Three year professional development plan

Year One

Goal Improve understanding of pedagogy, curriculum design, cognitive development and learning processes of children and adolescents	TExES II - 005	Objective I want to improve my overall knowledge of pedagogy, curriculum design and learning process of all children and adolescents.	Course Work/Book/ Workshops TEPSA Book Studies ESC 11 workshops Observations	Mentor Professional Support Tanya Anderson Dr. Ray Lea Kella Rippy	Date of Completion Feb 2013	Evaluations Feel more confident in making decisions and conversations with others in regards to pedagogy, curriculum design, cognitive development and learning process of children and adolescents.
Goal Facilitate a learning organization which focuses on high  student engagement and academic rigor	TExES II-006	Objective Be more active and effective in developing and implementing effective lessons which are preparing students for the rigor of STAAR assessment	Course Work/Book/ Workshops Phil Schlechty – Working on the Work framework Lead Forward TEA	Mentor Professional Support Dr. Ray Lea Tanya Anderson Erin Knezck Wes Graham TEPSA	Date of Completion Feb. 2013	Evaluations Feel more confident in leading conversations and meetings with staff.

Year Two

Goal Improve knowledge of working with maintenance and operations.	TExES III-009	Objective Understand how to apply leadership in the management of the districts physical and support systems	Course Work/Book/ Workshops Safety Workshops TASA TEA TASBO	Mentor Professional Support Dr. Ray Lea Business Manager Director of Human Resources National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities	Date of Completion Feb. 2014	Evaluations Have a better understanding of how to effectively use funds from M&O side of budget to maintain and operate the needs of the school district.
Goal Developing and Maintaining district budget	TExES III-008	Objective Understand how to apply procedures for effective budgeting planning and management	Course Work/Book/ Workshops TASBO Board workshops	Mentor Professional Support Business Manager Dr. Ray Lea	Date of Completion Feb. 2014	Evaluations Able to apply the needed skills in developing and utilizing a budget for a school year.

Year Three

Goal Develop relationships with district leaders and improve my understanding of establishing district vision, mission and goals	TExES I-002	Objective Be able to effectively work with board and other stakeholders in identifying district vision, mission and goals.	Course Work/Book/ Workshops Professional Literature Lamar Superintendent Leadership Academy	Mentor Professional Support Dr. Bob Thompson	Date of Completion May 2015	Evaluations Feel confident in being able to lead groups of stakeholders, including board in setting districts vision, goals and mission.
Goal Relevant Professional Development	TExES II-007	Objective Improve teaching and learning by participating in quality, relevant professional development activities and studying current professional literature and research.	Course Work/Book/ Workshops Professional Literature TASA Texas ISD TEA WOW Framework	Mentor Professional Support Phil  Schlechty Sandra Harris	Date of Completion Feb. 2015	Evaluations Aware of current trends and practices affecting education.

5399 Week 4 - Reflections

Reflection is an important leadership skill. Reflective skills allow one to think more in-depth with regards to problem solving or making adjustments as needed. Leaders who effectively use reflection are able to evaluate experiences, positive or negative, in order to grow professionally. Reflective skills include using knowledge from previous experiences to plan accordingly for future experiences. It could also include seeking the advice or input of others. Reflection does require some time. It can be as simple as one taking a few minutes to look back at an experience or as complex as writing out thoughts; positives, negatives, audience response or outcomes. Effective reflective skills take time to develop. Too often leaders do not take the time or develop the skills to effectively utilize the advantage of reflection.

Course assignments – The course assignments allowed me to reflect back on experiences learned from weekly lectures or readings as well as apply them to practical uses. Key assignments included developing professional development plan, finance assignments and facilities assignments. The professional development plan allowed me to reflect and develop the skills necessary to design and implement a district wide plan. The finance assignments not only allowed me to gain knowledge in the area of school finance but allowed me to reflect and relate the knowledge to our own school districts financial situation, including needs and challenges. The school facilities assignment gave me the opportunity to reflect back on our school districts failed bond election four years ago as well as one that was passed 15 years ago.

Blogs – Developing, using and posting to a blog or wiki was a new experience for me. Although I was familiar with the concept I had never actually used either one of them. The activities allowed me to become familiar and comfortable with the process of creating, posting and commenting. I also was able to see the benefits and advantages of using them as a communication tool when working with group of people. The blogs provided me an opportunity to share my thoughts, ideas or experiences with cohort members as well as the opportunity to learn from and comment on their thoughts, ideas or experiences.

Logs – The logs allowed for me to reflect on activities related to the superintendent position. The course and supervised logs helped develop my reflective skills by providing me with a template to sit down and reflect over interviews, observations, findings, etc. The logs forced me to sit down and write out my thoughts and observations in direct relation to my internship activity. Key activities included interviews with superintendent, interviews with our finance director and strategic planning for district wide Working on the Work initiative. The interviews with our Superintendent allowed me to really learn and gain a lot of information about the position, mainly the importance of board/superintendent relationship. Every time I interviewed our finance director I gained valuable information concerning school finance. The knowledge from course work helped allowed me to play a role in assisting our district leadership team in developing a plan to continue our district wide Working on the Work initiative.

Assessments – The assessments allowed me the opportunity to reflect on my knowledge and experiences. The pre and post course assessments provided me a way to focus on my strengths and weaknesses with regards to the superintendent competencies. The course assessments (mid-term and final), including the LCE exam, provided me a tool to evaluate the knowledge I had gained from courses.

Other – I gained a lot of valuable information from Dr. Jimmy Creel. Dr. Creel was very helpful at all times, as well as encouraging. After each visit I would reflect on our conversations. Dr. Creel was beneficial in sharing experiences and helping me develop a plan (more so mindset) for obtaining a superintendent position.

I plan to continue practicing as well as improving my reflective leadership skills. As I stated in the opening paragraph it is important for a leader to reflect on previous experiences in order to grow professionally. The experiences and knowledge gained from this program has provided me the opportunity to use in reflection in a way which will allow me to be a better leader. This includes both personally and professionally; not only in the superintendent position. Specific tools include taking the time, daily or weekly, to sit down and reflect over the days or weeks activities. Reflect on meetings with various groups, conversations with others or presentations. I will seriously look at and evaluate myself including how I felt about the activities, how others seemed to respond, did I get the desired results or outcomes. Often times this will include seeking feedback from participants, audiences and/or advice from mentors or peers. I reflect back on a couple of internship activities in which I actively sought the input and feedback from others (specifically staff members) in evaluating my effectiveness of a staff development. Reflection is critical in improving and becoming a better leader.

5399 Week 3 - CARE / Plan

Week Three Assignment, Part 1 – CARE Model Analysis of District/Campus Improvement Initiatives or Action Research Plans

Please review your intern plan. In the first course, students were encouraged to engage in some action research, or participate in district or campus improvement initiatives. Each of you has had some experiences with such initiatives or action plans. Please review those experiences and complete the following analysis:

Concerns – Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research, and list at least three concerns that you have identified from these experiences – a concern may be any matter that engages your attention or interest.

1.            Increase the level of rigor and level of Blooms Taxonomy questioning used in all classrooms district wide to help prepare students for upcoming STAAR assessment. This is evident from several meetings/conversations with Superintendent, Curriculum Director, Principal’s, Instructional Specialist and teachers.

2.            Implementation of aligning district wide curriculum horizontally and vertically – at all campuses, specifically in the area of math and science. In studying district wide data and trends this is an area of concern.

3.            Active participation and implementation by all stakeholders (site based decision making committees) in developing district and campus improvement plans, including district vision and goals.

Affirmations - Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research, and affirm or identify at least 3 actions that must be sustained and supported to achieve the District/Campus improvement initiatives.

1.            I participated in the implementation and planning for district wide implementation of Phil Schlechty Working on the Work Framework. It is critical this process continue to increase the level of engagement in classrooms.

2.            I participated on the District Leadership Team. We recommended submitting a staff development waiver to allow focus on professional development aligned with our district vision/goals.

3.            I interviewed our Director of District Operations regarding student attendance rate. We must continue to improve overall student attendance in an effort to obtain the financial benefits.

Recommendations - Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research and describe at least 3 recommendations you would make regarding the District/Campus Improvement plans or action research plans.

1.            Use current data along with new information in an effort to continue preparing for STAAR assessments and End of Course exams.

2.            Alignment of district wide curriculum focused on updated grade level TEKS and Standards.

3.            Continue to improve in the area of economically disadvantaged sub population. This is the largest sub population in our district.

Evaluate - Review your participation in improvement initiatives or efforts to engage in action research and identify at least 3 strategies for evaluating the improvement plans or recommendations.

1.            Results compared to District and Campus Improvement Plans. Are plans being used?

2.            Data – District wide data, Campus data, district assessments and benchmarks, released test, classroom walk through data

3.            Surveys – staff surveys, parent surveys, student surveys, community surveys.

I have identified areas of concerns, areas of affirmation, recommendations and a way to evaluate them all. All these steps of the CARE Model assisted me in designing a district improvement initiative research plan.

My three areas of concern are closely related and correlate with each other. District wide, we must increase the rigor and level of Bloom’s Taxonomy questioning being used in our classrooms on a daily basis, this must be occurring in all classrooms; kindergarten – 12th grade, in order for students to be successful on upcoming STAAR assessments. Although this needs to be occurring for all subject levels it is crucial that our district focus our efforts on the math and science subject area as this is an area we are already struggling at several grade levels under the previous accountability system. It is also critical that all stakeholders, specifically members of the site based decision making committees understand their role and impact they play in developing and communicating district wide decisions, including vision, goals and district improvement plan. I have learned how important it is to have a clear vision and goals in leading a school district or campus. Often times CIP or DIP are just documents on paper and never viewed by other staff members.

I believe our district needs to continue moving forward with the Phil Schlechty Working on the Work framework. The framework is all focused on creating and designing engaging work, work in which students enjoy and work hard on. A higher level of student engagement will lead to increased rigor, including Bloom’s Taxonomy, inside the classroom. In my opinion this increase in student engagement will help students be successful on state assessments. It will also have a positive impact on students attending school. Students will “want” to attend school. This will also impact staff and teacher moral, if students see teachers excited about designing engaging lessons, they are then engaged in the lesson, which in turn should have a direct correlation with classroom discipline. Students (and teachers) will look forward to coming to school, resulting in an increase in attendance (funding). This will begin to exhibit a source of pride which will then filter into homes and the community, all continuing to spread the districts vision and goals.

Our district must also focus our efforts aligning math and science curriculum district wide, especially as students move from campus to campus. Our district has the measures in place to design district wide curriculum but we must do a better job being sure ALL teachers are implementing it. We must do a better job at making data driven decisions using the data we have, including utilizing state and district assessments in Eduphoria. Teachers must understand how to access and analyze student data. It is crucial that all teachers understand and know their grade level or subject TEKS as well as what is expected of them in the next grade level.

Our staff development efforts need to not only focus on the above two categories but also reaching our economically disadvantaged sub population. Economically disadvantaged is our district’s largest sub population. We must continue to focus efforts in strategies which increase student performance in this area.

The coursework and internship activities have allowed me the opportunity to evaluate several key components from a district level standpoint. I feel our school district has a lot of great things happening. We are constantly seeking improvement in the area of student performance.