Standard Six: External Development Leadership
Principals/assistant principals will design structures and processes that result in community engagement, support, and ownership. Acknowledging that schools no longer reflect but, in fact, build community, the leader proactively creates with staff, opportunities for parents/guardians, community and business representatives to participate as “stockholders” in the school such that continued investment of resources and good will are not left to chance.
Element VIa. Parent and Community Involvement and Outreach: The principal/assistant principal designs structures and processes which result in parent and community engagement, support and ownership for the school.
Action: Parent Teacher Student Organization- I attended and participated in all of the PTSO meetings for the 2017-2018 school year. I was the administrator on duty for the March meeting. I greeted the parents, participated in the planning of our spring carnival, and locked up the building at the conclusion of the meeting. Below are my notes taken from the February Meeting.
Action: Parent Teacher Student Organization- I attended and participated in all of the PTSO meetings for the 2017-2018 school year. I was the administrator on duty for the March meeting. I greeted the parents, participated in the planning of our spring carnival, and locked up the building at the conclusion of the meeting. Below are my notes taken from the February Meeting.
Notes from PTSO Meeting
Action: Talent Show Fundraiser- I organized a school-wide Talent Show fundraiser for the PTSO. I auditioned students, worked with them after school to perfect their talents, and lined up judges and teachers to staff the event. It was a huge success and students are already begging to have another one.
Talent Show Program
Action: Parents and Curriculum- Indicator E1.06 of our school improvement plan states that "the school regularly communicates with parents/guardians about its expectations of them and the importance of the curriculum of the home (what parents can do at home to support their children's learning)." To help keep our parents informed, we had a Curriculum Night. I helped by sending out reminder phone calls the week before and by organizing a basket raffle and a homeroom class competition for the most participation. Attendance was great and the families did not want to leave. Below is a sample of the audio from one of these phone calls.
Curriculum Night Photos
Audio from Curriculum Night Parent Call
Action: I helped our core teachers send out Curriculum Update Phone Calls to inform parents that progress reports were going home and to give the parents an idea of what their students were studying and how they could help. Below is a written sample of a curriculum update sent home to parents from a 7th Grade ELA teacher.
Curriculum Update Parent Call
Action: Community Partnership- I helped organize a Staff Chili Cook-off. I contacted the local Volunteer Fire Department to invite them to come be our guest judges. A good time was had by all!
Volunteer Fireman Judge Staff Chili Cook-off
Element VIb. Federal, State and District Mandates: The principal/assistant principal designs protocols and processes in order to comply with federal, state, and district mandates.
Action: I am a member of Speight's Crisis Team and serve as the back-up Operations Team Leader in the event that our Assistant Principal is not on campus. I reviewed our Crisis Plan prior to it being submitted to central office for approval. In October, I attended a Crisis Team Tabletop Meeting with the Wilson County Emergency Management where we were given crisis scenarios, and we had to discuss how equipped our school is to handle each situation. This year we had several bomb threats where we had to evacuate the school, and each situation was handle without incident. Below is the second page of the crisis plan displaying the roles of each member.
Crisis Team Assignments from Crisis Plan
Action: I conducted the January Fire Drill in the absences of my Principal. The school was evacuated in 1 minute 30 seconds. The entire drill took less than 3 minutes, so very little instructional time was lost. Below is the email that I sent my Principal following the drill, so she could record the information to send to Central Office.
Email Update to Principal about Fire Drill
Action: Learning-Focused Lesson Planning is a district mandate that I have supported this year. I attended Learning-Focused training at the beginning of the year. I have supported our School Improvement Team Coach by attending her professional development session on Learning-Focus and collaborative planning sessions. I have given constructive feedback to teacher's through comments on their lesson plans. I have frequently conducted Learning-Focused Walk-Throughs. I have reminded teachers of our weekly learning focus through my daily newsletter. The below screen shots are a few pages of Learning Focused Walk-Throughs that were uploaded into Cognito (a data collection site) and my google drive. For a detailed example of these walk-throughs and lesson plan feedback, see Standard 2.