EDLD 5333 Week 5 Reflection

During week 5 assignment, I recorded my experience at the Site Based Decision Making meeting where I interviewed a SBDM member and the principal.  Our Site Based Decision Making committee is made up of teachers from every department, administrators, parents and other stakeholders.  The level of the SBDM committee authority and power is often limited by the amount of control that the building principal is willing to grant to the committee.  At our campus, SBDM committee recommendations are often passively-aggressively circumvented.  The campus principal often feels that all of the members of the Site Based Decision Making committee fail to understand or lack the appropriate training in education to appreciate all the needs of the school.   As the campus principal, she often finds herself in the position of needing to guide the SBDM committee in making appropriate decision for the school.  She also feels even though there is a SBDM committee she will ultimately be held accountable for the overall decisions so that is the reason for her need to have some control. 

EDLD 5333 Week 3 and 4 Reflection Part 2

During the week 4 assignment I analyzed my campus AEIS and AYP report.  I identified that our weakest area was the Hispanic subgroup and Economically Disadvantaged.  For the campus action plan I suggested that my campus use after school tutoring, Saturday school and extra professional development to enhance differential instruction.  The strategies suggested for my campus action plan had a $6000 budget.  The cost for after school calculated to $2038 for materials and $1800 total for Saturday school.  The cost for 4 days of professional development was budgeted at $2000 for the school year.   

To monitor the progress of the strategies the Campus Improvement Committee will meet each month to evaluate the progress. The stakeholders involved in this committee include the principal, associate principal, parents, community members, business representative and elected members of teaching staff from the school. THE CIP will analyze the data to provide feedback of the success of after school tutoring, professional development, and spring semester Saturday school tutorials.  We will review the data and the impacts from the strategies as well as the change they have made over the year. 

EDLD 5333 Week 3 and 4 Reflection

It is important for an administrator to make decisions to continually better their campus.  As a campus principal, it is important to lead your staff to successfully improving data by researching current methods that have been proven to work and start to implement them.  Professional developments are always essential to getting your teachers prepared and ready for any changes to assist with campus improvement.

My campus has identified the Hispanic subgroup being the area of weakness.   With my campus action plan I suggested the school provide after-school tutorials for students at risk of failure on Wednesdays and Thursdays 4:30pm -5:30pm at Saturday school 8:00am -12:00pm.  The formal evaluation to test this strategy is to improve students at risk or in danger of failing overall achievement through tests, benchmarks, STAAR or other assessments. Another strategy I suggested for my camps action plan is to include campus wide professional development in differentiated instructional strategies and skills specialists to use campus-based best practices to guide differentiated instruction, planning, training and implementation.  This is to aide teachers in instructional decision making, interpreting and responding to students’ successes or failures, adjusting any areas of weakness to promote student achievement.

EDLD 5333 Week 2 Reflection

 
AYP and AEIS data play a big role in helping schools determine areas of weakness. By looking at the data, principals can analyze trends, relationships, and barriers.  Once the data has been reviewed, campus improvement goals should be created. The goals should follow S.M.A.R.T. - specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.  Principals can analyze the data and focus on areas of weakness and guide the way to campus improvement by conducting meetings that allow staff to participate in the goal creating process and lead them to a better understanding of what needs to happen to ensure improvement.

In this week’s assignment, I reviewed my campus’s AEIS report.  My campus achieved an Academically Acceptable rating for 2011.  My campus is mostly Hispanics and Economically Disadvantaged and these are the two categories that we scored the lowest in as compared to the other subgroups.  As a campus we took at decrease in every category and sub category from 2010 to 2011 causing our rating to drop from Recognized to Academically Acceptable.  On a positive note, my campus received Gold Performance Acknowledgements for Attendance.   

EDLD 5333 Week 1 Reflection

A vision is an image of what a school can and should become. It is deeply embedded in values, hopes and dreams. It should include input and discussion from all of the major stakeholders in the school community (Peterson, 1995). My personal vision of leadership states that to become a leader that motivates and empowers the staff and students to accomplish their goals and focus on student achievement.  Schools should teach all students critical thinking and problem solving.  A good school is one that where the principal, staff, and students work collectively to promote achievement, focus on learning and communicates with the community.  The principal has the responsibility in the development and communication of the shared vision (Jones & Crochet, 2007).  A good principal is one who is an effective leader by promoting a positive learning environment for students and staff, and is sensitive towards the need of faculty, students and community. 

My campus is clear on what is the vision.  Overall the stakeholders all work together to stay focused on the vision regardless of personal feelings.  Obtaining the vision is an ongoing process that our campus has to continually strive to meet. 

 

 Jones, L. & Crochet, F. (2007). The importance of visions for schools and school improvement. Connexions. Retrieved June 8, 2012 from http://cnx.org/content/m15634/1.1/

Peterson, K. (1995). Critical issue: Building a collective vision. Retrieved on June 8, 2012 from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/leadrshp/le100.htm