Standard Four: HUMAN RESOURCE LEADERSHIP
School executives will ensure that the school is a professional learning community. School executives will ensure that processes and systems are in place that result in the recruitment, induction, support, evaluation, development and retention of high-performing staff. The school executive must engage and empower accomplished teachers in a distributive leadership manner., including support of teachers in day-to-day decisions such as discipline, communication with parents, and protecting teachers from duties that interfere with teaching. They also must practice fair and consistent evaluation of teachers. The school executive must engage teachers and other professional staff in conversations to plan their career paths and support district succession planning.
A. Professional Development and Learning Communities
Fuller's administration, instructional facilitator, and magnet coordinator collaborated throughout the 2020-21 school year to determine the professional learning staff engaged in. Prior to the start of the school year, Fuller's administrators and instructional facilitator engaged in a district-led professional learning on strengthening schools' professional learning teams (PLTs) using the book PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design. After revising the school's improvement goal at a school improvement team retreat, school administration and the instructional facilitator decided to engage the staff in the same book study throughout the 2020-21 school year led by the instructional facilitator. Grade-level teams turned their learning into action during their weekly PLT meetings as they reviewed student data, created small groups for math and reading intervention, planned upcoming units, and created common formative and summative assessments. With increasing student achievement as the goal, teachers constantly questioned where they going within their instructional units, determined a course of action to getting there, responded appropriately if students learned or did not learn the content, and asked which students benefitted or did not benefit from their instructional plans.
Fuller's certified staff also engaged in professional learning enhancing their virtual classrooms using Seesaw and Peardeck, specialists examined different digital applications and instructional practices using the DSAP and TPaCK frameworks, K-2 teachers learned effective math practices, and 3-5 teachers discussed foundational literacy and the Recipe for Reading program. |
Fuller's intervention team, made up of six teachers serving as grade-level case managers, assist homeroom teachers with students who demonstrate needing additional supplemental or intensive support in math and literacy, create tier plans in the ECATS system, and communicate with the families and school administration about student progress. Throughout the 2020-21 school year, the team worked diligently to create processes to track student engagement and class participation in both learning environments in addition to the other team's workload. I worked with the team as they created a checklist, defined engagement and participation, and set realistic student goals. Their efforts in this area served as a model for other elementary schools across the district.
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Throughout the two-year program, I had various opportunities with NCSU, Principal Fellows, and WCPSS to engage in professional and personal learning to better my abilities as an emerging school leader. I had opportunities to grow my understanding of racial equity and practice my coaching skills with Equity Collaborative when working with others across difference. TregoED enhanced my decision making skills, and demonstrated the importance of having an intentional and systematic plan to making informed decisions. NCSU and WCPSS provided several opportunities for me to analyze and reflect on my personality and leadership skills not only for awareness but to leverage my potential and effectiveness as a leader. Each professional learning will ultimately improve my response to the instructional practices and programs currently being implemented.
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B. Recruiting, Hiring, Placing, and Mentoring of Staff
As part of NCSU's course requirements, I engaged in a Human Resources course that allowed me to learn the current state of recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and mentoring staff members at both the district and school levels. The course gave me the opportunity to research best practices, compare those practices to the current state, and then make recommendations which best practices need to be implemented. While completing the assignment, I spoke with my principal mentor often about the district's recruitment efforts, specifically finding creative ways to recruit more educators of color. Applying that creativity, my principal mentor asked Fuller families to assist with recruitment when we sought to fill four instructional assistant positions. With their help, we were able to fill the positions from a diverse candidate pool. The course and the culminating project, allowed me to better understand how to identify school human resource needs, and create a system of continued mentor and support once recruited and employed.
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Toward the middle of the 2020-21 school year, Fuller's school administration collaborated with a small interview team to interview and hire four instructional assistants and a head custodian. Applying my new learning of effective human resource structures (see above), Fuller's administration recruited widely by asking the school community and district leadership to assist diversifying the potential candidate pool. Before interviewing each candidate, a small interview team comprised of staff members met and discussed what they were looking for in a candidate before engaging in the interview. The team used a set of questions created by the principal and asked candidates to speak about themselves, their ability to do the job well, and their ability to serve on a team. When school administration sought candidates for the head custodian position, we reviewed their previous school's Teaching Working Conditions Survey to learn how the staff viewed the cleanliness of the school.
After the interview, I called candidates' references seeking another perspective on job performance. The principal made the final decision on who was recommended for the positions. Once candidates were approved by the district's Human Resources Office, I met with them individually or small groups to begin the onboard process. |
C. Teacher and Staff Evaluation
(Restricted) Throughout the 2020-21 school year, I visited classrooms and captured my visits on a Learning Walks Log. After speaking with Fuller's principal and instructional facilitator, I began the year looking for the establishment of classroom expectations and the use of our school-wide expectations, GIFTS (to be goal-oriented, inclusive, focused, trustworthy, and safe). As the school year progressed, I focused my attention on student participation and engagement, which aligned with the work of the Intervention Team, and effective instructional practices. The informal classroom visits allowed me to keep a pulse on the teacher practices occurring throughout the school building, and to determine specific areas of growth for individual or groups of teachers.
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(Restricted) Throughout the 2020-21 school year, I consistently collaborated with the school principal to observe teachers on different evaluation cycles and standards. After each formal classroom observation, the school principal and I would discuss what we saw, and then talk through each indicator on the evaluation rubric explicitly connecting what was seen during the observation to the rubric. During post conferences, the school principal and I would provide the teacher with constructive feedback on areas for growth, including resources to enhance their practice when necessary, and feedback on areas of strength.
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At the beginning of the 2020-21 school year, all teachers and students at Fuller were engaged in a virtual learning environment. I created a SMART goal to observe every homeroom teacher within the first month of school, as well as begin to observe the elective teachers' classes. Getting into the classrooms early allowed me to begin to build relationships with both teachers and students, and to see the types of instructional strategies teachers used in the classroom. From the initial observations, I provided teachers an informal glow and a grow on what was observed, which in-turn allowed them see my focus on instructional leadership.
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