Domain I—Leadership of the Educational Community – Competencies 1 - 4
Competency 1 Area:
The superintendent knows how to act with integrity, fairness, and in an ethical manner in order to promote the success of all students.
When interviewing the superintendent we discussed how important it is for him to act in an ethical manner, he said transparency is priority one. He stated that is something he expects of his principals as well and feels when he works he is to always think of kids first, then who is impacted and affected and finally the outcome should be the best for all parties but especially the children. He stated that in his 30 years in education he has seen some of the most outrageous, unprofessional behavior lately and stated he though he had seen it all, but is surprised daily. He explains that when we hire, he expects us to hire tough, when we feel someone is not in the best spot, as the leaders it is our responsibility to take over and make it happen to help clear up their future. This is something he does expect of his leaders.
When I talked to the veteran teachers about this competency, they too stated they have seen such a decline in professionalism. They were honest in stating that teachers under 30 really have a different view about this perception and lack responsibility. I totally agree, there is a 360 degree view on work ethic. They said they had noticed this over the past five years more so, and that when a new hire does join their team, they work hard to get them on board, take care of them and help them grow, but many times the new teacher isn’t open to their assistance. This has been difficult to work with on both sides as their mentor, helping them when they meet with parents and helping as they watch administrators redirect them.
I outlined a goal for myself to not multitask, and focus on one thing when someone is in front of me. This has been so difficult and many times unable to happen. I noticed that when people got my 100% undivided attention, we had much better communication and people felt heard. When they didn’t, they made comments about me being a multitasker. I apologized, but worked hard to get their needs met to ensure they knew I heard them. Is it working? I am not sure, but I will continue to work on this activity n all I do.
The last activity I carried out was meeting with the paras as the end of the year to discuss changes that were coming. I brought out their job descriptions, I was honest about budget cuts and we discussed how this will impact their jobs. I did not want to scare them, but explain how this could impact our campus. I was very open and honest and we worked to ensure all that they do is outlined on the job description. We all worked together to get job descriptions updated and forwarded to HRS for our campus positions. It was a positive activity, they got to show me all that they do and ensure I was aware. It went well for all of us and I got a much better understanding of how we all work together to run our school.
Competency 2 Area:
The superintendent knows how to shape district culture by facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by the educational community.
I began working on this competency by reviewing board policy regarding decision-making. The majority of the policy states the superintendent should look to build consensus among the groups you are trying to lead. This is not only a board decision, but it is taken from TEA.
Our district did not make AYP for the second year and we are now going to be placed on school improvement. In response to this our superintendent met with us to create a new plan that will help us make AYP next year. I met with our executive director of curriculum, Dollie Mayeux, and Elizabeth Lalor, executive director of compliance and high school achievement. When we met we discussed the federal expectations of a school district and what do we do now. They both explained that we will follow the directives given by the site by making new goals, parental involvement will have to change, as well parental notification. They both went to a conference and determined we need to make new goals based around three areas- student success, parental involvement, and exemplary customer service. Everything we do will fall under one of these categories. They decided that each campus will have to rewrite certain goals to support district goals and clearly document all special program money in their campus improvement goals
Another goal I had in this competency was to create a strategic plan to improve student results. We created Saturday tutorial sessions throughout the Spring semester focused on our areas of weakness, ESL and Science.
The last activity I had was to create a common vision for 2011-12. I invited all the team leaders and department heads, specialists, lead teacher, assistant principals, school secretary and a few parents to a luncheon where we discussed our results, our needs and how I needed their input to create a new vision. We reviewed our current vision and broke it down. We discussed what goals we had for this new year as we go forward with a new state assessment. I explained that I had met the goal I was given by the district to turn the worst performing middle school into a high performing middle school. This was accomplished this past school year and knowing this it is time to take into consideration their input, their vision, their ideas for our school. After we brainstormed, we looked at our current vision, I explained where it came from and we decided what needed to go, stay, be added, changed, etc. After much discussion, there was very little change and they decided I needed to add a part about STAAR and leave the rest alone. Using their input, hearing my reasoning/ explanation they could see the bigger picture and focus on student success.
Competency 3 Area:
The superintendent knows how to communicate and collaborate with families and community members, respond to diverse community interests and needs, and mobilize community resources to ensure educational success for all students.
I truly believe it take a village to raise a child and so many times the work of educating and raising children has been left to the schools with little to no parental involvement. In all the schools I have worked with, when parents are not involved there is little student respect for their school, achievement is not such a big deal and everything is pretty much left up to chance or adults who are disconnected form the children. I have worked hard to create an advisory board but it has become something more difficult than I imagined due to the fact that they have so many demands, because we are a small campus there are few options to schedule a class or them to be on an advisory board. So what I did was get the leaders of different campus clubs and we meet once a month to talk, discuss issues, ideas they are proposing, etc. I also attend their meetings and see what they are into and ensure they are always proposing items where they will give back to the community. We also work on goal setting and they need to present their ideas to the teachers, parents and their peers.
I write a monthly newsletter where I give updates, calendar dates, message from the counselor, in this letter I explain the character trait of the month, events I want them to attend and messages from the teams and departments. We try to get input from everyone in the school to inform them of everything that is coming and we look forward to hearing from them about our newsletter. It has been pretty successful and the staff works hard to give input to include.
I also outlined an event we were going to have – Daddy-Daughter dance and Mother -Son dance. There wasn’t that much enthusiasm about this events, so we changed it to a spring fling festival which went very well. We held it May 6th and each department, team, club, etc had a booth to run. We had fun games the kids could play and it was a true success. The kids had fun, entire families came to enjoy the afternoon and the entire staff were involve din making this event a success. We did learn that we will ask the high school anchor club to come help us run the festival next year and ensure we go until sundown. We lacked a little communication, so some opportunities were lost for more profit, but we learned a lot and had a great time!
Our district pushes for multicultural awareness and we hold a Multicultural day in May each year. his year each hallway had a continent to work on, decorate and each classroom was a country on that continent. We had 100% involvement, students tried food from all over the world and we created tours from each continent to the next. We had a group dance a traditional dance form the Philippines and parents came out to tour, visit and help us run the booths. The feedback we received from district officials who came to judge, the parents and students was overwhelmingly positive. Each year it has improved and I am looking forward to next year.
The last activity I proposed was to shadow a CYSASE worker, who is our district social worker. We used to have one per campus, but now we are down to one on each side of the district- therefore four for the whole district. She is the contact person we use when we involve CPS, have students and parents who cannot make ends meet and she helps them get through these difficult times in their lives. I worked with her between two campuses one day with a little girl and her mother who needed mental health hospitalization. They were both suicidal, and she worked to coordinate help, to help them get transported safely to the hospital and set up a plan for their family upon their release. It was extremely difficult and sad to watch, but I could totally understand her role and the need for her position. As times get tough with the economy I am seeing her more often and this is getting to be difficult as there are 8 other campuses she works with who also need more of her help. If I were superintendent, I would be looking at another option to get more help in this area.
Competency 4 Area:
The superintendent knows how to respond to and influence the larger political, social, economic, legal, and cultural context, including working with the board of trustees, to achieve the district's educational vision.
I began working with the superintendent in January 2011 when I interviewed then Superintendent of Galena Park ISD Dr. Mark Henry. I asked about his interactions with the board and how he has handled this relationship. I never realized how much time he spend with the board, keeping them informed, including them in events and just making sure they are informed and OK with all GPISD is doing under his direction. His big message was “If you are ever unhappy, let me know and I will leave”. There were many rumors that the board was split on all he was doing or so forth, so when he let us know at the beginning of May that he was going to CyFair ISD, we were half surprised. He took control of the situation and looked for his next spot. Understandable. As he left he made many speeches about looking outside the district if you want to move up the ladder and never saying no to an opportunity if offered. It was interesting to watch as all of this unfolded.
I interviewed two teacher with over 40 years of experience and they both stated they had seen something similar with finance in the 80’s, but not as drastic as we are living today. One was retiring and thankful to not have to deal with these budget cuts, and the other is now seriously considering retiring as we are being asked to do more with less and it is getting rough. They both agreed that the role of teacher has grown so much and the rules of the game, per say, have also changed and teachers are left at a disadvantage. They still can’t seem to believe how much new teachers are getting paid. They are also astonished by how much technology has changed their career and what they need to know has grown tremendously especially over the past 10-15 years.
DOMAIN II—INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP – COMPETENCIES 5 - 7
Competency 5 Area:
The superintendent knows how to facilitate the planning and implementation of strategic plans that enhance teaching and learning; ensure alignment among curriculum, curriculum resources, and assessment; use the current accountability system; and promote the use of varied assessments to measure student performance.
I interviewed numerous administrators about how we are preparing for the STAAR and how their new positions have changed under a new superintendent. I interviewed Sandy Mathews, Our coordinator for Grants and compliance about her new role. She went from running one grant to ten. Her primary focus is to find grants to alleviate the use of 199 local funds. She has also been asked to ensure we are always in compliance with TEA guidelines, grant guidelines and that the campuses are using their money to the maximum extent. Lately, the hardest part of her job has been working with people who have not been in favor of the new superintendent, thus making it more difficult for her to complete her responsibilities. The transition has been a positive one, where she must focus on every detail to keep GPISD going when it comes to grants.
I spoke with the director of ELA and the executive director of curriculum on how they are preparing for the new STAAR test. There are numerous things they are taking into consideration. First they are using state assessments that are similar to the STAAR, for instance they have had trainings where we have been told we are modeling our test after the state assessment from Maryland. They are highlighting and outlining the STAAR objectives that are considered supporting and primary TEKS that will be included on the test. We are also staring off the year with areas we have never taught or spent much time on before like poetry.
We had many changes at the administrative level in the science department. A new position was created for secondary science and then there is a director of elementary science. In the past we had a science specialist at every campus and now they are only half specialist and half teachers. It has been difficult because these specialist are still needed at the district level, but they are working with the lowest students on our campus. The entire science and math curriculum has changed as have the TEKS over this past year, so the questions I had were: who will write the new curriculum, assessments and how will we meet to discuss all of this? They too had many concerns and the new director of science Dodi Resedez was explaining how she would also be looking at other state assessments, using the knowledge she learned as the Region Science coordinator, which was her position until just recently. She explained that we will have to release our specialist to help with this work and they will be working creatively with their calendar to add Saturdays and take these days from the end of the year to help when we need it most. Dodi’s position was only determined merely month ago, so you can see there is much uncertainty and need for time to prepare for STAAR and EOC at the high school level.
The last person I interviewed was our athletic director for female athletics, Vivian Dancy. She has been with the district over 25 years. She has seen a program that was minimal for female athletics grow into a very promising, winning program for GPISD. Last year the highs school girls basketball team made it to playoffs for the first time, the girls swim team has grown tremendously and had numerous place at TSCA and at regional competitions. She has also seen our track team go to state and for the past five years we can say girls athletics have been shining and she has been behind this push. Ms. Dancy was a coach, an athlete herself, she has a passion for sports and she has a vision for equality. This has been difficult as football overshadows all sports in this great state. She has had to work harder with less for many years, and just recently she has been faced with budget cuts. After meeting with her I learned her budget has been affected when it comes to transportation, supplies (which would be uniforms and shoes) and stipends are being cut. So many of our coaches receive really good stipends and this is an area that is being analyzed, scrutinized and attacked. As all areas need to cut their spending, athletics has always been the sacred cow and the cuts are so deep now, something must change. She explained this will hit boys athletics harder than girls as so much more money is dedicated to male athletics due to numbers, but that they work together to ensure there is still equality for all athletes.
Competency 6 Area:
The superintendent knows how to advocate, promote, and sustain an instructional program and a district culture that are conducive to student learning and staff professional growth.
In the face of new testing, I met with and interviewed the testing coordinator Nancy Webster. She was excited about EOC, but not so much about STAAR. She works hard to inform the principals about changes in testing, changes in AYP guidelines, AEIS guidelines, EOC initiatives, STAAR data and everything TEA has issued regarding these assessments.
How can we motivate students throughout so much uncertainty? This is not just the job of teachers, but of everyone who works with kids. How will we do this? I worked with a group of teachers to see what they are facing and how they see us doing this. They stated the major problems are lack of motivation, lack of responsibility and maturity. So knowing the problem and agreeing is a big step in the right direction. I decided to meet with the kids about these concerns and ask their input. They agreed they did lack motivation and the 8th grade group has been through a lot leading to the disconnect. They had a teacher they have had follow them up from 4th through 7th grade pass away from breast cancer suddenly this past June and now their assistant principal is also fighting cancer and she too has been with them since 4th grade. So this has been a big deal, one of their classmates was diagnosed with leukemia and two have mothers fighting breast cancer, so they are going through a lot. So we decided we need to have a lot of counseling and we need to work on their feelings to get them to face this and move forward in light of this. We will be holding them accountable for their work, their actions and making them more responsible. They can handle it and we have to continue to have high expectations. Maturity comes with responsibility and again we will work to give them thins they will be responsible for let their parents know and work with them to be more mature and responsible. It will be a year long process and our results will show at the end.
We have many technology updates that we need to face this year and the district, as well as our staff need to take the initiative to learn more, to integrate and to use what we have to the max. I truly believe with the lack of staff to help train us to use the items and programs we have, it will really have to be the desire if the teacher to want to use the items and incorporate them into their lessons. The students will benefit and the future will require their knowledge of these items, but I feel as the leader, I will need to find time and motivators to get them to go forward. Money will be limited therefore the motivation is not monetary, but intrinsic. I have considered holding grade level competitions by department to show off what they are doing, recognizing their efforts. I will be trying this starting in September and get their feedback throughout.
Finally, we discussed zero tolerance and bullying with a group of students. Thought they admit bullying exists, they don’t agree with the consequences. We discussed times when bullying had gone too far that they had heard in the news and situations they had witnessed. We explained zero tolerance and he purpose and they explain how they saw the same idea. Very different views. We explained we take steps when we find out things are happening to redirect and give people an opportunity to improve. We explained that some circumstances are automatic and have consequences outlined. We also explained the purpose of the handbook and code of conduct. I really feel when they saw where we were coming from there was a different view on discipline. Our students stated they like that we rarely have fights on campus, they feel safe overall and they also feel they have an adult on campus they can go to with concerns if they have any. Knowing this made me happy and realize all we have put in place to keep our students safe is working. We decided to continue to use the X lockers where student could put anonymous notes alerting us or making us aware of situations concerning them.
Competency 7 Area:
The superintendent knows how to implement a staff evaluation and development system and select appropriate models for supervision and staff development to improve the performance of all staff members.
Staff development is an area that everyone wants to cut first, but then they stop and realize this is an area we need to continuously work on if we want students to continue to improve and to be exposed to the newest trends in education, technological tools, and the connection to state assessments and college readiness. I met with the director of staff development, Karen Sutera, about how she prepares and plans for the upcoming year. She explained there is a committee that meets that represents all levels and they determine the biggest needs, all the way down to the details no one thinks about that still need to be covered, like PDAS. They then look at the calendar adopted by the district and work on how they can implement the training sessions they are feeling are of most importance. They create day long sessions for all in the fall and spring and this year the focus will be for upper administration on how to deliver effective staff development and how to create buy in, for teachers STAAR updates, TEKS relation to instruction, Paraprofessionals and how they can help teachers reach all children. The other group to train is principals and how to identify campus needs and train their staff, send them to effective sound staff development and take care of our finances. She has taken all of our input to the committee and that is where they staff development comes from for GPISD.
Arnold Ramirez is our new assistant superintendent of Human resources. He has worked in this department for the past 10 years and now leads one of the departments that may seen to be the funnest, probably carries more stress than others may be aware of. With all of the budget cuts, his department has had to head up the reassignment of hundreds of staff, the resignation of all the retire rehires, the promotion of 10 new principals this year as well as all the promotions within the district caused by these promotions. He has also had to deal with grievances and teacher complaints against the district. Since the legislative session ended in June, he has also had to spend some time learning al the new laws that affect schools and he is preparing his new staff to train district leaders on the new legislation. We are starting with a training Sept. 7th on documentation, then bullying legislation. He really believes our interim superintendent will be a permanent fit and seems to feel good with all the drastic changes we are facing. He does have concern with compensation and has been bringing this to the superintendent. This is his biggest concern at this time.
Lastly, our superintendent has done an outstanding job of surrounding herself with very smart people who have a vision for GPISD and they are helping her to guide us in the right direction. They are working together to find ways to save money, hire wisely and train the people we have to be better with less. This is a tough job and she has been working hard to address all of these issues.
DOMAIN III—ADMINISTRATIVE LEADERSHIP – COMPETENCIES 8 – 10
Competency 8 Area:
The superintendent knows how to apply principles of effective leadership and management in relation to district budgeting, personnel, resource utilization, financial management, and technology application.
I started this internship by interviewing the CFO, Mike Ball, and the Assistant Superintendent of Finance, Vikas Chapur, about changes and this budget crisis. Mr. Ball worked to keep us informed throughout the legislative session sending us updates from Moak Casey. We had meetings each month to brainstorm cuts and he really worked hard to make us understand where we are as a district- we are $6.5 mil in the hole and will lose 1.5% tax reduction. He also made it clear we will be $6.8 mil deficit in 2012-13. They met with the principals this past week asking us to make a list of what needs to be cut and be prepared to discuss this soon and often. I will say this office has worked very hard with us to tighten the rein on finances and spending as well as keeping us informed and listening to our concerns.
One department that affects our enrollment is the truancy and registration. They were created to alleviate having this on campuses. The leader of this department is Phyllis Hyden and when I interviewed her, I was made aware that she was told that her department would not exist after this semester. This would be a budget cut we have to look forward to. She was told this department would be closed at the end of this semester and that each school would have to handle their own. This of course brought up an array of questions- who would verify addresses, truancy, who would deny transfer requests and who would work open enrollment? All of this is in the air at this point, but will be addressed throughout this year. They asked for our input at the principals meeting and we all wondered what would happen to the people in these positions.
This year we transitioned from regular Skyward to web based Skyward where so many items we carry out will be done online. This included scheduling and course creating online. It was presented as a time saver, easier use, allow us to do things faster, streamline functions, etc. Well this was a great plan that was presented to us in the spring by Trina Wilson and Darlene Lovinggood, director of PEIMS and Senior director of technology, and now that we are living this it is so far from the truth. We have had nothing but headaches and wasted time transitioning. We realized we need more bandwidth, more than one server for our size and more training beforehand to ensure we could all schedule at one time. Now that we have gotten started, we are over these hiccups, but we are concerned once we start grades and doing this online! They both assure us it will be fine and we have numerous training sessions coming, We are all looking forward to less headache than was initially encountered. The director of technology really wants to give training, but the restraint is time- WHEN can we all get trained on the hundred of changes? This will be her challenge and she is looking forward to working with the principals and her staff to get us as prepared as possible, but even she admits she is on a learning curve and this will be difficult.
I met with my new boss, Ken Wallace, Assistant Superintendent of School Administration of secondary schools, to discuss involvement in professional organizations. He has been the president of TASSP, he has been working with numerous administrator organizations throughout his career. He is big on getting his administrators involved in these organizations and feels it is important to network to help each other. He has met many friend who he has turned to for advice and ideas when he was a principal and now as an Assistant Superintendent, he has even more contacts to reach out to as we go through this financial crisis. He highly recommends these organizations to keep abreast of all the new information, the changes to laws, the interactions with people from other districts to see what we are doing and be able to compare, and value what we have.
Lastly, I work hard to keep a good professional library that I update often. Since I attended the Principal’s Center at Harvard in 2008, I have been very focused on reading that helps me be a better leader and I share this with my staff. I usually order numerous copies of books I refer to when I do training with them and we have a professional section in the school library that is for them to refer to as needed. I find out what the most recommended book from the Principals academy is every year, I read it over the summer and share every August. I have found this to be powerful. I also have included the books we ready at the Principal’s academy at Lamar as well as the audio books with my inner leadership team.
Competency 9 Area:
The superintendent knows how to apply principles of leadership and management to the district's physical plant and support systems to ensure a safe and effective learning environment.
This competency is one rarely evaluated until something goes wrong or costs too much. An example being HVAC systems. This summer with the worst drought and highest heat in the history our AC units have been in over drive. Due to this we had numerous campuses lose water pressure which caused a loss of cool air as the HVAC system requires water. We learned quickly who’s air condition is in need of repair and replacement. I found out my campus really needs a new HVAC system and has a price tag of over $10 mil, but guess what there is no money budgeted, but as says Murphy’s law, these things will happen when there is not a plan. So, we are working to maintain my system, I have been taught by our main air condition maintenance contact Mr. Abbi Ibbarwi how to read gauges to help them as he they have been overloaded and I can read gauges and report these numbers before they send me technicians who have been spread out over the district. Together I have had to work with Abbi to understand what is an emergency, what I need to be watching and what can wait. At the present our district has to purchase two HVAC units and has problems at three other schools, so budget crisis or not this is going to have a huge impact on our savings.
My food service department district wide makes money every quarter, they are self sustaining and do not take any local money. Numerous changes have come about where they are in a position to make even more money and not be a burden on the local budget. I worked with a group of students to ask them their preferences, what they would change, what they would maintain. They really liked having a snack bar, thought they didn’t like having these healthy choices like wheat crust pizza, low sugar pop tarts, baked items. They didn’t complain so much about the food as they did about the service and how they felt they were talked to rudely, especially when they didn’t have enough money. All of these items I could address and have been addressing with the cafeteria manager and we re working to make new choices and trying them out. We have also moved to 100% free breakfast for all students district wide and this was seen as a positive.
Transportation is an area that also gives headaches on my occasions. There are the “tough” routes we have all heard of and my school has one bus that historically gives the rivers a hard time and that is the “Fidelity” bus. I rode the bus on a day we had only one route so I would get to see all of them in action. Well I think I was expecting to see their real behavior, but of course when the principal rides the bus there was no misbehavior to note, the students were very well behaved and the driver complimented them on their behavior. I was pleasantly surprised. The driver did give me feedback and the people we know who always make drama out of nothing, were the top offenders. This is something we were already aware of and we address whenever they get written up by suspending them from the bus and working with their parents.
Competency 10 Area:
The superintendent knows how to apply organizational, decision-making, and problem-solving skills to comply with federal and state requirements and facilitate positive change in varied contexts.
I interviewed our Chief of Staff Crockett DuBose about how he prepares the district for change with the upcoming STAAR test and the new budget crisis. He claimed it is important to make the main thing the main thing and stick to it. The main thing is student success and this is on STAAR and EOC. He thinks we need to start off strong and showing a united front that we are in this together to make teachers feel comfortable to make this happen. He also speaks of rich conflict- that we will have lots of it, but it will be something that will make us stronger. Now we have a new superintendent, he got a new position and is no longer happy his words take on a new perspective. He has taken a step back, not involved at all in the new changes and not returning calls, creating a totally different form of conflict. It will be a VERY interesting year for all of us. The new administration is still very into the plan Crockett presented last semester and they will continue to make the main thing the main thing.
We were approached as s district to take the “Do the right thing” grant from TEA to prevent pregnancy. We had a plan and all middle schools sent people to get trained on the program. There would be not cost and we would get funding to carry out the program for two years with specific aged students. It was a great plan and we were preparing to launch, when the state withdrew the plan and the grant. We were left with no plan. So what we decided to do was to continue on our quest to make kids college ready and have an awareness of what is available for higher learning. We planned out different events for both seventh and eighth graders to expose them to colleges in the area, include their parents and our staff. The goal throughout the year was “Put their feet where we want them to go” so we took the entire 8th grade class to UT Austin. It was the best field trip we could have planned. We took them to the college for a tour, the state capital during the legislative session. Their state rep gave the tour and their senator paid for their lunch. Afterwards we used a few contacts we had an GPISD alum gave us the tour of the UT stadium and where the players hang out. We meet some professional athletes as they were “locked out” of the NFL so they were playing there. Lastly we went on a bat cruise, so many of our kids had never been on a boat, much less seen millions of bats up close. Afterwards, I did not stop hearing about everything regarding every aspect of the trip. We had so many future longhorns- it was truly amazing!
The last activity I planned out was creating a team that worked together. I have a lead teacher who encounters much conflict with one teacher who wants to be the boss of everything. I brought them both in and I explained my desire for teamwork. We discussed what the concerns were, how they could work things out when they don’t agree and how conflict isn’t always bad, but when it lingers and continues to be held from meeting to meeting this damages the team. They both agreed that when they couldn’t find an agreement they would bring in an administrator to help them get through it. I did explain there would be times I would give top down decisions to the lead teacher and though the other teacher may not be in agreement, we will agree to disagree. We need to be remember to have the student and their success has to come first. This will be a work in progress, but I feel if they always ask them self if this is what’s best for the students they cant go wrong.
