Week 3 Reflections

Week Three Assignment, Part 1 – CARE Model Analysis of District/Campus Improvement Initiatives or Action Research Plans

Please review your intern plan. In the first course, students were encouraged to engage in some action research, or participate in district or campus improvement initiatives. Each of you has had some experiences with such initiatives or action plans. Please review those experiences and complete the following analysis:

Concerns – Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research, and list at least three concerns that you have identified from these experiences – a concern may be any matter that engages your attention or interest.

 

1. What are some things that encourage student participation in extracurricular activities.

2. What can we do to increase student enrollment in the AVID program.

3. What can be done to build more teacher/leaders on campus.

 

Affirmations - Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research, and affirm or identify at least 3 actions that must be sustained and supported to achieve the District/Campus improvement initiatives.

 

1. One of our initiatives was to work on increasing our student participation in extracurricular activities.  This requires a commitment from the sponsors to encourage students to participate and the budget to support additional participants.

2. The AVID Program has become a large part of our campus improvement plans.  Since almost 80% of our student population qualifies for this program if we build it we can expose a lot of our students to the benefits of exposure to the best practices reinforced by AVID.  

3. As a small district we do not have the budget for a large number of administrators on campus and thus I feel we would benefit from building leadership from within.  In order to achieve this we needed to determine which teachers had a desire to be educational leaders and provide them the training and support needed to develop their leadership skills.

 

Recommendations - Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research and describe at least 3 recommendations you would make regarding the District/Campus Improvement plans or action research plans.

 

1. In the area of extracurricular participation I think we need to continue working to survey our students to ensure the programs we offer meet the interests of our students.  It is possible we could increase participation in extracurricular programs by expanding our offerings with programs more to our students liking.

2. In regards to the AVID program I think we need to visit schools our size and with similar demographics to ours to see what they have done to successful implement AVID school wide.  Using this information we can develop a 3 to 5 year plan aimed at improving AVID to the point where we can be a national demonstration school.

3. For the development of teacher leaders I think we should reward those individuals seeking personal improvement by paying for portions of their training in such areas as PDAS and allow them to assist with the evaluation processes on our district.  In addition, we can begin a list of “homegrown” leaders who would make great candidates for administrative leadership positions as they open.  They would be familiar with the district and operating procedures allowing them to step in and be effective leaders.

 

Evaluate - Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research and identify at least 3 strategies for evaluating the improvement plans or recommendations.

 

1. In the realm of extracurricular participation we can track the participation from year to year.  Along with documenting what efforts we have made to encourage participation we can see if the increased participation was a result of a particular approach.

2. For the AVID program we need to judge our progress on how we are rated on the certification instrument provided by AVID.  There are 11 essentials that are measured yearly with ratings between 0 and 3.  By monitoring the progress towards national demonstration school status we can see how we are progressing.

3.  Building leaders for the future is often a difficult task as it requires you to know your people and which ones have the traits of effective leadership.  To measure this success I would recommend determining how many teachers have successful completed the state requirements to attain a principal’s certificate.

Week Three Assignment, Part 2 – Part C of the Comprehensive Final Report

Describing Recommendations and District/Campus Improvement Initiative/Action Research Lessons Learned

Review the above analysis, and write at least one page thoroughly describing recommendations and lessons learned from experiences with the improvement initiatives or action research plans.

     I feel very fortunate to work in a district that has allowed me to grow as a leader and be actively involved in the improvement of programs in our district.  Since I was in extracurricular activities for the majority of my career I knew the documented benefits to students who participated in these programs and was interested if there were things we could do to increase participation.  Secondly in the AVID program, I have been designated as the District Director I wanted to gain support throughout the district for growing the AVID program with the goal being a national demonstration school.  Finally, as a developing educational leader I know there were a few people along the way who saw something good in me and pushed me to strive for a leadership position.  As leaders I feel we have a responsibility to our students to help build leaders for the future so I wanted to begin looking for ways to encourage teachers to consider pursuing their administrative certificate.

            First, there was the research looking at extracurricular participation. As I mentioned in my reflection I believe it is important that we continue to survey our students to determine what interests hey have that we are not addressing in the extracurricular programs we offer.  If we are going to be a campus and district that practices continual improvement then we can’t settle for one year of increased participation and work towards doing this every year.  A prime example of this is that we have an increasing number of Hispanic students coming to our district and a common question I have seen while working in the athletic department is why we don’t have soccer as an offering.  This is something the school board has heard and with the implementation of UIL soccer in 3A beginning in the 2014 realignment we will be adding this program for girls and boys beginning in the 2014-2015 school year.  Another example of this has been that a student got a group together that was interested in the UIL calculation competition and when they were able to get a sponsor they were allowed to begin participating.  Moving forward I believe we have created a culture where students feel that they are listened to and that their opinion matters and this Spring when we have our elective fair program I think we will continue to get good input from students about programs that would interest them.  In adding these programs we are expanding the number of students who can reap the well documented benefits of participation in extracurricular programs.

            Secondly, there was the issue we addressed in improving our AVID program we need to develop a 3 to 5 year plan for success.  We have bought into this system and are working towards school wide implementation with fidelity.  I believe that by having a goal and vision for the future is critical to us achieving the success we envision for this program and our students.  As the leader of this program I think we should aim for the best and that is to become a national demonstration school.  There is no need for us to reinvent the wheel rather we should visit schools who have achieved this distinction with similar demographics to ours.  This will allow us to take some of the good ideas to improve our implementation of the core principals of AVID.  This compilation of best practices will have an impact on all of our students when we can get these strategies school wide. 

            The third and final action item I investigated for the improvement of my campus and district is to help develop leaders for the future.  I certainly would not be where I am today as an educational leader if it were not for the influence of other leaders who helped me build the skills necessary to be effective.  That being said I also feel that the leaders in my district, myself included, have a responsibility to develop additional leaders.  Therefore, I think we should work to encourage some of our best teachers with skills for leadership to pursue leadership training.  This could include providing funding for them to be trained in ILD and PDAS and send them to additional trainings where they can share the learning with their peers.  We need to be a district that develops some home grown leaders who are familiar with our policies and procedures and the progress we have made in an effort to keep moving them forward.                   

            Overall we are a district that is trying to move forward we need to investigate every opportunity to improve instruction and student achievement.  At this time we have chosen to focus on our extracurricular programs, AVID school wide, and leader development.  These things were strategically chosen to reach our students and teacher where they are and help them improve.  As a leader it is important that I continue to strive for improvement personally as well as for those I lead.                                                                                                                                                       

Week Three Assignment, Part 3 - Scheduling a Conference with the District Site Supervisor to review the SISE

Please schedule a conference with your District Site Supervisor between now and Week 5 to review the Supervisor’s SISE (Superintendent/Supervisor Internship Summative Evaluation). To confirm this scheduled conference, please describe your efforts below – this may include “sending an email request for a scheduled conference, visiting with the supervisor to schedule a conference, or any other efforts describing your efforts to schedule this conference.”

                As I have mentioned I am fortunate to have worked for a Superintendent during this time who is approachable and the conclusion of this internship has been no different.  When I knew I was going to need this paperwork completed I contacted him to schedule a meeting.  Since he lives in the community I was able to go by his house and drop the paperwork off to be completed.  When I was on campus again I was able to let him know when I would need it to be completed and we agreed to meet this week after he has had time to complete the evaluation.  I am looking forward to visiting with him and seeing what areas he recommends I focus on as I continue to prepare for a career as a Superintendent.