School executives will ensure that the school is a professional learning community. School executives will ensure that processes and systems are in place which result in recruitment, induction, support, evaluation, development, and retention of high performing staff. The school executive must engage and empower accomplished teachers in a distributive manner, including support of teachers in day-to-day decisions such as discipline, communication with parents/guardians, and protecting teachers from duties that interfere with teaching, and must practice fair and consistent evaluations of teachers. The school executive must engage teachers and other professional staff in conversations to plan their career paths and support district succession planning.
Element IVa. Professional Development/Learning Communities: The principal ensures that the school is a professional learning community.
Artifact: PLT Leaders' Meeting AgendaLed monthly meeting of PLT Leaders to facilitate discussion of academic issues and concerns. This monthly meeting also calibrates the discourse in the grade level PLTs and allows the entire school to function as a Professional Learning Community.
Artifact: Grade Level Leadership TeamsWith the Leadership Team, I led the grade level PLTs to choose members to serve in various leadership capacities. Below is the record of these leadership positions.
Artifact: Grade 2 PLT MinutesI was an active participant in weekly grade level PLT meetings, facilitating discussions about progress monitoring, responding to student assessments, and planning instruction. These extended PLT meetings are possible because of strategic scheduling and a commitment by administration to protect that time.
Element IVb. Recruiting, Hiring, Placing and Mentoring of staff: The principal establishes processes and systems in order to ensure a high-quality, high-performing staff.
Artifact: Beginning Teacher - Mentor Matching Under the supervision of the principal, I matched Beginning Teachers with veteran teacher mentors, as well as helped to support the efforts of the district Mentor.
Artifact: Intent Form for 2018-19I helped the admin team devise a staffing plan for the 2018-19 school year.
Element IVc. Teacher and Staff Evaluation: The principal evaluates teachers and other staff in a fair and equitable manner with the focus on improving performance and, thus, student achievement.
Artifact: Observation ScheduleI was responsible for 1/3 of all teacher observations conducted this school year - for Standard, Comprehensive, and Abbreviate cycles. My observations were complete, on time, and focused on building teacher capacity. More than one teacher share with me that my post observation conferences were productive and helpful, with one teacher sharing that she received more helpful feedback in a single conference with me than she did in 13 years of having observations! One facet of teaching I focused on was the kinds of questions teachers posed to their students. Most of my suggestions revolved around the use of higher order thinking questions and student discourse.
Artifact: Thank You Email After Observation One thing I tried to do was to give personal attention to teachers when we did our post-observation conferences. I kept my comments focused on what I saw, and always made sure I had feedback specific to the lesson I observed. My teachers responded very positively to this. Below is an email I received after a recent summative conference.