STANDARD THREE - Cultural Leadership
School leaders act with diligence in recognizing that a school's culture determines its altitude. The school leader acknowledges the history, traditions, norms, values and ideals of the school and positively supports them through actions that empowers all stakeholders. The school executive the complements the culture of the school and as needed, amends the culture of the school to align with school's goals of learning for both students and adults.
3A: Focus on a Collaborative Work Environment
The school executive understands and acts on the understanding of the positive role that a collaborative environment can play in the school’s culture
This assignment produced an opportunity for me to explore professional learning teams. I examined a PLT at my previous school and analyzed how they placed emphasis on communication, continuous improvement, having a goal-oriented team acting on an agreed upon vision that aligns to the school improvement goal. This experience introduced me to the efficient process of knowing what to look for in a highly engaging PLT.
Remote Learning Plan and Contacting Families
With occurrence of COVID19 on the lives of educators throughout the Wake County Public School System, schools were tasked with contacting families of our students. In our contacts with families, district leadership asked staff to ascertain what families needed to acclimate to a virtual learning experience for students to complete their education for the school year. I provided our staff a model to use in contacting families and developed a series of technological resources that could be used: a OneDrive speadsheet to store our contacts with families and also for families who may not have email addresses but may use Remind 101, utilize a Google Form for them to answer the questions we needed.
Parent Contact about Remote Learning Script
This is a script that I used and shared with staff members as they were contacting families to learn how we may best meet the needs of their families with the upcoming transition to remote learning. In drafting the script, I reflected on the words used with families and to be as meaningful as possible in the messaging I relayed.
Remote Learning Spreadsheet
This is the spreadsheet our staff used in contacting families and storing information gained from this conversation. By expanding this process of contacting families to each staff member in the building, this effort is a school-wide collaboration with keeping connected with our students' families.
Remote Learning Google Form
This is the survey we used to hear from families unable to reached via email, asking about how we may support them in the transition to virtual learning. This Google survey served as a means to contact families and obtain the information we needed and being as current as possible with ensuring minimal barriers arose for families living in households where English is not the primary language spoken.
3B: School Culture and Identity
The school executive develops and uses shared vision, values and goals to define the identity of culture of the school.
Moore Square Carpool Video
The Moore Square administrative team created a carpool video that introduces parents to the appropriate steps of bringing their student(s) to school during morning and afternoon carpool. Throughout the video, the audience hears from the administrators and sees them describe the key steps in carpool. The video provides a visual of the school and of each aspect within carpool, and emphasizing safety precautions to take to ensure a beneficial experience. I learned about the collaborative spirit of our administrative team in creating this video as each team member highlighted a component of carpool to assuage any difficulties that families had in understanding how to navigate carpool.
Culture Professional Development
I created the following presentation to represent my vision for building a positive and collaborative school culture. This presentation aligns with Standard Three of the North Carolina Standards for School Executives as the school leader seeks to recognize and synthesize the norms, traditions, of a school with a vision that unites educators, students, parents and stakeholders in beliefs. This professional development on culture provides an overview to staff members of my aspirations for the school's culture to align to our beliefs.
3C: Acknowledges Failures; Celebrates Accomplishments and Rewards
The school executive acknowledges failures and celebrates accomplishments of the school in order to identify, culture, and performance of the school
Teacher of the Year
The Teacher of the Year at each school in Wake County Public School System meets the needs of each child, every day by delivering equitable and quality instruction to their students. The Teacher of the Year candidate is eligible for nomination by providing direct instruction during each school day and has their standard professional level 2 license. Each school nominates a teacher and then the nominee submits a portfolio to the Office of Human Resources in Wake County Public School System for consideration of WCPSS Teacher of the Year.
First-Year Teacher of the Year
The Diane Kent-Parker Award for First-Year Teachers in Wake County Public School System recognizes first-year instructors who employ an equitable philosophy for instruction they provide as well as applying an equitable lens to the climate and culture within their classrooms to meet the needs of all students they teach. For Moore Square Magnet Middle School, we nominated first-year instructors of the year who will compete for the Diane Kent-Parker Award.
TA of the Year
I coordinated the voting process for the Instructional Assistant of the Year Award, which is a tradition established at Moore Square Magnet Middle School. During the Instructional Assistant of the Year Award recognition process, the award recipient garnered votes from staff members of who, based on their work ethic and dedication that they felt met receiving the instructional assistant of the year award. The Instructional Assistant of the Year Award is geared towards recognizing and empowering our instructional assistants who work tirelessly to meet the needs of students each day.
3D: Efficacy and Empowerment
The school executive develops a sense of efficacy and empowerment among staff which influences the school’s identity, culture and performance.
Moore Kindness Activity
The administrative team partnered with an instructor on Moore Bingo, an effort to edify staff members as we approached the conclusion of Quarter 3. This activity encouraged staff members to get to know one another and also created opportunities for staff members to connect with students. Because of this experience, I learned to think of the times during the year in which teachers may feel encumbered with their lessons and addressing such time with an activity that produces smiles on teachers' faces.