Singing: Be what you can be. Be what you can be.
Singing: Learn what you must learn. Learn what you must learn.
If students do not receive rigorous
high-level instruction then we're doing them a disservice.
In order for children to get it, in order for teachers to get it-- we have to be very intentional in everything that we do.
It's all about how impactful or how effective was I as a
leader?
our instructional priorities were determined for the school year based on
data. We were able to look at where our
deficits were from doing classroom
observations, from looking at TN Ready
data, from looking at interim assessment
data, and determined where we needed to focus for this year.
For reading language
arts we really wanted teachers to be
able to start with a text, to plan those
text dependent questions. In mathematics
our instructional priorities were
centered around mostly making sure that
teachers, their instruction is in the
correct aspect of rigor.
If we do not set those goals and those priorities then we
do not have a way of gauging student
It's not just a document that's on a shelf but it's actually a living document that we actually utilize.
They set the goal, they set the pace, they set
the expectations for how learning and
how teaching and instruction will go
forth in the class in the classrooms.
I think it's important for the school leader to talk to my teacher to tell her what we need to be learning in the
So she can teach us what we need to know.
And the instructional
priorities really are the fuel, I'll say,
behind everything that drives
what we're doing. One of the things I've
done to build my own capacity would be
looking at best practices for
internalizing both the standards and
curricula. I do something called A Week At A Glance.
It's almost like the
teachers lesson plan and within that I
can put in my professional development
time, my planning time, prep time, so all
of that is
we carved out so I don't just do it
haphazardly and I think that has helped
a lot with me making sure that I have
time to internalize myself so that I can
help to develop teachers.
When they're constantly learning, when they are
lifelong learners and readers, they build
this body of knowledge that they can
then pass to us that that ultimately
benefit our school and our scholars.
I can trust them-- to know exactly what they're giving me is gonna be the right thing to help me grow.
It makes me want to learn more and do more when I see
them learning more and doing more.
Coming into it, I was trying to do everything
myself, trying to do everything myself.
I'm Wonder Woman, I have on the Cape. I
got to do it, I have to do it, I have to
do it and over time as I began to
identify the talents of my staff I began
to see the benefits of that distributive
leadership piece before I was introduced
to ANet. That was just not my style.
Because again as a new principal you're
wanting to make sure that everything
runs smooth you know you're wanting to
put our fires here and there and once I
release that I just saw a difference in
everything me personally. I saw a
difference in our achievement. I saw a
difference in my student and teacher
morale.
We've built trust and really have
come together and learned how to start
using each other's differences and
strengths to strengthen the school
community as a whole.
I believe strong leaders beget strong
leaders beget strong leaders. And at
the end of the day what we want are
strong leaders in our classrooms.
We created frameworks around everything
that we did, so we normed some of our
practices. That was a huge piece, we had
to norm and put those systems in place.
The consistent structures that we have
in place are structures for weekly
professional learning community meeting
with teachers those are mostly vertical
although there are times when they're
horizontal. Also the weekly Monday
professional development which is after
school each month. We do have data
meetings to discuss whether or not
children are growing. Even when we're
planning a lesson, we look at the
data and we said seventy percent of
these kids did not get this lesson based
on this exit ticket that is
an opportunity for the teacher to make a
timely adjustment before they either go into
the next class or the next day. We're not
waiting until the end of the week.
Walkthroughs with the IPGs. We're
providing feedback to them. We tell them
it's not a gotcha
it's how can we serve you how can we be
of help to you? How do we get better faster? When you're
having conversations with teachers and
you're sitting down side by side and you're
able to go through and navigate through
and identify those strengths and
weaknesses-- it builds that trust overall.
You know, when I feel that someone cares
enough about me, willing to go out there
way to give me the tools and resources
that I need to provide a better
education for my students-- I feel that, hey, we need it!
Them working with me and giving
me the opportunity to see texts and giving
me a chance to experience what they
expected from me was the greatest benefit to me.
And so when they plan
professional developments or PLC's or
they are lobbying for tools for us--like
the ANet platform-- then it gives, it
gives us practices and best practices
and tools and instructions
to go to taking those classrooms and
give our scholars what they need.
It's important for my teachers to plan with my leaders because so they can get different perspectives from each other.
From the beginning of the school year to now
we have seen a huge shift in practice.
We have high student achievement and high
classroom engagements and we have
double-digit gains. We get these things
because of the work that they put in on the front end.
And the passion and love
that they have for us as teachers just
kind of trickles down in the culture of
the school and I think that that is very
important when we see them work it makes
me want to work, you know, I see her drive
it makes me want to drive and the same
things that she does for me say
encouraged me as a teacher and make me a
better teacher the same tools I try to
use into the classroom with my students
well we're learning
We're learning what they're doing to help us so that we
can help people when we grow up!
