Part E: Three Year Professional Development Plan and SISE Evaluaton

Three Year Professional Development Plan

Goal	TExES Competency and Domain	Objective (What do you want to improve?)	Course Work/Book/ Workshops (How do you want to improve?)	Mentor Professional Support (Who will help you improve?)	Date of Completion	Evaluations (How will you know you have improved?)
I want to plan a  professional development activity to help teachers learn how to pull small group interventions within the classroom.	Comp. 5	Increase teacher usage of small group interventions within the classroom to improve student understanding.	Attend and provide workshop in our district	Asst. Sup.	Dec. 2012	Teachers are using this in classrooms.
I want to create PLCs to improve rigor in classroom.	Comp 2	Improve morale and help staff learn to work together.	Book Study	Campus Principal	May 2014	Staff evaluation
I want to improve Community Involvement and help parents understand how to work with their child.	Comp 3	Family Reading and Math Night to increase parent involvement	Family Reading/Math Night	Campus Principal	May 2013	Increase parent participation to 100 per night.
I want to implement a schedule to provide immediate intervention and have students read silently for 30 minutes.	Comp 2	Schedule intense intervention time during silent reading time.		Campus Principal/Assistant Superintendent	May 2013	Increase STAAR performance.
I want to improve my communication skills with our School Board.	Comp 4	Continue attending school board meetings.		Assistant Superintendent/ School Board Members	May 2015	Become comfortable with and communicate with school board members on a monthly basis.
Attend a professional development class on campus morale.	Comp 6	Attend a professional development class on creating a campus climate.		Campus Principal	May 2014	Campus survey to see culture change.
I want to increase my knowledge of the budget and finance end of the district.	Comp 8	Attend a professional development class on budget.		Assistant Superintendent / CFO	May 2015	Certificate of attendance.

 Reflection:

In looking at my professional development plan, I feel comfortable with the majority of the competencies, but focused on some areas that I want to improve upon. In my plan, I tried to focus on improvements that would benefit myself as an instructional leader as well as my campus and district, too. I want to improve upon my instructional leadership and focus on bringing more specific types of professional development to our district. I also want to improve the quality of the professional learning communities and the professional dialogue within my school district. Not only will these things help improve the district; they will also help me become a better instructional leader. Community involvement is another area where improvement can be made throughout the school district, which is something I can focus on. Developing a relationship with the school board is another area where I want to improve upon my skills. I think that building a relationship with my school board will help me become a more involved leader within our school district. I feel that looking at the total package will help me become a better Superintendent in the future. In looking at workshops, I would like to attend a workshop on the budget process so I can improve my financial knowledge within my school district. These are several of the things I want to improve for myself in order to improve my leadership abilities.

SISE Evaluation Reflection:

I met with my site supervisor this week and we discussed my strengths and weaknesses within the competencies.  She felt like I understood the competencies and had worked very hard to complete this program.  She knew that one area of strength for me was with instructional leadership and that one area where I could improve upon was management of the physical plant.  She mentioned that one area where she needed to improve as well when she took this position was management of the physical plant.  One piece that helps her is that we have strong leadership within our areas and that helps our facilities run smoothly.  Our Directors are very knowledgeable and having managers who understand and are very good at their job has helped her feel comfortable with decisions that need to be made within the district. She felt that I had grown as a leader within our district and she was amazed at the goals I had accomplished throughout this program. 

Blog/Course Reflections:

I have been able to participate in the web conferences throughout this program as well as in this class.  These web conferences have given me the ability to put faces with names, which will increase my network greatly.  I have enjoyed sharing this time with all of our cohort members.  The best part of this program was being able to work with all of our cohort members and incorporate collaboration into this program.  I have had the opportunity to expand my professional network and learn how each school district may appear to be different, but for the most part, we are very similar in our approaches and our programs.  Learning new concepts has also given me the courage to implement new ideas into my campus.

I have completed my conferences with Jimmy Creel, which consisted of three web conferences.  He helped me understand different aspects of this program as well as prepare me for the next step in my educational career. 

 

Part D: Reflections and Reflective Practice

There are many things I have learned through writing reflections for my classes.  Understanding my feelings and how things have worked on my campus has definitely been one of the major benefits to writing reflections.  I believe that using reflective practice can improve my leadership abilities and allow me to target ideas that did not work properly and begin to find ways to make them run smoothly. 

            During this school year, I realized how well collaboration worked.  We had discussed collaboration and how much it impacted school leadership.  This year, I am an Assistant Principal for a fourth and fifth grade campus and really want my teachers to work together and create a cohesive team for our school.  As we started our planning process, we discussed lessons that had been taught previously and looked at different ways to improve the lesson and increase the rigor of the lesson.  We also implemented common based assessments that are given each six weeks.  These assessments allow us as a team to see where students have not mastered different objectives and where a break-down in our teaching could occur.  These collaborative discussions gave us the opportunity to look at different activities that could be used during instruction and also help teachers become excited about teaching the material.  This reflection helped our team realize if an activity worked or if it did not work for our students, which made teachers realize that certain activities were better than others and we must use ones that have been successful.  We made use of the experience that many of our teachers had, but some of our teachers lacked. 

            As the year progressed, I also reflected on other aspects of our instruction.  We implemented family nights with our campus to give parents strategies to help their child at home.  The first family night went well, but time was an issue with transitioning between stations.  By looking back at family night, we were able to tweak some of the activities so we could improve the overall structure of our family night.   Reflecting on family night structure and practices has helped my campus improve the overall function of the night and helped us create an atmosphere where students and parents are able to learn many different things that will improve student learning.

             As an administrator and future Superintendent, I can implement this collaborative culture where teachers and principals reflect on their present experiences and past experiences.  Creating a team that can discuss their work and reflect on their student’s progress or campus’ progress will only enable our school district to become successful.  I feel that using reflective practices as a leader can enhance my success as a leader and help me become a better leader.  I feel that I can look back each day at the issues that I handled and reflect on how I dealt with the situation. Having this time to look back and really consider how my well my decisions affected the situation at hand will make me become a better superintendent and enable me to see my weaknesses.  In doing this, I can improve these weak areas which will make me become a stronger leader.  Reflecting on what happens each day will enable my campus and my school district to improve the instruction and delivery of the activities that are critical for student mastery.  Improving on our instructional techniques and incorporating collaboration into the reflection will only allow us to improve our educational delivery.  Having a school that supports collaboration and teachers and administrators who reflect on their daily activities will enhance the learning that occurs each day. 

Reflecting on projects that I have completed throughout this coursework as well as through the internship, I have been able to project difficulties within the projects and find ways of improving it.  Having the ability to reflect on these experiences has given me greater insight into making needed improvements within my school district that will enhance the education of all students. Also, I have been able to look back at the assessments that we have taken throughout this coursework and find areas that I need to review and understand before I can thoroughly master the concepts we have learned.  Through this reflection, I have been able to remember different concepts that we have learned through looking back and reflecting on the assessments.  These assessments have allowed me to find areas that I needed to improve upon and understand better.  I have been able to look back and study different concepts that have helped me improve my knowledge of the curriculum.

Creating and collaborating through the use of our class blogs has also give me the opportunity to learn through collaboration.  This superintendent course work has helped me build my professional network so that I can collaborate with other aspiring superintendents to create a district that is successful.  Sharing ideas and reflections has helped me become a better leader and given me ways to improve things that I have implemented within my school district.  Hearing others ideas and suggestions has also helped me become more open-minded and ready to discuss options for making improvements within my school district. 

I plan to utilize reflections throughout my career as a tool for improving my skills.  Through reflections, I can improve my capabilities of leading others by looking at myself and my actions in different situations.  I can improve on my reactions to different problems and the way I decide to handle any given situation by closely reflecting on ways to improve my style of leadership and my decision-making skills.  All in all, I can reflect back on things that are positive and things that I can improve upon in order to gain knowledge and improve my leadership ability.

I believe that having a leadership style that can adapt to the situation at hand will give me an edge on the situation.  At my school, we do have a collaborative team and it is a great thing to be able to work together to accomplish set goals.  I also believe the benefits of collaboration outweigh the cons.  Reflective practice will enable teachers and administrators to become stronger and wiser educators and leaders.

District Recommendations and Lessons Learned

            During my internship period, I have participated in many things that have improved my school and my school district.  I have created a scheduled intervention time for all students.  The first thirty minutes of the school day is devoted to silent, sustained reading time.  Teachers are designated specific days where their classroom is covered so they can pull a small group to another area and provide intervention to students who are struggling with specific skills.  This intervention time has given teachers the opportunity to pull small group interventions within the school day to reteach specific skills that students have not mastered.  These groups will vary depending on the objective that needs to be targeted.  We also have incorporated common assessments every six weeks so we can look at the data and use it to drive our instruction to a higher level and we can reteach skills that have not been mastered. 

            In planning this intervention pull-out, I was able to plan it so Monday and Wednesday are devoted to Reading and Writing Intervention for fourth and fifth grade.  Tuesday and Thursday is devoted to Math Intervention.  Friday is devoted to Science, Writing and Math. These designated days help teachers be able to have priority with specific students.  Also, our science lab teacher teaches two classes per day and instructs a mini-science lesson that incorporates an experiment or activity with the students.  Many students seem excited about learning and ready to work since it is the very beginning of the day. 

            Another project that I implemented during the school year was a Parent Orientation Night for our ESL students.  We had a translator present to translate information from our teachers to improve communication with our ESL parents.  These parents were able to find out information regarding classroom procedures and campus policies that were pertinent to their child’s success.  This orientation night was a huge success and will be continued each school year due to the positive influence on our campus.

            Our campus had two family nights this school year where we taught parents how to work with their students.  Parents were able to experience science experiments and we were able to send home with different make-and-take items with parents in order to give them tools to work with their child.  We asked for input from parents on ways to improve the event and many were excited about learning ways to help their child.

            I would recommend that we continue with our family nights so we can improve the academic performance of our students as well as communicate with parents and build a partnership with them.  This type of night allows parents to learn how to work with their child and improve their understanding of material being taught in our classrooms.  This would improve parent-student relationships and get our parents involved in the learning process of our children.

            I would also continue to implement the silent reading time where we are scheduled to pull small group interventions across the campus.  These interventions are immediate, intensive and very direct in order to give every student the opportunity to get extra help and support.  I would also recommend that the district set up some professional development programs where teachers are taught specifically how to implement small group interventions within the classroom.  This type of professional development needs to include modeling how to pull intervention groups within the classroom as well as provide a follow-up later to explore issues that any teachers are seeing.

            Another recommendation would be to continue with the campus walk-throughs to provide data for improving instruction as well as continue the campus assessments each six weeks.  This data gives targeted information regarding specific skills that need to be retaught.  It also helps teachers see weak areas in their instruction and help build Professional Learning Communities within their teams when they discuss different ways to teach specific lessons and objectives.  That dialogue between teachers and administrators needs to be evident in order to improve the rigor and the level of learning within the classroom.  Also, I have designed a poster of higher order thinking skills that I want to be posted in every classroom across the district.  Having teachers see the question stems during instruction will help them to remember to raise the level of questioning during instruction. 

            All in all, my recommendations for my district are set to improve the quality of education that our students are receiving.  Each student is different and needs something to improve their academic achievement.  Implementing these things into our schools can improve the quality of education that our students are receiving as well as allow for immediate help as the student needs it.  Sean Cain and Mike Laird’s book, The Fundamental 5, has helped me understand that implementing these things can improve the instructional capacity of our school district.