STANDARD FOUR - HUMAN RESOURCE LEADERSHIP
School executives will ensure that the school is a professional learning community. School executives will ensure that processes and systems are in place that result in the recruitment, induction, support, evaluation, development and retention of a high-performing staff. The school executive must engage and empower accomplished teachers in a distributive leadership manner, including support of teachers in day-to-day decisions such as discipline, communication with parents, and protecting teachers from duties that interfere with teaching. They also must practice fair and consistent evaluation of teachers. The school executive must engage teachers and other professional staff in conversations to plan their career paths and support district succession planning.
4A. Professional Development/Learning Communities
The school executive ensures that the school is a professional learning community.
Fall Equity PD
Over the summer, the Conn admin team discussed Professional Development needs based on School Improvement goals and current student levels of achievement. Equity was a focus for the school community but was focused within the Equity team prior to the 2019-2020 school year. I was tasked with initiating equity conversations school-wide through half-day professional development. I worked with Mr. Duvall and Lauryn Mascarenaz from the WCPSS Office of Equity Affairs to create professional development for our staff. The professional development was delivered by myself and members of the Conn equity team and focused on identifying our own personal experiences that we bring into the classroom each day, creating a safe space to discuss our identities and taking a look at bias that we encounter on a daily basis. |
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4B. Recruiting, Hiring, Placing & Mentoring of Staff
The school executive establishes processes and systems in order to ensure a high-quality, high performing staff.
List of Potential Interview Questions
Throughout the year, I have been apart of interviews for various positions. During the interview, the interview team always makes sure to relate our questions to our school mission and vision in order to see how each candidate can speak to what we stand for as a school. During interviews, as a former teacher within the school, I often ask questions that relate to our magnet themes and the work that they have done that would support the diverse student population that we serve. |
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Post-Conference Email to Teacher with Suggestions
Throughout my internship, I sought opportunities to support teachers by providing them with specific suggestions to support their students. In this case (same observation highlighted in Standard 4C), the teacher needed a few ways to engage their students. I sought this opportunity to mentor the teacher and provide them with resources that I was able to use in my own classroom and proved to be highly valuable. I committed to checking in with this teacher consistently and made sure to support them as they continued to learn how to best meet the needs of their students. Culturally Responsive Teaching Resources
During Equity PD in the fall, I walked Conn Elementary teachers through a protocol where they were given a variety of culturally responsive classroom strategies to have dialogue around what they could immediately start doing, what they would like to be doing by the end of the school year, and describe why it was important for all staff to provide our students with a culturally responsive environment. This was to be used as a reference during PLT conversations to ensure that approaches to interventions and instructional practices had all student needs in mind. |
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4C. Teacher & Staff Evaluation
The school executive evaluates teachers and other staff in a fair and equitable manner with the focus on improving performance and, thus student achievement.
Observation Rubric & Note Catcher
Throughout the internship, I took opportunities to conduct full observations with teachers both on my own and with other administrators to take time to calibrate our observation rubrics. I sat in on many pre- and post-observation conferences to assist in giving feedback and resources that teachers could use in the future. |
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