- Change Management: Effectively engages staff and community in the change process in a manner that ensures their support of the change and its successful implementation. The administrative team envisioned an "open door" culture where teachers and administrators visit classrooms and provide feedback often. I facilitated this change by creating a walk-through document that reflects district and school initiatives.
- Communication: Effectively listens to others; clearly and effectively presents and understands information orally and in writing; acquires, organizes, analyzes, interprets, maintains information needed to achieve school or team 21st century objectives. During my internship, I communicated with school stakeholders in a variety of ways. I wrote several donation letters, started and maintained our school's Facebook page, and wrote countless emails to staff. I also communicated the district's instructional framework initiative to teachers through professional development sessions. See 5C in the link below to see examples.
- Conflict Management: Anticipates or seeks to resolve confrontations, disagreements, or complaints in a constructive manner. In the course of my NELA and internship experiences, I have navigated through many "crucial conversations" with parents, teachers, and colleagues. In reflection, I learned a lot about what TO DO and what NOT TO DO. During our assessment day, NELA challenged us to prioritize a substantial list of conflicts that we will inevitably face as a leader. Please see my response under "5B" in the link below.
- Creative Thinking – Engages in and fosters an environment for others to engage in innovative thinking. Educators oftentimes have to be innovative and creative when navigating around a lack of resources. Acknowledging time as our greatest, free resource, the administrative team was challenged to modify our schedule in order to allow for common planning time. I altered electives times to creatively create time for teachers on different teams to plan common assessments.
- Customer Focus: Understands the students as customers of the work of schooling and the servant nature of leadership and acts accordingly. The PBIS team and the administrative team focused on empowering students to have a voice this year. Students were asked to nominate teachers and school personnel who they thought deserved recognition through our "Star Staff" program. We also surveyed students to discover what they wanted out of PBIS and how the bus initiatives had made a difference to them. This data was used to inform future PBIS rewards and to celebrate personnel for accomplishments. The administrative team also rewarded staff by offering "duty-free lunch" for teachers if grades were due, etc. This servant leadership extended even after school when I would volunteer to supervise students so that teachers could work in their classrooms.
- Delegation: Effectively assigns work tasks to others in ways that provide learning experiences for them and in ways that ensure the efficient operation of the school. I transferred to another school in mid-March of my internship year. I delegated many of my previous responsibilities to others in the building before I left in order to ensure a smooth transition. For example, I asked the school counselor to award the weekly bus DOJO points to students for positive bus behavior. Our school counselor is well-versed in DOJO and I knew that she would be successful in taking over the responsibility. I have learned that you have to consider delegation an empowerment tool and not a loss of control or an inconvenience to others.
- Dialogue/Inquiry: – Is skilled in creating a risk-free environment for engaging people in conversations that explore issues, challenges or bad relationships that are hindering school performance. One of the teachers at my school had written a discipline referral for a student and she was frustrated that an administrator had not followed up. She was hesitant to bring it up at our leadership meeting, but I encouraged her to voice her concerns. I told her during the meeting that the administrative team wanted to know her grievances and that we could only fix the things we knew were a problem. I made her feel comfortable enough to speak up and validated her concerns. Afterwards, the leadership team was able to troubleshoot the communication issue and solve the problem.
- Emotional intelligence: Is able to manage oneself through self awareness and self management and is able to manage relationships through empathy, social awareness and relationship management. This competency is critical to building strong, transparent, trusting relationships throughout the school community. I built many trusting relationships with the staff at my internship school. They came to me often to discuss issues they were having. I found that the more that I listened and learned about others, the more they would entrust me with their thoughts.
- Environmental Awareness: Becomes aware and remains informed of external and internal trends, interests and issues with potential impacts on school policies, practices, procedures and positions. After the tragedy in Parkland, Florida, there was a national movement to address school safety. Students across the country planned to conduct a "walkout" protest at a specific day and time. In my school, the administrative team decided to be proactive and planned a level 2 evacuation drill for the same time as the protest. This was as close to a win-win situation that was possible. All of our students gathered in the football stadium during the drill and held a moment of silence for the victims in Parkland, Florida. It was without political influence; a stance that was important in our community.
- Global Perspective: Understands the competitive nature of the new global economy and is clear about the knowledge and skills students will need to be successful in this economy. During our trip to Singapore, I got a chance to examine how education is done in countries around the world. Through school visits, debates, and conference sessions, I learned that Singapore focuses a lot on character education and teaches students how to collaborate effectively. I believe these are these are skills that should be emphasized in order to prepare students for life in a global economy. I have applied this learning to my school by planning character education lessons in partnership with the Communities in Schools program.
- Judgment: Effectively reaching logical conclusions and making high quality decisions based on available information. Giving priority and caution to significant issues. Analyzing and interpreting complex information. We needed to focus on increasing proficiency as well as growth in order to improve our school's letter grade. Knowing this information, I guided teachers through EVAAS reports in order to identify our "bubble" students. We used this data to inform our tutoring groups for the second semester. I believe this intentional strategy will yield improvement on the school's EOG scores.
- Organizational Ability: Effectively plans and schedules one’s own and the work of others so that resources are used appropriately, such as scheduling the flow of activities and establishing procedures to monitor projects. I wrote a long-term substitute's schedule and a TA's schedule to comply with their hourly retirement limitations. This schedule ensured that we had coverage when needed and that all parties benefited.
- Personal Ethics and Values: Consistently exhibits high standards in the areas of honesty, integrity, fairness, stewardship, trust, respect, and confidentiality. I believe that your ethics and values shine through in all that you do. I know that I convey a solid ethical foundation that others can sense. I try to instill the "character is what you do when no one is looking" mantra for staff and students. For bus appreciation week, I asked students to write thank you letters to their bus drivers to show gratitude and respect. That results were astounding! Students took pride in their appreciative gesture and we all enjoyed seeing the smile on their drivers' faces. I hope that mini lessons such as this resonate with students and help shape their moral compass and character.
- Personal Responsibility for Performance: Proactively and continuously improves performance by focusing on needed areas of improvement and enhancement of strengths; actively seeks and effectively applies feedback from others; takes full responsibility for one’s own achievements. NELA is unique because you have the opportunity to receive and use feedback from your peers, your mentor principal, the cohort directors, and your executive coach. During our mid-year discussion, my executive coach gave me feedback on my distributive leadership performance. I knew that I needed to strengthen this element and my coach helped me brainstorm concrete ways that I could improve. Taking her feedback, I developed an Englewood's Got Talent survey to empower teachers by capitalizing on their strengths. I also involved other staff personnel on our bus initiative when I left Englewood and delegated responsibilities to them. By using my coach's feedback, I reflected and improved upon my practice.
- Responsiveness: Does not leave issues, inquiries or requirements for information go unattended. Creates a clearly delineated structure for responding to requests/situations in an expedient manner. Prioritization and multitasking are fundamental skills that school leaders must develop. I make sure that I record all of the requests and situations that arise throughout the day on the same sheet. Then, I prioritize the items based off of urgency and importance. For example, we had a bus driver get sick the same day she was supposed to drive the soccer team to a game. This was an urgent task because otherwise the team would have to forfeit. I texted several possible sub drivers while processing discipline referrals and answering email requests. I was able to secure a driver in time due to my prioritization of tasks.
- Results Orientation: Effectively assumes responsibility. Recognizes when a decision is required. Takes prompt action as issues emerge. Resolves short-term issues while balancing them against long-term goals. I designed my problem of practice to address high numbers of discipline referrals in the bus setting. Bus suspensions lead to many student absences because students do not have another means of transportation. This subsequently affects academic achievement. During the process of pursuing my long term goal, I addressed technology issues with the bus PBIS system as well as put systems in place to continue the initiative after I left the school.
- Sensitivity: Effectively perceives the needs and concerns of others; deals tactfully with others in emotionally stressful situations or in conflict. Knows what information to communicate and to whom. Relates to people of varying ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. During my internship at Englewood, I was the primary contact for a church coat donation. I identified the church's target population and organized the coat drive so that it would be discreet and not embarrass any child. I spoke to children and their families and mitigated any shame that may be perceived by receiving a donation.
- Systems Thinking: Understands the interrelationships and impacts of school and district influences, systems and external stakeholders, and applies that understanding to advancing the achievement of the school or team. Our leadership team found a need for supplemental intervention for our students performing under grade level or struggling with behavior expectations. The administrative team worked with CIS, the school counselor, and various external organizations to provide interventions for at-risk students. We used Title 1 funds to secure two intervention tutors and created the schedule below to accommodate all of our grade levels. CIS also worked to bring in a local fraternity chapter to help at-risk males and a facilitator to begin a girl scouts program at Englewood. These interventions provide comprehensive support to our students to improve outcomes for our school and community.
- Technology: Effectively utilizes the latest technologies to continuously improve the management of the school and enhance student instruction. I participated in a Flipped Classroom training with Dr. Lodge McCammon. My group and I had the opportunity to create a flipped video as professional development for new teachers. The concept of "flipped" meetings is popular among staff because time is both a rare and precious commodity.
Here's our paper slide for new teachers! #NELAflip16 pic.twitter.com/m5BDPMXHsc
— My Toshiba (@mcmetzger8) July 19, 2016
- Time Management: Effectively uses available time to complete work tasks and activities that lead to the achievement of desired work or school results. Runs effective meetings. I utilize Google Calendar to organize all of my appointments and to set reminders for various professional tasks. I also create agendas for all PLCs in order to facilitate timely meetings and to convey the message that time is precious and should be honored.
- Visionary: Encourages imagineering by creating an environment and structure to capture stakeholder dreams of what the school could become for all the students. NELA challenged us to consider our core values and develop a meaningful personal vision. Although my core values will remain the same, my vision has evolved throughout the course of the program.