Standard 1 - Strategic Leadership
School executives will create conditions that result in strategically re-imaging the school’s vision, mission, and goals in the 21st century. Understanding that schools ideally prepare students for an unseen but not altogether unpredictable future, the leader creates a climate of inquiry that challenges the school community to continually re-purpose itself by building on its core values and beliefs about its preferred future and then developing a pathway to reach it.
Element Ia. School Vision, Mission and Strategic Goals: The school's identity, in part, is derived from the vision, mission, values, beliefs and goals of the school, the processes used to establish these attributes, and the ways they are embodied in the life of the school community.
At Warsaw Elementary, we believe education is the means by which students "Imagine their future and create their path." Below is our school handbook, a vital document which outlines our school's vision, mission, values, and beliefs. I had the opportunity to work closely with our leadership team to create our handbook.
At Warsaw Elementary, we believe education is the means by which students "Imagine their future and create their path." Below is our school handbook, a vital document which outlines our school's vision, mission, values, and beliefs. I had the opportunity to work closely with our leadership team to create our handbook.
One of the greatest lessons I have learned through my principal residency and graduate studies is the power of stories. I have had the opportunity to lead numerous professional development activities and PLC conversations around a multitude of topics but the one shown below specifically details stories of how I used data and grades to communicate belief in students. At Warsaw Elementary, we believe in the "3 R's: Relevance, Rigor, and Relationships." This instructional belief drives our mission and vision and reminds us that a student's motivation is directly linked to their belief in themselves. I shared the presentation below with each PLC team in the first month of the school year - it was a deeper chance for every teacher to hear and understand "My Why," as well as have productive conversations around how we communicate a student's progress with them.
Element Ib. Leading Change: The school executive articulates a vision, and implementation strategies, for improvements and changes which result in improved achievement for all students.
Aligned to our School Improvement Plan, school mission, and school vision, I calculated that in order to achieve our goal of becoming a "C" school based on state testing and accountability metrics, Warsaw Elementary had to achieve a school-wide proficiency score of 45%. We set 45% as our school proficiency goal (13% increase from the 2016-2017 school year). After applying our proficiency goal to each grade level, I created proficiency targets for each teacher. I conducted grade-level meetings to discuss how each teacher and every student will play a vital role in achieving our goal. Every teacher has their subsequent grade level page laminated and hanging in their classroom. The slides below represent the number of proficient students needed in each grade level to achieve our school-wide goal.
Aligned to our School Improvement Plan, school mission, and school vision, I calculated that in order to achieve our goal of becoming a "C" school based on state testing and accountability metrics, Warsaw Elementary had to achieve a school-wide proficiency score of 45%. We set 45% as our school proficiency goal (13% increase from the 2016-2017 school year). After applying our proficiency goal to each grade level, I created proficiency targets for each teacher. I conducted grade-level meetings to discuss how each teacher and every student will play a vital role in achieving our goal. Every teacher has their subsequent grade level page laminated and hanging in their classroom. The slides below represent the number of proficient students needed in each grade level to achieve our school-wide goal.
At Warsaw Elementary, we push our teachers and students to reach proficiency. In order to "think critically, embrace diversity, and become academically and socially prepared for a globally competitive society," as our vision states, we understand that our students deserve engaging and rigorous instruction in their classes. This can only happen when we coach and grow our teachers. I took the opportunity to facilitate a group collaboration discussion in which teachers collectively looked at our district's "Sample Teaching Evidences" (shown below) so that they would have an idea of what tangible actions constitute "Proficient, Accomplished, and Distinguished" teaching. Teachers were given the opportunity to voice their questions and confusions about the teaching evidences and, in heterogenous groups, gave feedback to our district teaching evidences that we then forwarded to central office. Since this conversation, teachers have been very receptive to feedback and coaching conferences, and we have seen student engagement increase.
Element Ic. School Improvement Plan: The school improvement plan provides the structure for the vision, values, goals and changes necessary for improved achievement for all students.
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to work closely with my Principal to complete our 2017-2018 School Improvement Plan. This was my first tangible experience of Strategic Leadership. Our Leadership Team spent intentional time to look at last year's data, revisit our school mission and vision, and communicate with central office to ensure our School Improvement Plan would meet the needs of our students, staff, and community. Warsaw Elementary is in its first year of being a PreK - 8 School. It is a consolidation of a previous low-performing K-5 Elementary school and a previous low-performing Middle School. In the School Improvement Plan document below, we have detailed very specific strategies we have used all year to ensure our students make substantial progress.
Element Id. Distributive Leadership: The school executive creates and utilizes processes to distribute leadership and decision making throughout the school.
Our 4th Grade team was seeing some struggles with their students' abilities to solve complex, multi-step math problems. Students' progress in class while following the teacher was not translating when working individually. I stepped into several 4th grade classrooms during math lessons and noticed that students were overwhelmed conceptually with what they were being asked. I pulled aside the 4th grade chair during her planning and together we discussed ways to break down each question into pieces that students can understand. After our conversation, I asked her to create intervention problems for her team that could promote the type of teacher questioning that would increase student understanding and problem solving. Below is the question set she created and shared with her team based on our conversation. On our most recent Mock EOG, our 4th grade students were 53% proficient in math, up from 22% at the MOY benchmark!