A school organization is only as good as if effective systems and structures that are established within the institution. The effective school leader must demonstrate the capacity to assess and align necessary systems, structures, and resources in order to allow staff members to sustain or improve the learning outcomes of students. As a second year principal, one shortcoming around structure is the lack of consistency in our common planning time (CPT). While I developed a template for these meetings, I have not modeled nor fully delineated the expectations and outcomes for the purpose of CPT. Further, re-establishing structures for student discipline and family engagement have been a challenged at our site, and it is imperative that we continue to strive for refinement. Only when schools are organized can leaders leverage resources and focus on learning and other relevant issues that can impact student learning. Currently, we leverage the support staff and outside consultants to sustain our collaborative structures for our teaching staff. This system was established prior to my assuming the rank as the school principal two years ago. However, it also has been a long process in promoting substantive outcomes within the common planning time structure. In my first year, teachers utilized this block to plan field trips, make copies for homework, or at best aligned the resources from a scripted program. My goal for the first year was narrowing the focus to literacy instruction. In addition, I developed a meeting template for teachers to use anchored by the Resulted Oriented Cycle of Inquiry (ROCI) system. Once a week, our teachers meet collaboratively to engage in planning, analyzing student work and making adjustments to meet the need... ... middle of paper ... ...hentic relationships with parents. While all our parents want their children to succeed in school, they are often reluctant to get involved for whatever reason. Therefore, establishing a welcoming environment and building relationships with parents is our first step. This also forced us to look at the existing resources that we already have. Our teachers are the ones who have the closest connection with parents. Having teachers extend personal invitations to parents for Principal chats and other school related meetings is an important start. While we don’t have all the answers, exhausting every effort and possibilities to increase parental participation is essential to student success. Establishing and refining effective systems and structures in school is an essential and vital element for the sustainability and an important lever for improving student outcomes.
I had the pleasure of being able to shadow Superintendent Shirley Hall of the Maplewood School District. Ms. Hall took the reins of the district over in 2012 from a very popular superintendent who was credited with making great strides within the district. Although Ms. Hall had very large shoes to fill, she seems to be doing it with grace and enthusiasm. She credits the previous superintendent with making systemic changes and establishing the overall forward momentum of the district, but recognizes that she cannot rest on past success. Her goal is to take the district to the next level of educational excellence by focusing her and her administrative team's efforts on the P.E.L.P. coherence model from Harvard University. This model focuses the leadership's attention on the interdependence of the various aspects of their school district and how they reinforce one another to support the implementation of an improvement strategy. One of Ms. Hall's mantras was change, but not just for change sake, deep change for sustained improvement. Therefore, although Ms. Hall's predecessor was able to put the district on the right path, Ms. Hall has taken the baton and run with it; establishing her own style and path to excellence.
There is a monthly open school morning that the PTO has in the auditorium for parents to come by and be informed about what is going on in the school. Various programs and grades offer workshops and meeting. Every Tuesday from 2:40pm- 4pm the school has that time frame allotted for parent engagement. Parents do not have to wait to meet with teacher on the two designated parents teachers conference. Each Tuesday, the parents can come in and meet with any of their child’s teachers without an appointment. The parents can discuss any concerns or issues regarding with their child’s academics or behaviors performance. Also, the school engages parents by using an electronic system called N-grade. N-grade is a parent portal where parents login and look at their child’s assignments. The portal shows their child’s assignment grades, missing assignments and assignments they can make up to earn back their grades.
The strategic plan for improving chronically low performing schools will utilize a leadership component, and four phases. The four phases are equivalent to the frames of Bolman and Deal. Bolman and Deal (2003) discuss four frames: Structural, Human Resource, Political, and Symbolic. They define the frames as follows: Structural- reflects a belief in rationality and a faith that th...
The school categories are conventional, congenial, or collegial. These three categories are distinguish by discussing the style that the principal administers the school (Glickman et al., 2010). Each individual category gives out a different outcome. A conventional administration or leadership it is recognized by the lack of communication among the staff and the administrator, also, the independence of the teachers is evident, it is no common goal it is a more individual goals setting, usually the responsible for everything are the students and teachers...
Standard 1 of the Florida Principal Leadership Standards (2011) describe the priority of the school leader as, “effective school leaders demonstrate that the student learning is their top priority through leadership actions that build and support a learning organization focus on student success”. Our number one priority and focus is and always should be our students. They are the reason behind our professions. It is the faculty the ones who should be supported by the administrators. The leaders should celebrate their success, encourage them, support their assertive instructional decisions, and motivate them each day to create the right conditions for learning. The principals must plan to project growth the most accurate possible, employing all the help that they could get for this challenging task. Students should not be affected because qualified teachers are not available. Strategic schools use the resources at had to relocate, and alleviate the human resources problems.
Many times our first thoughts regarding educational leadership are turned to our first experiences as a child. For most, this individual is the school principal. Teachers and students may have a skewed view of this authority figure. He or she is often the focal point of decision-making and discipline. The principal is the singular driving force that combines teachers with their colleagues and students with their teachers and peers (Goldring, 2...
Collaborating with the school administration team, I was able to gain suffice information about the needs of the school as well as the needs from the community. I was given information about the academic needs of the students as well as the school’s improvement plan, which consists of the school needs assessment. Analyzing the needs assessment and test score data, there is a need for academic improvement is needed in the content areas of English-Language Arts and Math. The school is in need of strategies to improve scores in these areas, but the community can play an integral part in helping to provide the necessary resources, tools, and materials to enhance student learning in these areas. This could be established by community-school partnerships, if the school effectively communicates to the community their need for academic assistance. This can be achieved at PTO meetings, school activities, and local colleges or universities.
Creating a sense of urgency among those who need to implement the change is the first step discussed. Level Up sessions aligned with this step by allowing all members of the school to not only see a need for the change, but also feel how the change would directly benefit each person involved. All parties clearly saw a way to address their sense of urgency. Administration found the sessions an effective way to address the needs within the school, and supported the idea of not everyone needed all the sessions, the leadership team was able to address some the educational and instructional gaps of the faculty, and the faculty felt empowered to not only learn and share, the faculty found sessions to be a safe place to experience needs in a comfortable setting. While creating a sense of urgency, communication of buy-in steps four of Kotter’s (2002) eight step process accorded at the same
The support of a parent is the single most important factor in predicting success in school for young children (Bourquin). Parents who make it a point to get involved with the child’s education are communicating the importance of education to their child (Heffer). There are a variety of ways in which a parent can get involved. This can range from at home help and encouragement with homework, attending athletic ...
Before such things can be implemented, there is some specific ground work and strategies that must be done within the schools before situations or dealt with and handled. In this groundwork, principals are vital in the success of the program they implement in their schools (Ballard, Argus & Remley, 1999). They are the conductors of each category needed in a successful program. Principals must hold students and staff accountable for their roles in changing the climate of the school and they must allow for the time and manpower implementing a new program will take. Gil (2002, p. 73) explains that first a solid code of conduct must be in place and operating smoothly. These clearly stated rules are to be communicated to all students and staff what the expectation is for behavior and they must be “enforced without
To conclude, my research shows a clear link between parental involvement and children performing better in school. Children who's parents are involved in their education are showing better performance and are achieving higher grades. They also show better behaviour, more enthusiasm, ambition and higher levels of engagement. compared with children who's parent are not involved in their education. My research also shows that parental involvement has great benefits for both children and parents in many ways, so much so that the most effective schools are those who encouraged parents to be involved.
Parent involvement is one of the most influential aspects of student motivation. The parents are the initial teachers of the child before the child goes to school and encounters education through a teacher. If a parent is completely engaged in the learning process with a child, there can be growth between the child and the parent simultaneously. The parents set an example for the child, so that the child understands that help is in the classroom and at home. Alma Wright, a first and second grade teacher, believes that parents in the classroom are a good way to stimulate children. She says, “Their active participation is a positive influence. The school is open for parents to share their talents and motivate their children” (Drew, Olds, and Olds, 1974, p. 71).
Research shows that children do better in school when parents talk often with teachers and become involved. Kids whose parents interact with teachers usually get higher grades and test scores, develop positive attitudes about school, and are better behaved. Parents and teachers need to communicate on a regular basis, not just at parent/teacher conferences. But sometimes, a parent doesn’t know just how to go about getting involved or how to make that positive connection with the teacher and/or school.
Parents must have sense of ownership in their child’s success. Parents must know what is going on with their child at school and in their personal life. If there are negative indicators, action must be taken to correct these issues. A child’s success is affected by the interactions of the parents. If there are distracters in the personal life of the child it can be detrimental to their education; therefore, these distractions need to be minimized if not removed.
When it comes to parental involvement, most people agree with the “why”; it’s the “how” that poses the challenge. The vast majority of parents want to be involved, but face significant barriers in doing so. The vast majority of schools welcome parent involvement, but with short parent meetings (for which both sides struggle to find time), it’s hard to know exactly what to do.