EDLD+5333+Leadership+for+Accountability

Week 1 School Culture I have been at my current position and campus for five years. The school is six years old. When it opened it was assigned a first year principal. The staff was excited because she was known to be a great vice principal under a great principal. The first year lacked a school wide focus. Most staff that were there and stayed said they were stumbling through the first year coming up with procedures as needed. The second year and third year the school experienced huge growth. The principal would mention getting through not excelling. During the fourth year our numbers stayed constant and this last year we got relief from two schools opening. We are now trying to come up with improved procedures. It is hard getting buy in from the staff for the new policies. The staff opinion of the principal is that she is soft and will back down if pressed by parents or teachers. This has made the climate a bit clicky and fragmented. The principal has made an effort to become more proactive but many see it as too late or as a passing fade that we will give up on. Effects of NCLB The first one is that "Students are taking a lot more test." I don't believe this is a good thing for our students. I prefer formative assessments rather than large summative assessments. I do agree that test are an important diagnostic tool but some months my students take three different district benchmark test in addition to test taken on units being taught. The second effect is that "Schools are paying much more attention to achievement gaps and the learning needs of particular groups of students." I think that this is a great use of student data. I think this is probably one of the most important effects of NCLB. I know that our school makes a concentrated effort to improve students in all of our sub groups that typically perform lower than the average. NCLB NCLB assures parents that the needs of all students will be addressed in many ways. Schools no longer look at only the school average they make sure that each sub group is within a few percentages of the school average. It is important that schools no longer let minorities fall through the cracks of education system. We now actively seek ways to improve their education because the schools are being held accountable for difference in performance that had been present. AYP is showing not only where a school is at but what it has done to improve if it was at an unacceptable level. It allows schools to see if the steps they are putting in place are working. It is important to be able to look at data to tell if money time are being invested in the right locations. As Principal I would ensure that all staff I hired had already met the requirements for highly qualified teachers. Northside keeps track of teachers certifications. It sends out reminder emails automatically when certificates are coming due. It also helps by keeping track of our Professional Development Hours done in the district through an Electronic Registration System. As for staff already their i would ask that their Professional Development be documented in a yearly binder for the PDAS system. In the binder I would also require a copy of their current certification. I would require that the paraprofessional staff document their qualifications in a similar manner.

Week 2 In order to meet the NCLB requirement to hold a public meeting after receipt of the campus performance reports my school tries many different ways to get participation. We hold it on the same night as our PTA meeting. We advertise the meeting on the billboard, principal's newsletter, classroom newsletters, and we offer student rewards if we see them. We also do a science night were the students have projects on their desk and the parents can walk through like an interactive museum. The addition of adding in student work seems to be increasing the turn out to the meetings. Most PTA meeting have only a ten or so families show up. It is nice to see the larger turn out on these nights. The campus uses past TAKS test and district benchmarks to determine students who will need additional support to be successful. Our campus is lucky to have both a reading specialist and a math specialist on campus all day. This allows for small groups of students to be pulled and workd with when it won't take time out of the either math or reading. We also have a 30 minute time in the morning we use for morning reading to deliver reading programs. Fifth grade also splits classes for math to provide smaller groups for those students with higher needs in math. In order to train the staff on the data we have a meeting at the start of each year to look at the previous grades data. We use this information to try and make informed decisions on staff developments, grade level focus, and on best use of available resources.

Week 3 <span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">The Team Dialogue Guide provided a useful tool that would give staff a standard way of presenting data. It also provides a tool to make sure all data is provided. It is also useful in that it breaks down the data so even teachers that don't feel comfortable with the data can clearly see the trends and what is to be accomplished. It also provides an area to list strengths so that teachers will not feel belittled by the improvement desired. If I was a principal I would introduce this to each team with an area I would want to look at. I would walk them through the data to make sure everyone can understand how to find it. Then we would meet back as school to see if we had been making progress on the areas we identified. <span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">Professional Learning Communities- I thought this article had a lot of good points on what makes for a strong leader. It is easy to talk about creating a culture of team work or change. It is more difficult to create. I have seen the current principal try to get more community buy in and at times she has been successful but when she hands it over to others the change doesn't last. One example is the School fair. It worked the first 2 years due to her and the teachers doing most of the work. When she handed the fair off to the PTA. They sent out letters asking for support from 85 business, and parents to form a planning committee. Only three parents joined the committee and not one of the business responded. <span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">As a Principal I would use the website to help guide my new school on the process of setting goals and objectives. It would inform the team on all the steps of the process. It also provides a way to communicate with other schools. this provides an opportunity to share successes and to learn from the mistakes others have made. In on job as educators we can't be selfish because our job is to improve the lives of a future generation.

<span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">Week 4 <span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">The article Changing Classroom Practice talks about the teachers needing to know the how and not the typical what we have received. I have gotten to try a learning community this year. We have started a collaborative teaching classrooms. We have set up meetings to discuss what we liked what needed to be changed for next year. I would have definitely made sure that the meeting had been all been planned ahead of time. We were instead told to get a sub for next week because we will meet then to discuss. I think having the meetings preplanned at 4 week periods would hold us more accountable and would allow for more discussion of what was working. This does require the principal to allocate resources to assure that time is available for all members to meet at one time. <span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">The goal of all of education is to make students successful. It is important to have both the student and parent as involved as possible. We have the students for 35 hours a week, the other 133 is outside of school. Trying to get a student involved in their learning is often difficult at first because many have never had a teacher take the time to get their input. They are often shy and don't know how to respond. It takes time but it is well worth it because the student has a clear goal of what is expected of them and where they are at.

<span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">Week 5 <span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">he article Changing Classroom Practice talks about the teachers needing to know the how and not the typical what we have received. I have gotten to try a learning community this year. We have started a collaborative teaching classrooms. We have set up meetings to discuss what we liked what needed to be changed for next year. I would have definitely made sure that the meeting had been all been planned ahead of time. We were instead told to get a sub for next week because we will meet then to discuss. I think having the meetings preplanned at 4 week periods would hold us more accountable and would allow for more discussion of what was working. This does require the principal to allocate resources to assure that time is available for all members to meet at one time. <span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif;">The goal of all of education is to make students successful. It is important to have both the student and parent as involved as possible. We have the students for 35 hours a week, the other 133 is outside of school. Trying to get a student involved in their learning is often difficult at first because many have never had a teacher take the time to get their input. They are often shy and don't know how to respond. It takes time but it is well worth it because the student has a clear goal of what is expected of them and where they are at.