Week One Assignment,
Part 1 – Description of SBEC Superintendent Leadership Experiences by Domains
and Competencies
Using your Intern Plan, your course and campus
supervised logs, please prepare at least one page describing how your
experiences attempted to address each of the elements of the 10 competencies.
Be sure to comment on lessons learned from these extensive experiences.
Domain
I—Leadership of the Educational Community – Competencies 1 - 4
Competency
1 Area:
The
superintendent knows how to act with integrity, fairness, and in an ethical
manner in order to promote the success of all students.
For my internship project, I provided
evidence for demonstrating that I
actually do what I tell others to do. As the principal of a high school, I have
to appraise teachers and rate them accordingly. I am appraised by our superintendent
so I have to live what I preach. Domain VII deals with compliance with
policies, operating procedures, and requirements. I try to live by this creed daily. I come to
school dressed for my position consistently. I expect the teachers to do the
same. I always tell my teachers, “you
are always on an interview”, when we sit down to go over their appraisal .
Someone is always watching you, analyzing, and critiquing your every move
whether you are at school or not. I try to make my decisions based on
integrity, fairness, and in an ethical manner. This is very important to me
because it shows that I try to live what I preach and want my teachers to do
the same.
Acting fairly is something that has to be
done as a leader. There are many decisions that a leader must make that other
employees may not understand. These decisions are made in order to be fair. A
good example of this would be if an employee was given a directive to arrive at
work no later than 7:45 each day because they were consistently late. This
employee would not be happy if they found out that you did not give anyone else
a directive for being late. Being fair and consistent are important parts of
the superintendent’s that should not be overlooked. Sometimes you have to make
a decision that a group of teachers do not like. They may not be privileged to
some of the information about the decision so they perceive it to be unfair. A
good leader or superintendent that makes “deposits” with their employees
throughout the school year will have an easier time with the “withdrawals” if
they have a good relationship with their employees. If the deposits outweigh
the withdrawals, teachers and employees will usually understand better when you
have to make those tough decisions.
Competency
2 Area:
The
superintendent knows how to shape district culture by facilitating the
development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of
learning that is shared and supported by the educational community.
Our campus site
base team met in August to discuss our campus plan. Within the campus plan is
our school vision statement. We looked at the vision statement and changed some
parts of it to include employable characteristics. Here is the final vision statement
that we agreed upon. “Hamshire-Fannett seeks to reach all students through
education: spurring intellectual growth beyond any subject and beyond high
school, building character, a sense of community, discipline, and other
employable characteristics.” This process helps the entire staff see a means to
an end and gives them a road map to success. Building character is mentioned in
the vision statement and is one of the more important concepts in any
statement. Parents and students need to know what the school vision is and if
our faculty is striving to live by this vision. If everyone is on the same
page, our district’s goals can be more easily attained.
Another way to help
shape the vision of the school district is the superintendent evaluation
instrument given by the school board to the superintendent. The
superintendent’s evaluation form is split up into the following categories:
Part 1: Educational leadership, District Management, Board and Community
Relations,
Part 2: Priority Performance Goals which include leadership,
maintenance goals, and technology integration, Staff Wellness, College
readiness, and academic goals. The
rating scale used for this instrument goes from 1:Satisfactory, 2: Needs Strong
Improvement, 3:Needs Improvement, 4: Proficient, 5: Exceeds Expectation.
Progress towards each goal are rated using this scale. There
is also a comments section to support the rating. The goal is help the board
and superintendent understand the priorities of the district in the framework
of the district’s vision.
Competency
3 Area:
The
superintendent knows how to communicate and collaborate with families and
community members, respond to diverse community interests and needs, and
mobilize community resources to ensure educational success for all students.
The process that the district uses to communicate with parents
is an ongoing issue. We continually try to find better ways to communicate with
parents. Updating our school website and teacher websites has been a great way
to improve our communication and get the news out on what is going on in the
district. We also have open house, longhorn leap registration day before school
starts, and various informational meetings throughout the year with parents to
communicate things that are going on with regards to testing, college,
bullying, etc.
I also observed a
meeting of our high school site base team. We had two parents on the committee
that gave some input and collaboration on the issues that were being addressed.
Most of the meeting was dominated by myself and the other committee members
because of the relevant education issues that we had knowledge about. The
parents had some input but not a lot. As I reflect back on the meeting, I
realize that a good way to increase the parent’s effectiveness is to ask them
leading questions that will help them be able to be included in more of the
discussions. This could help enable them to be more comfortable when discussing
issues on the site base committee. We could also give them the agenda early so they
could be more prepared about the issues that we are going to discuss.
Competency
4 Area:
The
superintendent knows how to respond to and influence the larger political,
social, economic, legal, and cultural context, including working with the board
of trustees, to achieve the district's educational vision.
I attend each board
meeting in our school district because I am required to do so. Having gone to
board meetings over the past five years, I see how the board president helps
steer the other members of the school board towards the vision and goals of the
school district. It is very easy for board members to make hasty decisions
based on issues that the community is in their ear about. Our board president
helps re-focus the board on the board goals and vision that was laid out over
the past couple of years.
As the principal of
a high school, I have to deal with unpleasant issues on a daily basis. I have
trained myself to become a better listener, not show emotion unless it is
positive emotion, and to acknowledge accomplishments in a more consistent
manner. I recently started recognizing a “teacher of the month” at the monthly
board meetings. This has helped improve morale for our campus. I have also read
a couple of books this year that have transformed the way that I look at
conflict. One book, “Whale Done”, talks about how trainers train whales at sea
world using positive reinforcement. Accentuate the positive each time the whale
performs the task correctly. You still deal with the negative actions but
redirect more than correct. Accentuating the positive things that I want to
happen on the campus helps teachers know what I expect and they end of enjoying
doing various task because of the praise. This can also be used with parents
and the community when something good is happening with a student or in the
community. The more “deposits” that you
can make in the account, the lesser the effect when you have to make a
“withdrawal”. I try to live by this creed every day in my personal life and at
work.
DOMAIN
II—INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP – COMPETENCIES 5 - 7
Competency
5 Area:
The
superintendent knows how to facilitate the planning and implementation of
strategic plans that enhance teaching and learning; ensure alignment among
curriculum, curriculum resources, and assessment; use the current
accountability system; and promote the use of varied assessments to measure
student performance.
No Child Left
Behind is a federal mandate of all schools to make sure that schools and
districts have the capabilities to reach all students. One requirement of this
is for teachers to be highly quailed. Our curriculum director, Dr. Ausburn,
makes sure that all schools have highly qualified teachers in them. He has to
send a report and present findings to the school board and back to the federal
government. As of today, all of our teachers in the district are highly
qualified.. If they are not highly qualified, a report and plan must be made to
show that the teacher is moving towards becoming highly qualified. NCLB also
looks at demographic groups when testing is involved. The passing rates for
these groups go up each year until they reach 100%. This is presently being
debated by members of the legislature.
I conducted a site
base decision making meeting at the beginning of the school year during the
month of August. I recently sent an evaluation out to the team asking the above
questions about my performance. Some of the answers were not what I expected.
When asked about the goals, they said that we had good goals but needed to
change them up because of the new standards of the STAAR test. Some of the
teachers did not think that our tutorial program for the STAAR test was
adequate enough to help all of our students pass. A couple of people mentioned
that we needed to revisit our goal of having a safe schools. One big issue that
came up was that our parent representatives have not always showed up for the
meeting because of issues that have come up. They said that I needed to stress
a little more to the parent representatives about being at the meetings so we
could have their input. They all said that I did a good job of providing a
challenging viewpoint to certain goals that the members wanted and did a good
job of assessing their concerns and working collaboratively.
Competency
6 Area:
The
superintendent knows how to advocate, promote, and sustain an instructional
program and a district culture that are conducive to student learning and staff
professional growth.
I meet with
teachers that I appraise at the beginning of the school year for a
pre-observation conference. For the pre-observation conference, I meet with all
of the teachers that I am evaluating at the same time and give them information
about what I am looking for when I conduct an observation. I then conduct the
conference. I try to finish all of my observations by the end of the first
semester. I also try to do ten walkthroughs each six weeks. After analyzing the
data, I meet with the teachers for the post conference to tell them what I saw
and did not see. I also get reflective feedback from the teachers about what
they thing they could have done better. We also go over the teacher
self-report. In the Spring, I do the summative evaluation by including what I
saw in the initial observation and any walkthroughs. We also discuss
professional development needs and wants during our summative appraisal
conference.
I surveyed teachers
and students about ways to motivate. Teachers perspectives were a little
different than the students. Some of the teachers that I surveyed included
rewards, film days, and relationships as tools for motivating students.
Students responses included rewards but the number one thing was having a
teacher that had a relationship with their class as a whole and having “fun
things” to do while they learned. One student gave an example of their teacher
staying after school every day to help them and other students. This teacher
has done this for his whole career. Many of his students have gone off to
college and excelled in Science. When analyzing both perspectives, the
student’s perspective on motivation and relationships was worth more weight
than rewards. Teachers need to be self-aware of what effect their personalities
and relationships with students have on motivating students to succeed.
I looked up board
policies related to the use of electronic communication by employees.
Electronic media such as e-mail, text messaging, video sharing, and electronic
forums may be used by a certified or licensed employee to communicate with
currently enrolled students about matters within the scope of the employee’s
professional responsibilities. All other employees are prohibited from using
electronic media t communicate directly with students who are currently
enrolled in the district. An employee shall be held to the same professional
standards in his or her public use of electronic media as for any other public
conduct. If the employee’s use of electronic media violates state or federal
law or district policy, the employee is subject to disciplinary action, up to
and including termination of employment.
Competency
7 Area:
The
superintendent knows how to implement a staff evaluation and development system
and select appropriate models for supervision and staff development to improve
the performance of all staff members.
I spoke with our
Personnel Director, Mark Martin, for this interview. He responded to the
following items: He said that when planning, he communicates with campus
principals to determine the needs of the campus, potential resignations, and
non-renewals. As far as recruiting teachers, he will usually attend job fairs
to scope out prospective employees. Our school web site is another avenue to
attract new employees. The site base teams usually help out with selecting a
new teacher. When asked about compensation, he said that Hamshire-Fannett has
always tried to offer a competitive package of not only salary but benefits.
This has been harder to do recently because of the state budget cuts. The last
thing we discussed was evaluation and dismissal of employees. He said that if
you go by district policy for each one, your headaches will be fewer.
Our present
superintendent sets up staff development for the district constantly. With the
onset of federal laws, legislative changes, and annual required trainings, we
constantly send administrators and teachers to trainings to stay updated and
current on laws. We also meet as an administrative group each week to discuss
staff development and procedural trainings for our teachers. Special education
training was the main focus for this year. Our Assistant Superintendent for
Curriculum has a working document that he addresses at each meeting to help us
discuss staff development needs for the present and upcoming year. As a
district, we have most of our staff development frontloaded at the beginning of
the school year before the students arrive. We try to cover every aspect of the
laws and curriculum that we need to do at that time. This year, we have
instituted a “call to duty” for any teacher that would like to train other
teachers on a curriculum idea that has proven to be successful. We will have
the day split up into 8 blocks and teachers will be able to choose which area
and training that they might want to learn about. This is something new so it
will be interesting to see how everything works out. We also schedule early
release days throughout the school year so we can do the mandatory training
that the state mandated test require. Next year, we will be using some of our early release days for remediation of
students who have not made satisfactory on the STAAR test. Our course
everything hinges on what the state legislature does this year with the STAAR test
and how many test the students will be taking.
DOMAIN
III—ADMINISTRATIVE LEADERSHIP – COMPETENCIES 8 – 10
Competency
8 Area:
The
superintendent knows how to apply principles of effective leadership and
management in relation to district budgeting, personnel, resource utilization,
financial management, and technology application.
The budget planning process at the high school is overseen by
our Assistant Superintendent of Finance and implemented by the high school
principal. Each year, departments are given their budgets and asked if they
need any changes to them. Over the past couple of years, we have had to cut
budgets across the board, so we have had to cut many items in the budget. This
year, our Superintendent of Finance gave us the deadline of the end of April to
finalize our budget for next year. She e-mailed us our budget from last year on
an excel spreadsheet. We are to look at the budget and cut items if we can. Our
district has a budget deficit for next year and may have to go into fund
balance if the state does nothing with school finance. We will try to cut some
items from the budget but most items will stay the same. There is a yearly
issue with teacher raises and insurance. Insurance goes up every year which
cuts into the district budget and forces us to cut other places in order to
keep everyone insured like the district would like. It will be interesting to
see what the state legislature does with school finance over the next couple of
years.
Our school district
recently passed a bond issue to help with better connectivity for all the
schools in the district. The schools in Fannett have a big issue with the
slowness of the internet and downloading. The district had the forethought to
propose a bond proposal to help with the connectivity within the district
alleviate this issue. Teachers and administrators have been frustrated because
they cannot use their technology resources the way they should in the
classroom. This issue will be resolved because the bond proposal passed and the
t-line, which helps with connectivity speeds, should be put in sometime this
year. We would ultimately like to move towards a one to one program for
students and computers. This cannot be done until our connectivity issues are
resolved and until we can find money to fund the computers.
Competency
9 Area:
The
superintendent knows how to apply principles of leadership and management to
the district's physical plant and support systems to ensure a safe and
effective learning environment.
I met with of Director of Operations for
this assignment along with some of the custodians. Our Director of Operations
is over the maintenance and custodians for the district. The district decided
to update their facility maintenance plan this past year. The plan includes
staff responsibilities and schedules including detailed explanations of
everyday duties. All employees were given the maintenance plan to look over and
implement as needed. It gives a detailed statement on what the custodians
responsibilities are along with rules and procedures. I observed a custodian
that cleaned the hallway closest to my office. He gets to work at 5:00 a:m each
morning and leaves at 7:00 a:m. He returns at 2:00p:m and stays until 5:00 p:m.
He does a wonderful job. When asked about any needs or concerns, he commented
that he enjoyed his job but wish that they pay was a little more. Some other
needs that other employees talked about were better supervision of the
restrooms. There are weekly issues with students messing the restrooms up and
defacing some of the bathrooms stalls. We are currently collaborating with the
custodians on a solution for this problem.
Our administrative team also went to some
training on Emergency Operation Procedures. With the knowledge that we learned,
we have decided to do a safety audit on all of the schools in the school
district. Many of our schools are very old and are easily accessed by the
public. We are trying to find ways to lesson this issue and help our schools be
safer. We also will be looking at building safety and insurance liability
issues. Many of our buildings are forty and fifty years old and need to be
updated in order to meet certain codes.
Competency
10 Area:
The
superintendent knows how to apply organizational, decision-making, and
problem-solving skills to comply with federal and state requirements and facilitate
positive change in varied contexts.
We instituted a new bullying policy this year and it has been
very effective. Our English classes spend a week teaching lessons about
bullying and our policies related to bullying. Students reflect on whether they
have been bullied or the bully themself and write essays about that situation.
We also provided parents with information about new bullying forms that can be
filled out and information about bullying on our district website. Students are
also given tools to deal with bullying situations and how to report incidents.
There are various forms in which parents and students have access to if they
think that they have been bullied. The week culminates with a bullying town
hall meeting in which a speaker came to speak with the public and answer
questions. Students also did presentations about bullying and its effects. Our
faculty and students are pleased with the results of our bullying program but
would like to improve it every year. Some of the faculty would like to present
an anti-bullying program to the district teachers next year to provide them
with more information.
Our superintendent
encourages each principal to facilitate programs that educate students and
faculty on various issues relating to drunk driving, cancer and disease
prevention along with health and wellness. This year our students have led
programs related to bullying, cancer prevention and driving while texting. Our
administrative staff have facilitated health and wellness programs for the
staff that have led to many teachers becoming more aware of their health and
proactive measures to help them attain better health. All of these programs
have made a positive impact to our school district and community.
