Category: ELCC 3.2

Managing an Effective Learning Environment

Posted on by thatswightman

Activity: Evidence of Internship Activities for Standard 3

Artifact(s):  (see below)

ELCC Standard(s): 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5 


As part of my collective record for my internship I need to reflect on each of the six ELCC Standards.  This is part three of six reflections which include: 
  • links to my hours and supporting artifacts
  • description of my activities
  • reflective essays on the standards in regards to my activities
Standard 3: Managing an Effective Learning Environment 


Required Activities & Artifacts in Standard 3
    Reflecting on my experience to specific standards:

    Standard –     3.1 –     Monitor and evaluate school management and operational systems.
      Managing a school or program is akin managing one’s own life and home.  There are some basics things one must cover to keep their house positively afloat and in working conditions such as: paying the bills, regular cleaning, upkeep of the grounds, following the rules of the local HOA, city, county, state, and federal regulations (such as paying taxes), and even being nice to the neighbors.  Educational leaders must also make sure their schools are kept positively afloat and in good working conditions by using big picture strategies to follow policies and procedures, analyzing school operations, and strategically marketing their public relations.  

      My role as a technology coach provides me with experience in all those areas.  As a Media Liaison and Web Coordinator I have the opportunity to coordinate and organize all public relations for multiple schools. In today’s world that involves not only a strong web presence, but also a strong social media presence as well.  Leaders who understand their school’s market can understand their place in the community.  As a technology coach I also have the opportunity to find time-reducing strategies for overused procedures.  
      It started three years ago with a brief evaluation of the current paper-heavy checkout process.  The staff received a lengthy memo the described all of the duties and tasks they had to complete before the end of the year.  A month later it turned into an abridged online checkout system that saved about 9 reams of paper and about hours of teacher time (who used to be spent hunting down or waiting for administration or other school leaders.  Creating the online checkout system in my first few months on the job resulted in one of my favorite teacher quotes about me so far.

      “Sam, you were a great mid-year draft! Don’t disappoint next season.”

      Based on the success of the digital checkout this past summer I created and implemented our first digital school opening. After lots of sit-down conversations and collaboration with school leaders on how they typically presented their topics I was able to create a digital model of our staff school opening.  This new mentality may have created a technology learning curve for some, but it was an huge accomplishment in the end.  In addition to increasing teacher-time this also raised teacher happiness and success rates for the beginning of the year.   

      http://www.fcps.edu/woodsonhs/staff/digital_opening/digital_opening.html


      There are so many ways that social media and technology can help save time for teachers and school leaders.  A keen understanding of technological skills can help leaders create and implement new policies and procedures for their school communities.  If you would like a few tips to help save a few minutes in your day take a look at this quick five-minute TED Talk from David Pogue about time-saving tech tips. 

      Standard 3.2: Use human, fiscal, and technological resources to manage school operations

      Understanding 3.2 means understanding long-term goals.  A confident school leader must know what they want out of all their resources: finance, people, and technology.  Teachers are notorious for over-planning.  How many teachers do you know that live for neat piles or stacks of papers and balanced lesson plans with color coded post-it notes and pens to match?  It’s part of the nurturing mindset of so many teachers to be organized and prepared and a planner at heart.  I should know as I am lucky enough to be married to one of the best!  However it is also important to focus not only on the end product, but the process as well.  

      “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
      ― Ernest Hemingway

      So while educational leaders should focus on managing their resources to get to their endgame, it is also as important to revel in the details and especially the experiences along the way.  After all it is through our experience that we learn how to forecast our next exceptions.  Proactive leaders will be able to set-multiple-year goals for finance, people, and physical resources.

      As an emerging educational leader I have taken proactive steps to make sure I am setting more long-term goals and applying them to benefit the teachers, staff, and students I support.  My role as a Technology Coach is perfect for that as a big part of my job is to evaluate, recommend, and upgrade new technologies for the high school I work at.  While it is true in such a large county all of our instructional resources must go through a program evaluation before being approved in the school, my job is to filter through what of those resources are most applicable to our student and teacher population.  At every school in the county we have a TSSpec or Technology Support Specialist who provides all our Information Technology support and needs.  This is the IT version of an Technology Coach and I am the instructional version of a TSSpec.  Our TSSpec and I hold daily and monthly communications about the state of our technology program and resources.  We discuss and create long-term plans for well-loved and new technologies.  During our monthly meetings we are able to determine and then make suggestions to the administration and department chairs what new resources are recommended or discouraged.  It is at the beginning and end of every year that we sit down with our Tech_Team (Technology Leaders within each department) to discuss our budge and possible purchases for the upcoming or current year.  

      In addition to working with my TSSpec and Tech_Team on ways short and long-term plans to advance the school we also support the testing team and work closely with our Assessment Coach.  In addition to our TSSpec and Assessment Coach this process involves regular discussions with department representatives, our building use supervisor, custodial staff, our Student Services Director, and our principal.   Of course regular meetings occur to keep everyone updated on the testing process, but it is the smaller one-on-one conversations where many new and supportive ideas and suggestions come out.  We talk all the time to determine what building space or technology to use for the next upcoming test.  There are also regular conversations to reflect on our budget and what resources might be best to improve the same testing situation the following year.  

      The biggest thing I have learned in any part of long-term planning or resource management are three things that matter most: communication, communication, communication.  Whenever considering or providing suggestions for changes or enhancements to your school’s resources a leader must be as open and honest as possible to share out with the community they support.   In continuing with Ernest Hemingway’s focus on the journey rather than the destination I am reminded of one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes comic strips.

      “In the short term, it would make me happy to go play outside. In the long term, it would make me happier to do well at school and become successful. But in the VERY long term, I know which will make better memories.” ― Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes: It’s a Magical World

        Standard – 3.3 – Promote school-based policies and procedures that protect the welfare and safety of students and staff.

        An effective school manager is also able to manage the safety and security all those under their care.  This is an especially important topic in times when school security and violence are are part of the public conversation.  However school security is not just about physical safety from harm, it also involves civic literacy, leadership skills, and established discipline management and policies.  To keep their students and staff safe school leaders must have a background understanding in all these areas.  

        I have the opportunity to work with a wonderful security team at W.T. Woodson High School.  Here our team is able to distribute the leadership opportunities on a number of safety issues including: lockers & personal space, building safety audits & walkthroughs, parking, bus safety, and even table-top discussions on potential security breaches.  We are also lucky to have a full-time SRO, or School Resource Officer.  While most elementary and middle schools in the county have a part-time SRO high schools have one on a regular basis.  This helps establish a presence of school safety as our SRO creates relationships with staff, teachers, and students all the time encouraging best strategies in safety.  


        As part of the administration team I get to listen in on school security concerns and provide input on how we can work together to best support those students at risk.  I was even able to sit in on a couple security focused table-top discussions.  These table-tops are hypothetical (but realistic) situations that have or could happen in schools where every member around the table acts out a role in the crisis and provides input on how to handle their portion.  I have also had the opportunity to attend on a number of the school’s safety, maintenance, or fire walk-through observations.  

        Before coming to Woodson I worked as the Safety Patrol Sponsor.  In this position I organized and managed the student Safety Patrols who guided the students on their busses or walks home.  This also involved dealing with discipline reports on a regular basis.  If a student was charged with breaking rules or safety concerns while on the bus a report that patrol filed a report to me.  This allowed me to work triage in safety violations before either conferencing with students, parents, or teachers before passing the more serious situations off to administration.

        In their book Why School Communication Matters authors Kitty Porterfield and Meg Carnes breakdown the concept of school leaders and crisis.  They explain in chapter 15 “Think Smart Under Fire” that there are two types of school leaders: those who have faced a crisis and those who are about to.  

        http://www.amazon.com/Why-School-Communication-Matters-Professionals/dp/1578868335


        Leaders should be willing and able to use what experiences they have to best evaluate and act in a situation.  As I explained in my Platform of Personal Beliefs: 

        “When making decisions we must also be open and honest with our staff, students, and community about how the leadership came to such conclusions.  While an indecisive leader lacks confidence, a vague leader lacks respect.  I believe one will rarely go wrong if they identify the single most important outcome and who will be impacted by that outcome.” – Sam Wightman, Platform of Personal Beliefs

        While I have not yet had the chance to lead a school community through a crisis, I cannot imagine a school leader who truly looks forward to that day.  However I can say I that I plan to make clear and conclusive decisions that support and keep the needs of the many in the safest and best possible situation.  I am aware he is not a prolific speaker or philosopher by any means crisis or situation management I think of a quote by Mike Tyson in this situation.

        “Everybody has a strategy, until they are hit in the mouth.” – Mike Tyson

        Having a plan, knowing that plan, and being able to adapt to that plan are all key concepts school leaders must have in their tool belt to take on larger safety issues.  For those big crises or even for the smaller ones along the way my top three take-aways from my experience are these:

        1. Clarify the facts by staying calm and thinking clearly
        2. Identify the issues by thinking clearly and decisively
        3. Solve the problem by communicating, communicating, communicating
        Standard – 3.4 – Develop school capacity for distributed leadership.

        As a principal or assistant principal of a school you are not the only leader.  Leaders come from every angle and corner you can imagine.  It is your job to help encourage and support those emerging leaders to the best of their potential.  Without current administration creating and sustaining distributed leadership throughout their buildings there is a lot of work that would not get done.  Distributed leadership also provides opportunities for new and upcoming leaders to find their gifts and niche in the school system.  Many of the wonderful school leaders, including myself, in the Educational Leadership program I am involved in through George Mason University would not be here right now if it wasn’t for current school leaders encouraging us along the way.  Even Harry Potter knew how to to encourage leaders and find what motivates them.  


        That make me think of my favorite part of my job as a Technology Coach, I lead-to teachers and students without leading over them.  My job allows me to provide power to teachers as opposed to some who feel it is there job to control and correct decisions and actions teachers or students make along the way.  Standard 3.4 has a strong emphasis on what is known as servant leadership or leadership as stewardship.  Servant leadership is all about the people you work with and what motivates them.  As a Technology Coach I have lots of experience in motivating and support teachers and students.  
        • I have brought teachers to conferences to find new ways they can teach.  
        • I support a Tech_Team of teachers throughout the school who in turn find the best ways to lead and support their own departments with technology needs.  
        • I have mentored and encouraged six different people into successfully applying for the School Based Technology Position (and more are on their way!).
        • I regularly provided opportunities for volunteerism throughout the school with staff and students helping set-up, facilitate, and take down our SOL and testing set-up.
        When developing leaders out of others we should really be using the power we have wisely. For another class I had to present about servant leadership.  Take a look at this prezi presentation for a deeper understanding and some great video examples of what servant or moral leadership is really all about:

        Today I was at a meeting with Larry Burke, Director of the Office of Leadership Development where we discussed how ubiquitous leadership really is. Everyone is a leader at every moment.  Regardless of where you are you are being watched, your actions are being observed, and everyone who sees you is learning just what type of person you really are.  Are the actions you take worthy of being emulated or neglected?  As school leaders especially our every action should be worthy of being emulated.  

        A big part of how we act as leaders begins with how we use the responsibilities we are granted.  It all has to do with how we use our power.  Those who choose to hold power-over others, as in controlling another person, program, or resource have priorities that are not ethically aligned.  What we should aim for is power-to a specific person, program, or resource.  Encouraging others to use the skills they have to better the situation is the moral high-ground.  That reminds me of what Voltaire (and Uncle Ben if you are a Spiderman fan) said:

        “With great power comes great responsibility” ― Voltaire

        Standard – 3.5 – Ensure that teacher and organizational time focuses on supporting high-quality school instruction and student learning. 

        So many times the role of school administration is confused with the concept of a building, student, and teacher manager when in actuality school administrators are instructional leaders.  Above all things the focus of school-based principals to to create a high-quality and safe instructional environment for students and staff.  There is some management of facilities, resources, and time that happen as well, but all must focus on the idea that we are creating a high-quality learning environment for everyone.  

        When I spoke with Larry Burke about a year ago at the Pathways to Leadership Conference we talked about the role of a principal as the CLO or the Chief Learning Officer.  The CLO’s job is to create the optimal environment for all learners.  It is about creating effective strategies to promote educational success.  Whether it is creating a fluid master schedule so teachers can collaborate or advocating for policies that protect student learning time CLOs are creating that very successful learning environment.  This goes right back to my Platform of Personal Beliefs where I quote Albert Einstein who said 

        “I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”

          I am in a very honored position where I can help contribute to the ultimate learning environment every day.  As a member of the administration team at Woodson High School we discuss every week situations involving building use, schedules, and educational spaces.  In addition I get to work with sitting administrators who observe teachers and other staff members.  We are all still in debates over what observation or conferencing skills are most successful and beneficial to teachers and students.  Just last week I was able to ignite a discussion on walk-through observations after we were discussing the benefits online digital evaluation forms I helped create.  I cannot publicly share the data on any teacher evaluations as that is sensitive, but I can share this video by the ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) where Debbie Tyler, now Cluster Superintendent for Cluster 4, talks about doing walk-through observations when she was a principal. 

          One way teachers can be held accountable & assessed is through observation. Here, Debbie Tyler, is adamant about conducting classroom walkthroughs to know what is going on in her school. See how she interacts with teachers and students alike to collect data on how well her school is performing.


          In my day to day job as a Technology Coach I am able to observe teachers on a regular basis, but mostly for professional growth than evaluative purposes.  I explained this in my reflection on ELCC Standard 2.2 and Promoting Professional Growth.  However I have been participated in a few specific evaluative teacher observations throughout my internship.   Here are two key concepts I take into consideration when reflecting on observing teachers or supporting staff to create high-quality instructional time:

          • Criticism or complaint can be gifts.  Leaders should use negative or constructive feedback to evaluate the decisions they are making on regular basis.  If possible find a critical friend among your staff who can be honest with you about the decisions you make.  True feedback is quality in understanding how others see us.
          • Evaluations are a snapshot in time, not the longevity of a teacher or staff member’s career.  Consider everything at the table when observing.  If a driver cuts you off on the road instead of responding with anger, consider where that driver might be emotionally.  They might be rushing to the hospital or have an emergency we would never dream of.  In that same way consider where your staff and students are everyday.  There are so many issues that may cause bad days for them.  It is our job to create an environment they can succeed in.  Above all things aim for the positive. 

          Community Pizza Time

          Posted on by thatswightman


          Date: 4/22 – 4/26/2013

          Activity: Woodson Activities Fair @ Frost Middle School

          Artifact(s): Pizza PO, (3.2 (2013-4-26) Pizza PO for Activities Fair.jpg –I wish I got some actual shots of the kids enjoying the pizza!  It was a busy day.)

          ELCC Standard(s): 3.2, 4.4

               Here’s a little background: The Activities Fair at Frost Middle School is an all-day field trip where we take freshman and sophomore students to promote student activities the rising freshman can participate in.  Our students come from every athletic sport and some clubs/organizations.  We bring them to our feeder middle school, Frost, for the day so they can share their experiences with the current 8th graders.  This is about my overseeing of the Activities Fair this year.
          Community Pizza Time

          We will have about 85 kids from Woodson who will be spending the entire day at Frost Middle School repeating over and over again their praises and excitement for their sport or club.  These kids are putting a lot of energy into bringing up the next leaders and participants of their groups.  We need to praise them well.  For that I organized pizza and drinks for them for lunch.    While ordering pizza and organizing drinks does not involve high level leadership skills on my end, it is the point where I need to embrace and continue to develop the effective relationship we have with our various community partners.  In this case it was working with Paisano’s Pizza.  They are always so good to us at Woodson.  This is most likely due to the fact that we order a lot of pizza from them.  

          The 25 pizzas I would be ordering for this event would be one of the larger orders compared to the 5-10 that typically are ordered.  So for this I also needed to analyze our budget to see what was workable.  For this project I had little over $300.  While I budgeted $282 for this purchase (including tip) the actual receipt showed a much lower amount.  Pisano’s apparently gave us a much better discount then expected, lowering our bill by $40+.  This shows how cruicial effective community to school relationships can be.  Even though money wasn’t tight for this situation it is very helpful to know who our advocates are in the community!  Thanks Pisano’s!

          The Shadow Knows . . . some

          Posted on by thatswightman

          Date: 2/6/2013

          Activity: Administrator Shadowing

          Artifact(s): Teacher Observation

          ELCC Standard(s): 2.2, 2.3, 3.3, 3.5

          http://luminanceastrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/The-Shadow-Knows.jpg 

          I took part of today to work one-on-one with my AP (Assistant Principal) and see how some of the more administrative parts of her day unfolded.  This half-day of shadowing can be easily broken down into three major categories discipline, hiring, and observation.  

          Discipline
          We started off by reviewing a student referral.  It wasn’t a very hard or complicated case.  A student was found in the parking lot during break without a pass and he was supposed to have a pass.  Could the student have been cutting to get away from the next period?  Sure.  Could the student have been skipping with friends to smoke or break some other rule in or near their car?  Of course.  Could it be more exiting?  I wish.  As an observer in the matter I said nothing.  It summed up to being just a kid going to get their car to turn their phone off so it wouldn’t die and they could call mom after school. It wasn’t very exciting after all.  All it took to promote this school policy of not going into the parking lot without a pass was a conversation and a “don’t do that next time” (ELCC 3.3)  The kid understood and apologized.  It’s a good thing we have such good kids here at my school.  Most of them really do want to please.  It’s the others that I’ll meet down the line in my career who have no interest in doing right that I fear for.  I just hope I can be an inspiration and support for them.

          Hiring
          In between waiting for the student to come by and sorting through the plans for the afternoon we glanced over some resumes for an upcoming part time position in our math department.  Hiring is much more complicated than it lays out to be.  The first step of filtering through resumes seems to be the most time consuming.  Before I arrived my AP had taken time to sort through the pile to see who she was going to call back first.  After I sorted we compared notes.  It was nice to have a conversation about what made one resume a stronger candidate than the next (ELCC 2.3 and 3.2).  After making a few phone calls she offered the phone to me.  I declined as she had her mental script already to go.  A tip she told me was how she calls her top candidate first to give them the best available time.  When I asked her what number I was in the call lineup of candidates for my job  she conveniently forgot.  🙂


          Observing

          I have been in and out of lots of teachers classrooms.  After all that is a big part of my current job, to go into teachers classrooms and help them with ideas to improve instruction.  However, I have always been there on the positive visitations.  I tell teachers all the time what went well or what might be a better idea.  It’s the evaluative judgement part of the observing that I am not used to.  We had a three different classrooms on the plan to meet.  All three planned teachers ranged in their abilities from highly effective to ineffective in different areas.  Unfortunately it was bad timing as all three of these teachers were testing during the time we wanted to pass through.  So we made it into another teacher’s classroom.  While I was very familiar with the teacher observation form that I helped our admin create last year, it was a challenge to complete the formal sheet according to FCPS standards. After the observation my AP and I had a great conversation about what exactly we saw.  She shared a lot of insight with me about her observations and evaluations.  For example, I was being too open in accepting the positives of this teacher based on previous classroom visits and instead I needed to be more biased to base my evaluation just on what I was seeing at the time.  We were evaluating a snapshot in time (this lesson), not the entirety of the teacher’s career (ELCC 2.2 and 3.5).  At the same time I was able to bring some good examples to my AP about what I saw that changed her evaluation a bit as well.  That made me proud to think that just because you have the job doesn’t mean you have all the right answers.  So in this instance the shadow does know…some.  

          "Please sir, can I have some more…No, not that!"

          Posted on by thatswightman

          Date: 11/26/2012

          Activity: School Announcement Merge from Intercom to Video

          Artifact(s): Archived Announcements Folder

          ELCC Standard(s): 3.1, 3.2, 3.3

          In addition to the Technology Coach, I serve as on of the Assistant Director of Student Activities.  One of my duties involves monitoring and evaluating the daily influx of announcements.  Information comes from team coaches, club sponsors, teachers, and administration.  My job is to disseminate it down into a quick 3-5 minute script for the morning.  


          Currently the announcements are read aloud on the intercom by students.  You know . . . like they did in the 50’s.  Before my arrival announcement requests were email directly to the former Assistant Director.  Along with the regular day-to-day duties of any educator that would increase my inbox about 10% a day, something I wanted to avoid.  So I streamlined the system into a Google Form where staff (coaches and teachers) could submit their announcements requests and everything would go to a single spreadsheet.  Now I can filter through the requests and sort and organize them all on one master sheet instead of multiple e-mails.  This alone is a perfect example of ELCC Standard 3.1 (Monitor and evaluate school management and operational systems.) and 3.2 (Use human, fiscal, and technological resources to manage school operations.).

          However, that is not where this situation stops.  There was a recent push from students to merge the intercom announcements to video announcements on the TV.  As the Technology Specialist this is not a problem for me.  I know the resources.  We have an excellent TV studio and staff of students from our Visual Communications class who can make it happen.  As an administrator it seems this is a problem for many.  

          Since it was student initiated plans were reviewed with teachers first.  Surveys went out to gauge actual teacher and more student interest.  Positive support was coming on all ends for the project.   Most everyone gave the impression that wanted this change. . . that is until it actually happened.  The “Wake Up Woodson” show/announcements went off fine with no technical difficulties the first time around.  


             Hannah and Patrick reading the morning announcements. 

          However, it seems I’m doing more work fielding e-mails and playing PR Captain to this project, rather than actual organizing it and helping with the technical steps.  A definite change of mindset to my leadership practice.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good challenge.  I just did not expect all of the concerns or questions.  The praises and comments I am more than OK with.  Teachers had input and immediately during and after the show my inbox was exploding (both with some good and more not so good e-mails).  When discussing this with my Internship Supervisor/Assistant Principal she explained how sometimes you could be handing everyone a golden platter with everything they asked for, but they will still point out what you didn’t include.  You just can’t please everyone.  It’s a good lesson in patience that supports ELCC standard 3.3 (Promote school-basedpolicies and procedures that protect the welfare and safety of students andstaff.).