Interview With Middle School Principal Essay

This information was gathered in an interview with Andrea Williams, Principal of Theresa Bunker Elementary. In the past three years that Mrs. Williams has been principal of this school she has brought a strong focus onto using data to make appropriate instructional decisions as well as execute strategic planning to help the school progress. The implementation of the PLC process has helped the teachers to gain an understanding of how valuable data collection and analysis can be for their teaching practice. Looking at data also helps the school attain the yearly goals laid out by the district’s strategic plan. One of the first steps taken in developing a strategic plan for the school is to gather and analyze data in order to find the school’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for growth as well as any threats to the progress of the school. Early in the year the strategic planning team will review quantitative data collected from student achievement scores, attendance rates, discipline trends, financial records, transportation reports, and so forth. Depending upon the specific issue addressed in the planning process, these types of quantitative data serve to inform decision-making processes. The collection of qualitative data is also an integral part of best practices in development of a strategic plan. Qualitative data collection includes use of surveys, focus groups, and interviews with key stakeholder groups. It is important and useful to

Strategies that are in place are teachers and administration walk-through with feedback for growth. The school also provides support for teachers whose performance was

Build human capital that will drive our school progress toward school goals by improving teacher and leader capacity.

We all build strong relationships amongst our students and ourselves. Everyone works well for the benefit of all who come through our doors. Our longest working staff member has been here nineteen years, but we also have a couple of first year teachers starting out. The gender balance is nine males to twenty-one females. Our professional development is focused on our main district initiatives, which include: AIW (Authentic Intellectual Work), IPI (Instructional Practices Inventory), TLIM (The Leader in Me), Technology Integration, and Iowa Core. We have professional development time every Wednesday from 2:10-4:00. Professional development is a mix of building and district wide meetings.

Our professional development sessions are conducted weekly in a variety of subject areas, and the monthly school-wide session, using interactive reform activities, align with the Danielson Framework for Teaching (Danielson, 2013) to showcase best practices of teachers and to develop grade-level performance tasks, looking at students’ work to provide individual feedback that is aligned with the teaching rubric in order to show academic progress and growth in the target areas of ELA and Math.

Key performance measures relative to this action plan are that our SIP will identify Marzano instructional practices on a yearly basis as a school-wide focus for implementation and/or improvement (strategy 3). Also, student growth meetings will be held each fall between school administrators and teachers and will revolve around students at risk of falling behind their peers and student sub-groups that may be collectively behind the total student population, thus closing the achievement gap (strategy 4). Building administrators will be proactive in arranging time for instructional rounds to facilitate professional growth among teachers.

Dawn Essig attended Mount Saint Mary College where she earned her BS in Political Science, Education, and Special Education. Dr. Essig also attended Marist College where she obtained a M.Ed. in Educational Psychology and then pursued her Doctorate in Teacher Leadership from Walden University. As an educator, Dr. Essig taught elementary through high school general and special education while serving as an adjunct professor at Marist College in the Education department. Dr. Essig’s extensive experience and knowledge in technology integration in school districts, certification as a Wilson Reading Specialist and use of MAP assessments and data to make instructional decisions led to being a well-qualified Professional Development Consultant for

Identifies skills, theories of change, program designs, partnerships, and ways of building schools where students achieve.

In regards to the Marzano Instructional Frameworks as a guide, building administrators and teachers will meet monthly to guide professional growth discussions, set goals and identify future professional opportunities. In addition, the district TPEP committee will meet monthly to plan and guide professional development that includes a teacher leader to provide evaluation and framework training. SIP will identify Marzano instructional practices on a yearly basis as a school-wide focus for implementation and/or improvement. Student growth meetings will occur each fall between school administrators and teacher and will revolve around students at risk of falling behind their peers and student sub-groups that may be collectively behind the total student population (closing the achievement gap). And finally, time will be made each quarter for instructional rounds to facilitate professional growth among

Assessing is a major priority in the school system because this is the only way principals are aware of the progress their students and teachers are producing. It is recommended that principals meet monthly with other administrators to stay up to date on the current changes in the curriculum, instruction, and assessments. The school leadership teams must ensure that they are choosing instructional works that have high success rates for enhancing student achievement. If the data results from the assessment show that the majority of students are not producing learning gains, the school’s principal should sit down with the teacher to discuss and reevaluate the lessons that are being taught.

plan for, monitor and reflect on their professional development. Learners will then be able to investigate and

During one of our professional development days in the week before school started, we spent an entire day reviewing the curriculum mapping process and began identifying the most essential standards and learning outcomes for students. One subtle indicator was that only two teachers demonstrated understanding about the importance of using assessment results to plan their first two weeks of lessons. One suggested that they would begin with a writing prompt to determine where students were in their narrative writing, and the other expressed the urgency to administer the reading assessment so that she could put her students in reading groups. Eighty percent of our staff were either longing for the

Administrators are challenged to develop professional development programs for their schools with the ultimate goal of addressing student achievement through improving or reinforcing current teaching practices. Unfortunately many administrators have a difficult time navigating the complicated process of deciding what needs to address as well as how to address them. In his article, “Leadership for Effective Change: Creating Intentionality Using Staff Development”, S. Michael Putman addresses how the Intentional Teaching Model (INTENT) gives administrators an almost step-by-step guide for developing professional development opportunities and activities to achieve their ultimate goal: student growth and achievement. The INTENT model is broken down into four interdependent phases: examinining the beliefs of the participants, identifying and establishing goals, deliberately modifying instructional practices, and consitatantly demonstrating goal aligned behaviors.

The teacher I interviewed has taught for more than ten years at the same school. She started as a fourth grade teacher but she now works as an interventionist.

Counseling has many components in different fields such as a school counselor, marriage and family counseling, addiction counseling, individual and private practices, and many more. For my project, I interviewed Mrs. Ross Freeman, a school counselor who talks about her journey of becoming an Elementary School Counselor. We discuss what the requirement and cost were to receive a license in the counseling field. We were also able to discuss the average salary and hourly wages for a counselor in WISD. Mrs. Freeman then goes on to enlighten me about the rewards, challenges, demands and frustrations of a school counselor.