for elementary school that would provide teachers with 90 minutes of planning per day as opposed to the standard 40-45 minutes that is seen in elementary school. I also believe that a schedule like this would be a great motivator for both current staff and during the hiring process in order to improve the working conditions for teachers. At Neal, I collaborated with the Instructional Leadership Team to create a new master schedule that included a year-round Discovery block. This block of time was used for intervention and remediation on all grade levels. At Bethesda, as a member of the Instructional Leadership Team, we regularly speak about ways in which we can maximize the amount of time we have with students so that our schedule is as effective as possible. After our planning sessions, we updated the master schedule to reflect those changes. Additionally, I created a schedule for testing that ensured that all teachers would still have planning on days where tests are administered. Also, I created a duty schedule that would capitalize on all human resources so that duty time is distributed more evenly among all staff as compared to only K-5 homeroom teachers. While working on the schedule for 2018-2019, we creatively scheduled in order to provide maximum use of our support staff. The master schedule is one of the most important levers that a principal can affect pertaining to time management for all stakeholders. Organizational ability is one of my greatest strengths pertaining to a variety of different scheduling types including master scheduling, testing scheduling, duty scheduling, etc.
Coursework
Developmental Projects
Problem of Practice
Professional Development and Specialized Trainings
Flipped Classroom
Distinguished Leadership in Practice
Understanding by Design
Teach Like a Champion
First Days of School
Madeline Hunter Teaching Strategies
Readings
on common ground: The Power of Professional Learning Communities (DuFour)
Reframing Organizations (Bolman & Deal)
Yardsticks: Children in the Classroom Ages 4 - 14 (Woods)
Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement, (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone
Developmental Projects
Problem of Practice
Professional Development and Specialized Trainings
Flipped Classroom
Distinguished Leadership in Practice
Understanding by Design
Teach Like a Champion
First Days of School
Madeline Hunter Teaching Strategies
Readings
on common ground: The Power of Professional Learning Communities (DuFour)
Reframing Organizations (Bolman & Deal)
Yardsticks: Children in the Classroom Ages 4 - 14 (Woods)
Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement, (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone