Principal Jason Bloom was born in 1970. Jason currently lives in Neptune Beach. After high school, he went to the Military and served as a culinary chef. After returning home from the military he became interested in the education of his special needs daughter. This interest sparked his desire to attend Florida State College of Jacksonville and receive a Bachelor’s degree in Education. For several years he served as a Special Education teacher for several years. He quickly became interested in Educational Leadership and pursued a masters at the University Of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL. Since 2001 he has served as a Teacher, Assistant Principal, and Principal.
Working with Principal Jason Bloom for the 2015-2016 school year I have the opportunity to attest to his effective educational leadership and analyze the factors that contribute to his success as a leader. Due to his vast experience and knowledge of educational leadership I decided to ask him for insight on his expertise. When asked varies educational leadership questions his response were identical to "best practice" and theories of educational leadership.
What structure(s) do you use to influence change or set goals?
Marzano, and his literature on 1st and 2nd order change. First order change is a gradual and linear progression from what we already know. Second order change, however, is a drastic departure, or a radical shift from the established norm. We are currently experiencing 2nd order change. Second order changes in successful schools incorporate three factors: (1) a fundamental change in ideas about and actions toward student achievement, (2) instructional enhancement focused on refining pedagogy, and (3) collaborative support that replaces a culture of ...
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...ices to students and their families in a manner that will lead to improved educational and other outcomes.’”
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Various conditions have a direct impact on students’ achievement in a greater or lesser degree. The conditions (rational path, emotional path, organizational path, and family path) impact student school wide and classroom experience. Ultimately, impacting student learning and progress. These variables can be influenced through enactment of leadership practices and are the main route to improving student learning outcomes. Exercising leadership in relation to one category alone is unlikely to bring a significant change. With the Community for Schools grant students are provided resources to improve all four conditions over time. “These sets of conditions can move a school from performing well to performing at the highest level” (Grogan, 2013).
The strength of the education in a community is directly responsible for how strong a community will be in the present and future, as does the efforts parents make in the learning processes of In a quote from Tom Peters, he states that “ leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.” Working as a lead administrator in a building can have some powerful challenges, but as with anything, the approach is what makes the difference. A good leader will take advantage of the tools around them, knowing that every building has individuals who offer their very own strengths. In focusing on the individual teacher strengths of each specific teacher, a rapport can be built, but most importantly, the outcome will be a stronger building because of the process of spreading the wealth.
...ategies” that have been used and research shows how schools are impacted” (Ramsey, 2006, p.xv11).
Frank, V. V. (2009, September). Framework for Improvement: Effective School Leadership Translates into Increased Student Learning. The Learning Principal: National Staff Development Council , pp. 2, 6-7.
When I was in elementary school, I loved to read. I was a total nerd back then ... okay maybe I still am, but one thing has changed. Now I don't so much like reading. My favorite poet was Shel Silverstein, who wrote "Where the Sidewalk Ends." He seemed like he was a total hippie, but that's cool because I like hippies. My grandma is a recovering hippie. I like her too. Anyway, Shel Silverstein wrote about the coolest things. He wrote about magical erasers, eating whales and a boy with long hair flying away from people who were taunting him. He captured all of the things that I loved without knowing that I actually loved them. Now you may ask, how does this hippie relate to our graduation? Well, he wrote a poem entitled "Traffic Light" and this is how it goes:
In every institution the type of leadership style is important for a successful environment. In order to establish a successful school environment to compete globally, the leader should comprehend the basic leadership theories and styles (Glickman et al., 2010). The cultures at schools are important to the success of the students and overall of the school, but also can be very difficult to establish and maintain without the proper leadership knowledge (Waite, 1995). In United States many schools could be place in the categories of conventional, congenial, or collegial, because the strategies used for their leadership (Glickman et al., 2010).The chosen school could be classified according to different criteria and could be determine in which area their leadership pertains more. In order to analyzed and classify the leadership, it was imperative to observed the way the leader make decisions, the approached with the stakeholders, how the instruction is delivered, and how they realized their job (Marshall, 2005). In this analysis will be identify the category that this school will be, the school climate, the type of supervision and leadership.
As a leader candidate, I can understand the challenges and multiplicity of complications that administrators must face each day. However, I will not accept any remote possibility that the students must be affected by some flaws of the school organization. We all as leaders, must be strategic with people, time, and money to guide our students towards an academic success.
DEVELOPMENT & IMPLEMENTATION OF A SHARED VISION: Education leaders facilitate the development and implementation of a shared vision of learning and growth of all students, (1C) Implementing the Vision connection to my action plan. I collaborate with key stakeholders with the intention of fostering a shared vision, one that is proactive in nature. Proactive interventions, such as the development of a BIP will aid in a shared vision of learning and growth for all students regardless of ability levels. INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP: Education leaders shape a collaborative culture of teaching and learning informed by professional standards and focused on student and professional growth (2C) Supporting Teachers to Improve Practice (2D) Feedback on Instruction, directly relates to my action plan as I will engage in open collaborative conversations with teachers, administrators, and essential staff members. I will conduct informal classroom observations with the intension of providing feedback, constructing classroom materials, dispersing information. EXTERNAL CONTEXT AND POLICY Education leaders influence political, social, economic, legal and cultural contexts affecting education to improve education policies and practices (6A) Understanding and Communicating Policy correlates with my action plan. I will inform all essential members of the current legal mandates established by federal law, as safeguarding student
...ce they begin to see those small changed and realize that they can indeed have a positive effect on how the students view school it will motivate everyone, both the students and the faculty, to keep trying to narrow that gap that exists with the graduation rates.
My new table focuses on controllable factors (One reference called these “policy amenable”), which is becoming my focus as a result of my readings and Dr. Quick’s advice to me to zoom in on leadership: “It’s important to incorporate leadership somehow. In other words, how can you get at the leadership role in successfully attracting and retaining a highly effective teaching staff? What are the leaders’ roles in districts that are outliers?”
According to the author in the introduction of the book, this work was basically intended to serve as a guide for developing moral leadership in schools geared toward superintendents, supervisors, principals, and any other persons at the upper levels of school management. The author's design was to provoke thoughts and raise questions in the minds of these people to help them analyze the leadership processes in their schools and help them make adjustments to the leadership process that will in the end reduce the need for "direct" leadership in favor of "moral" leadership. He also makes point that this book can serve as a "counterpoint" to some of the textbooks, currently being used in university courses on leadership. Sergiovanni also states that the book would be useful for parents, school board members and policy makers. Because I have been involved in the education process from the teaching side of education, I see this book as being of particular value to teachers as well. Overall, this book is for anyone who cares about improving the leadership in our schools.
Leadership issues in schools are sometime complex and do not always present as clear-cut and easy to solve. Take my personal situation that involved a series of complex organizations coming together to solve an issue related to teacher licensure in the state of California. This particular situation involved a host of organizational leaders collaborating to solve a complicated, multi-faceted problem. I will frame my personal leadership dilemma utilizing the UC Berkeley Leadership Rubric read in EDLD 610 as assigned by Dr. Martinez. There are seven elements in the Rubric to include: 1) Presence and Attitude; 2) Identity and Relationship; 3) Equity and Advocacy; 4) Curriculum and Instruction; 5) Organization and Systems; 6) Change and Coherence; 7) Assessment and Accountably. Each element plays an important role in solving my personal leadership dilemma.
Educational leadership researcher, Michael Fullan (2003, 2010), begins his argument of the “moral imperative” of school leaders with the assumption that selecting and supporting good leaders who can be critical in transforming the culture of schools. In fact, equity expert, Glenn Singleton (2015) agrees with Fullan’s premise of the moral imperative of school leaders being reducing educational gaps—hence equity. In the following statement, Fullan (2003) defines the moral purpose of schools:
Thomas Sergiovanni (2015) describes three essential dimensions of leadership as “the heart, head, and hand of leadership.” The heart describes those characteristics within the school leader that reflect personal “beliefs, values, and dreams.” The head of leadership refers to the practice of teaching and educating. The hand of leadership reflects actions taken by school leaders with respect to management behaviors. (p. 5) Within these elements, there is room for personal choice in how leadership is practiced and it is incumbent on new principals to find an individual leadership style that responds to the uniqueness of each school.
In the same vein, (NCSL 2001-2002) in the UK argues that leadership should be viewed as a contextualized activity”. Thus, the context in which you are affected is what you do as a school leader. Literature for example, (David Stewart 1985) demonstrates that a good working theory in school administration is necessary for the purpose of effectively running a school. Since all schools have special characteristics, it is vital for school principals and head teachers to adopt a theory that will help them to have a good understanding of aspects relating to their professional work. In this regard, it is crucial that school administrators are professionally prepared for the job. Undoubtedly, application of knowledge acquired from educational administration courses in everyday work will make a difference in the school’s performance. Due to the importance of leadership in securing sustainable school development, many countries have invested considerably in the professional preparation for on-going development of school leaders ...
As a matter of formality I would like to introduce myself. My name is Bruce Richard and it gives me great pleasure to address you all today at Valencia High School. Thank you very much for this unique and rewarding opportunity. It is one I will never forget. I regard this as rewarding and memorable because I am being asked to recount my high school experiences and the impact they have had on me. This is particularly valuable in that I can retain this as a permanent record to look back and reflect upon in the future. As I look back in retrospect and ask myself if I always tried as hard as I could, I am left with the fact that maybe I didn’t put my entire effort into all my studies and take full advantage of the free education I was offered. As I recall, the subjects that most interested me, such as science and the hands on approach, tended to sustain my level of interest and motivation. On the other hand, subjects such as government and others were harder to stay focused on for some reason. I am certain that most students have the same experience. I guess some things just require us to buckle down a little more in order to really learn.