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Amber BaldwinNovember 19, 2012PortfolioInternship Reflection PaperELCC Standard One1./1.1 Develop a VisionA vision describes your hopes for an organization. Being able to develop a vision requires a leader to see past what the present and think innovatively about the future. When trying to encourage buy-in for the vision, it is beneficial to involve stakeholders such as teachers, students, parents, and community leaders. The School Improvement Team revised the Meade Middle school vision at the end of the 2011-2012 school year. To obtain feedback from stakeholders, the revised vision statement was sent to the faculty and staff for review. Only one person submitted feedback and the revised vision was approved. While we do not have the vision posted in classrooms and we do not hear it on the daily announcements, teachers know that the two focal points of the vision are rigor and technology. Rigor and technology are the focal points for professional development this school year. A student friendly version of the vision is recited daily on FYI, our televised morning announcement program: “I am scholar. I am respectful. I am responsible. I am on the road to success at Meade Middle.” The “road to success” phrase is a play on ROADS (Rigor, Opportunity, and Achievement Driving Students), our project-based learning program that is in place in 6th and 7th grades. I developed a vision for the Meade Middle Student Government Association. For assistance, I researched Student Government Association visions on the web, reviewing SGA visions from across the nation, and then focusing on SGA visions within our county. I worked on this over the summer because I knew I would be taking over as SGA advisor and I did not have any records from the previous advisor. Additionally, I reviewed the Meade Middle vision so I could align the SGA vision with the school vision. I included positive behaviors to complement Positive Behaviors Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and community involvement because our school is very demographically and economically diverse. Teachers express regularly wishes that parents were more involved so I want the SGA to assist in bridging that gap. My hope was that in including “a spirit of cooperation between the faculty, administration, and student body,” we can induce social change in which the students and faculty are not seen in opposition, but rather as groups working toward similar goals, with student achievement being the strongest common denominator.2./1.2 Articulate a VisionAfter developing a vision, a leader must be able to articulate the vision so that it is a living document. To do this, the leader should communicate the components of the vision to stakeholders. During our first SGA meeting of the year I showed the Executive Board the vision and we went through it together. I asked the students if there was anything they wanted to change. I broke down the vision to explain different ways our SGA could make the vision come alive in the school and community. It was important to me to know that the SGA vision was something with which the Executive Board agreed.I articulated that the vision is to increase student leadership so that the Executive Board members are approaching administration with questions and requests, rather than the advisor approaching administration on behalf of the students.To improve my articulation of the vision, I will share the vision with staff, or better yet have the SGA president share the vision with the staff. I have learned that articulating a vision is easier than implementing and stewarding said vision. 3./1.3 Implement a VisionVision implementation takes place over time as the vision comes to life. Implementation of the SGA vision takes place in an official capacity each Thursday after school for one hour. At the first meeting, I set the tone for the Executive Board by explaining to them that they each have a role and together they are to set goals with me as a sounding board for ideas and for guidance. I support them in coming up with innovative ideas; however, I also work to focus them on setting and achieving goals, rather than simply listing countless ideas. To refocus the Executive Board on the vision, I remind them that we should do more than plan dances. In the past, SGA has involved dances and collecting money. I believe our SGA can and should do more to align with our vision by reaching out and serving the community. A school like ours has a lot of poverty so charging money for dances and asking for monetary donations is not the best way to implement the vision.To encourage teamwork and collegiality among the students, I set up an SGA group on Edmodo and I have taken the kids on two field trips so far. We also do icebreakers to get to know one another better. The students work together to create advertisements for SGA events. To challenge the Executive Board to get to know the feelings of the student body, we arrange monthly delegate assemblies to inform students and to ask for student concerns and needs. We have sent out student surveys asking what students would like to see at school dances.By requiring the Executive Board to plan for and run the delegate assemblies as well as go to administration with any requests and questions, I am providing opportunities for the students to develop leadership. The principal says in the past the SGA advisor always spoke on behalf of the students and the principal likes that the kids are coming to speak to him themselves. 4./1.4 Steward a VisionStewarding a vision goes beyond the creation and implementation phases to seeing the vision through an extended period of time so that it remains a living document. My principal told me not to stress over stewarding my SGA vision in this first year as SGA advisor because he says the learning curve for a new position is three years. In order to get the SGA Executive Board, the student body, and the faculty committed to the SGA vision, I have had to use effective communication skills. This means communicating information in multiple ways including e-mail, Edmodo, announcements on the televised daily announcement show, announcements over the public address system, and announcements during faculty meetings. Communicating in these ways has revealed that despite multiple efforts to communicate effectively, people will criticize you and suggest you did something differently or express concern that they did not know about something or should have had multiple reminders. This is a definite leadership frustration and challenge of mine. Aside from the SGA vision, I have also worked a little bit with the Meade Middle school vision. I have attended two School Improvement Team meetings and there we have discussed the vision and how to monitor it. Recently we shifted our strategy to collecting data from the students. Each teacher, including myself, engaged his/her homeroom in a “Courageous Conversation” about equity in our school. With my homeroom we came to a definition of equity and the students answered anonymously questions about treatment of students within the school. We then had a discussion for those who wished to contribute. Another method used at Meade Middle for stewarding our vision is professional development sessions on the two key components of our vision: rigor and technology. Through surveying and professional development our administration and our School Improvement Team work to development commitment to our shared school vision. 5./1.5 Promote Community Involvement in the VisionInvolving the community in the vision can be a struggle depending on the culture of the school and on the demographics of the student population. Some communities and schools are more closely tied than others and promoting the vision requires less work on the part of the leadership team and faculty/staff. To communicate the vision of the SGA I have posted it on Edmodo and shared it at the delegate assembly meetings; however, I need to do more to reach out into the community. I have been advised to start small my first year as SGA advisor and to take on more each year. The county SGA advisor warned that taking on too much too soon can ruin a program. This is not an excuse to not promote community involvement in the vision, but it is definitely a goal toward which I must work along with the SGA Executive Board. It is difficult to get the Executive Board to think outside of having dances and doing things exclusively for themselves. Reflecting, I presume that this is also true when working with adults on stewarding and promoting a vision. Some adults struggle as visionaries and want to see proof of how something will look before they are willing to take a leap of faith. Few people are true visionaries themselves. My principal is extremely visionary with the ROADS (Rigor, Opportunity, and Achievement Driving Students) program and he is skilled in getting the faculty and the community on board.To promote the school vision in the community, we have brainstormed plans at the weekly administration/guidance staff meetings. Methods of bringing the community on board with the vision include Harvest for the Hungry, Student-Led Conferences, the Race for Education, using Edmodo, Home Visits, and Backpack Buddies. Additionally, our faculty is looking for donors to contribute to our iPad collection as iPads are in integral part of the ROADS program and technology is one of the two key components of our school vision. This experience has taught me that engaging the community takes grass roots work and networking. Tapping into our diverse staff connections has allowed us to take steps toward realizing our vision, but we are dependent on community stakeholders such as churches and businesses to help us serve our students and realize our vision. Because our vision requires a significant amount of money, we are dependent on others outside of our building.To refine my leadership skills related to the vision, I plan to learn more about grant writing from a co-worker who used to write grants in her first career and also to speak with other SGA advisors at the next countywide general assembly to ask for advice on involving the community in the SGA vision and on getting the students hooked on the SGA vision. ELCC Standard Two6./2.1 Promote Positive School CultureThe school culture begins with the faculty. The faculty culture inevitably spills over to the students and thus the school culture as a whole. To improve the school culture I assessed informally student opinions at SGA delegate assemblies and teacher opinions through conversation and Interdisciplinary Team Meetings. At one Leadership Team meeting we discussed the school culture as school leaders shared how their departments are doing. It was revealed that teachers are feeling overworked and nearing burn out. Most recently, teachers are overwhelmed by news of evaluations including student growth for the 2013-2014 school year in Anne Arundel County Public Schools. To promote a positive school culture, I am sensitive to the diversity of both our students and staff. I stand outside every morning and greet each of my students by name. I greet informally students whose names I do not know. I always smile and say good morning to other adults. Sometimes I bring in treats or notes for my co-workers. These are small and informal gestures that make a huge difference when it comes to the school culture. As a teacher, I send at minimum weekly e-mails to parents/guardians of my students to be sure I am relaying relevant school and course related information. One day I tore a sign off of our front door that a secretary had posted. It read: “Please ring the door bell ONE TIME and wait for someone to answer the door.” I felt that this sends a terrible message to both guests and regular attendees. Someone had posted that sign considering his/her own frustrations and therefore made our staff seem rude and sarcastic at first glance. Another way we have improved school culture is by feeding the staff. People respond to food. One Friday, administration brought in breakfast for the staff. For Thanksgiving, each faculty member contributed a side dish and administration contributed turkeys. We had a big dinner where we each identified items for which we are thankful. This tradition was almost lost because our Social Committee, of which I am a part, voted to do a brunch instead of a dinner as people were not contributing to the annual dinner and no one was stepping up to clean up. To resolve this concern, our principal polled the staff via e-mail regarding brunch or the traditional dinner. He also addressed our concerns by committing administration to the turkeys and food preparation and non-teachers to clean up. He requested that everyone bring in a disposable tray or dish and that we check in our dishes. With these changes, dinner went well and the staff bonded. One way I would assess the school vision as a leader is to send out quarterly surveys via a program like Survey Monkey to assess the feelings of the staff. Negativity and gossip can and will spread rapidly and school leaders must work to create culture of collegiality and collaboration. With AACPS being the only county in Maryland still on a salary step freeze, I feel administrators should appear sympathetic to workload increases. One administrator told me that I should feel grateful to work in AACPS because I have so much planning time and should not have to take anything home. I felt insulted and even if he felt that way, as an administrator he would do better to at least appear sympathetic to teacher concerns in order to promote a positive school culture.7./2.2 Provide Effective Instructional ProgramAfter this internship, I believe providing effective instructional program is the most important area of competence and it is often neglected out of the sheer volume of other managerial and operational tasks that come up on a daily basis. A major instructional question our administration has faced this marking period has been finding an effective reading program for our multitude of struggling readers. Despite our current corrective reading program that has been in place for several years, our basic readers are not showing significant gains. The reading specialist seemed sort of defensive of the programs at the steering committee meeting, but also acknowledged that we are not properly implementing the reading program to know if it is effective.I was present at a STAR Reading lecture from a woman trying to market the program to our school. It was extremely boring and I know that I was not the only confused person in the room. Ultimately it was more of an assessment data program than a reading program. At the administration/guidance staff meetings I have heard them discuss adding a few sections of a reading support group during encore classes, but the times and teachers and students have been up in the air. The problem is no one knows a way to accelerate our students’ reading to the point that they are going to perform well on MSA or PARC.My recommendations focused on the social studies curriculum during department meetings. The Anne Arundel County pacing guide requires each student to complete a research project through social studies. I recommended that we branch out from doing History Day, our go-to project for the past several years because History Day is not an appropriate project for all students. Other project choices include Model United Nations and Project Citizen. I initially suggested Project Citizen for 8th grade; however, another teacher suggested that Project Citizen is not rigorous enough. To solve the curriculum confusion, I recommended that 8th grade do a research paper connected to the curriculum content and students who wish to turn their paper into a History Day Project may do so. Most important to me is that we serve the best interests of the students by blocking off a two week chunk of time devoted exclusively to the research project so that students are not switching back and forth from research project to the regular curriculum each day. For this reason, my partner teacher and I plan to do the research paper at the beginning of the second semester for two weeks straight, having the students select a topic related to the Civil War, as the Civil War is the unit we will be starting in the second semester. We will be able to differentiate this project and some students will end up completing History Day projects for the countywide competition, but others will stick to a classroom based paper. Though History Day looks good politically for the school and the county, politics are no currently my priority and I do not think mandating a program for appearances is in the best interests of the students I serve. To monitor the social studies curriculum and consequently student learning, social studies teachers are using Achievement Series. I learned how to create assessments in Achievement Series and did so with our Unit III test. This was a tedious process requiring the matching of a standard to each assessment question. On December 5, during collaborative planning I was able to present these concerns and my curriculum suggestion to the social studies resource person from the Board and the meeting went well. I learned that the curriculum is being redone for next year. I would love to have a hand in that as I can see myself as a curriculum resource person.In order to improve the social studies instructional program for the second marking period, I am working to backwards map the entire marking period, creating the unit assessment now and matching up standards to questions and dates. It is difficult to make the social studies instruction effective because the curriculum requires about 50 standards to be covered during the second marking period and the mandatory benchmark is very poorly aligned with the curriculum.As an administrator, Mr. Goodman talks about effective instructional program during monthly leadership meetings. Each department chairperson shares out regarding instruction, curriculum, successes, and concerns. In order to support staff with providing effective instructional program, teachers plan collaboratively with the Data specialist weekly and resource people from the Board are brought in to guide teachers with instructional concerns. 8./2.3 Apply Best Practices to Student LearningBest practices are those that will produce the highest gains in student achievement. Planning for teaching can be overwhelming because there is so much research on best practices and there are countless aspects of teaching to consider when planning lessons. Since applying best practices can be overwhelming at the teacher level, the school leader should delegate responsibility in this area to department chairpersons, making them responsible for reporting back to the school leader regarding best practices and concerns within the department.As the lead 8th grade social studies teacher, I am responsible for applying best practices to student learning. This is my partner teacher’s first year of full-time teaching. Even though this is my fifth year working with this curriculum, I am searching constantly for the best way to teach the content and skills, rather than doing the same exact lessons I did the year before. This can be time consuming when planning because my partner teacher and I spend a lot of time considering different activities and with the curriculum being so cumbersome with so many standards, we have to decide what the kids truly need to know while avoiding in personal bias. Our goal this year is to go deeper with understanding rather than covering a massive amount of material in a superficial way.Applying best practices means considering the multiple intelligences, technology, rigor, the dimensions of learning, and Bloom’s taxonomy, to name a few. There are a lot of different learning theories to apply so I am constantly trying to find the best activities to do to meet as many requirements as possible. I assist my partner teacher in coming up with outcomes and assessments because she has said herself that she struggles with wording things because of her dyslexia. She also expresses her struggles with backwards mapping and creating the assessment first so I am helping her with these aspects of teaching. Because I have worked with this curriculum for several years, I am able to point out different ways we could instruct students and we are able to pick the strategies that best fit our students. I work hard to infuse rigor as a best practice since it is part of our vision and one of our big two foci, paired with technology. To improve my ability to apply best practices, I attended a differentiated instruction workshop with Melissa Dickinson where I learned about the “educational cha-cha” of breaking down instruction and assessing student learning. I also attended a full day workshop on technology with Erin Senior where I learned new ways to use the Smart Board, Senteo clickers, and iPad applications. My goal for the second marking period is to increase the number of times I take my students into the computer lab.9./2.4 Design Comprehensive Professional Growth PlansProfessional development was a major part of my internship experience. With professional growth, teachers can become stagnant in their teaching and can all suffer from burn out. Because the education field is constantly changing, teachers must stay up to date as lifelong learners.I instructed the staff on two Eliminating the Achievement Gap (ETAG) presentations related to text-dependent questions and classroom management. Text-dependent questions are coming to the forefront of education again as we shift to the Common Core. Lessons on “Welcome Mats” and “Putting Out Fires” instructed the staff of the importance of a welcoming environment and keeping students in the classroom where they can learn. These two lessons together made one ETAG professional development session where we conveyed to the staff that for students to learn we have to be aware of their diverse backgrounds and of our own opinions that prevent us from always applying best practices. I led the 8th grade social studies team during official weekly collaborative reflections with Beth Shakan, but I also collaboratively planned with my partner teacher daily to reflect on how the lessons went with our students and what we need to continue to do or what we need to do differently. As an administrator, the struggle with group professional development is people that are doing what they need to generally do not need the group professional developments and people that need to change their ways generally glaze over during professional developments and think that the information does not apply to them. For this reason, professional growth plans come in when teachers are unable to apply best practices, or when teachers are doing so, but are simply looking for ways to improve constantly. Working with adults to critique their instruction is the most difficult part of leadership for me at this point in my career because you never know what type of reaction you might get. As a teacher, I still find being informally or formally observed very intimidating, but I now know that being the evaluator can also be nerve-racking, especially for a new administrator. To begin this aspect of my internship, I created an instructional walk through form on the Assessa application and walked through classrooms practicing my use of the tool. I asked specific teachers if I could do this before I did, since I am not a real administrator and I did not want to overstep my boundaries. I also used the Assessa tool as part of a peer observation program. I went in, observed my peers, completed a staff-wide form on Assessa, then e-mailed my observation to the teacher I observed. At leadership meetings it was revealed that many teachers did not feel comfortable with assessing their colleagues. Peer observation will have to be done multiple times to get teachers accustomed to this process and to make it part of the school culture. I was unable to participate in collecting baseline data for rigor and technology in classrooms because I was teaching when this was going on; however, I was present when the leadership team went over the baseline data for rigor. Going over the data revealed that people on the leadership team did not have identical understandings of the four different levels of rigor, despite prior professional development on the four levels. The question of how long observers were in a given room came up and also the fact that some days will be simple recall/understanding and the next day could be the highest level of rigor which is creation and evaluation. Some people on the leadership team mentioned having teachers invite observers in to see rigor; however, the counter-argument is that this creates a dog and pony show where teachers plan the most rigorous lesson possible and invite someone to observe on that particular day. After a pre-observation, observation, and post-observation with the technology education teacher, I realized that he is able to do a lot of what he wants without attention from the administration on whether it is best practice because he is not teaching a core subject and many observers do not know what to expect or to look for in a technology classroom. Even though the course is different than a core course, I still believe all teachers should be adhering to a set of general expectations such as a visible and appropriate outcome, formative and summative assessment, and a closure. I suggested that the teacher go over the outcome at the beginning and end of a lesson and to make sure the outcome is specific even if the project will be going on for several class periods. I also recommended that the teacher monitor students other than the ones who approach him with questions because a lot of students will sit still and be confused rather than approaching the teacher with questions. The teacher was receptive to the feedback and agreed that these tactics would improve his instruction. The problem comes when I am a real administrator and have to make sure the teachers actually follow through with professional development suggestions and then coming up with a consequence if the teacher does not improve. If I am to become an administrator, a large challenge will be learning about and implementing new high-stakes teacher evaluation models that base a teacher’s performance and pay on student growth. As a teacher and potential administrator, I am fearful of these new evaluations. ELCC Standard Three10./3.1 Students Demonstrate the Ability to Manage the OrganizationEffectively managing the organization requires long-term, research-based planning to drive decisions. I had several experiences with managing the organization.At the end of the 2011-2012 school year, our principal put out an anonymous faculty survey asking for feedback about the management of the organization. While several faculty members expressed that they “lied”, I did not understand this reasoning because it was anonymous and if the administration did not care, then they probably would not have taken the time to ask for feedback on organization management. I filled out the survey honestly. I offered to sort through the surveys and organize the feedback; however, my assistance was not needed with this matter. Despite being on the outside of combing through the surveys, I know that one major concern of the staff was the need to know that all three administrators are on the same page regarding discipline, expectations, and consequences, because the principal acknowledged this concern at the first School Improvement Team meeting of the year.Another experience I had with managing the organization was sitting in on the Steering Committee meeting which involved Board of Education members questioning the leadership team about the direction of our school and the effectiveness of our programs. At this meeting I talked about the role of Morning Rally in our school day and I was extremely nervous to be talking in front of that group of important people. Two other experiences I had with managing the organization included creating the master schedule and creating the duty roster. The scheduling took place over the summer with Ms. Haacke. One important lesson I learned about the schedule is that it is can be “leaked.” I did not realize a schedule could be leaked until I inadvertently leaked it which was very embarrassing. During scheduling I noticed that a math teacher had different courses than I knew she had been told she would have. I mentioned this, but my concern was sort of brushed aside. I questioned the math teacher outside of school to verify that my concern was valid. She got very upset that she was being given different courses than promised and I told her not to worry because I would bring it to the attention of the administrators and it was not a big deal. I was wrong because before I got back to the school the next day this teacher had already contacted her department chair and the principal. I was so embarrassed because I was truly trying to help so a problem did not come up when school began; I did not know that the schedule was a secret, nor that it could cause such intense feelings. While my concern was valid, and a mistake had been made and was thankfully fixed quickly, I still learned at an early moment to keep my mouth shut despite any good intentions. Having learned that lesson with scheduling, I was able to create the teacher duty roster without any problems. I used the roster from last year as a model. I meticulously went through and made sure every teacher had a duty and that the duties were equitable. I did not reveal anything to anyone, even when they asked. When the duty roster was released at the beginning of the school year, I only heard of one complaint, and the complaint was about something that Ms. Haacke changed. Consequently, I feel like I did a good job with this. I learned that even a seemingly small task can be time consuming and it is near impossible to please everyone. Regarding financial resources, I am in charge of the Student Council budget for the first time this year. This involved reviewing last years’ records and seeing how money had been spent and collected. I learned that most of the revenue comes from the 8th grade formal at the end of the school year. I need to be mindful of this budget because my SGA students have expensive plans for dances and I have to remind them that we need to at least break even and not lose money on events. I have also learned from Michelle Jones, the financial secretary, of all the paper work that must go in to selling anything at a dance, getting a check to pay the county or a DJ, and managing field trips. Mrs. Jones has been extremely patient with me and helpful to me. I learned that you have to ask for a check ahead of a dance and get that check cashed to use for change when selling sodas or snacks. I mistakenly thought I could just get cash to use as change from her on the on the day of the dance. Another experience with managing the organization of the school was creating all of the emergency substitute binders over the summer and then completing emergency evacuation plans for various scenarios including fire drills, shelter-in-place, tornadoes, earthquakes, and lock downs. The substitute binders took hours upon hours over the summer and at the beginning of the school year. I stream-lined the papers and processes for substitute teachers in our building. I gave each teacher their binder for emergency substitute situations where they were to create three plans and turn it into their department chair. They already had a binder for planned absences, but I gave them copies of new papers to add to that binder and I also saved the documents to the shared drive on our school server. I just had to make new binders for new teachers. These are the types of activities that take many hours to do, but are not difficult beyond the initial creation of the materials. The duplication and assembly took a lot of time. Once I finished the binders the school schedule was changed so I had to go back and put the revised schedule in every binder.A final experience with managing the organization occurred in the form of a scheduling conflict. My SGA students sought out Mr. Goodman for approval of a dance on December 13th. The dance was approved. We created advertisements and informed delegates at the November General Assembly. The Art Club made posters. A few weeks later, I received an e-mail from one of the assistant principals at the end of the day saying she had heard students talking about an SGA dance on December 13th and that she hopes that was a rumor because it is not on the calendar and there is a band concert that night. Thankfully I was at home because I was very upset. I had the danced approved by the principal and then I found out I would have to break it to the children that the dance must be put off. I also had to contact the DJ to cancel which was embarrassing and I had to tell the financial secretary to draw back monies I had requested for change, the DJ, and snack sales. I had a discussion with Mr. Goodman the following morning and he explained that I should go through his secretary to clear a date and then ask for approval. This is something I wish I had known beforehand. Even if I had known to look at the calendar, the concert is not until 7 p.m. and the dance would have ended at 4 p.m. Now that I know the procedure I will do it differently next time; however, asking the principal for approval seemed like a logical step and I had inferred that approval also meant date approval when it did not. Mr. Goodman was not sure why the time conflicted with the 7 p.m. concert and I am still not sure myself. To improve my understanding of managing the organization, I spoke with Mr. Goodman about school organization. He said that the most important person in the school is Mrs. Sanders, his secretary. He said the second most important person in the building is Mr. Laucht, the chief engineer because he manages the physical functioning of the building. I would also like to sit down with the Mr. Goodman and hear about the budget and how he handles school finances. 11./3.2 Manage OperationsManaging the school operations takes place both inside and outside of school hours. The management of operations often ends up taking up the most time in an assistant principal’s day. For effective management of school operations, the faculty and staff should detect an overall sense of efficiency and effectiveness in day to day processes, and so should the students. Two of my days during the first marking period were spent as acting assistant principal. My job during the school day was to be constantly present in the building, especially during student transitions from class to class. Additionally, I had to be present during the arrival and dismissal of students to ensure the safe and orderly movement of students. On both of my acting assistant principal days, I supervised 6th, 7th, and 8th grade lunch periods. This is actually rather intimidating because you are trying to manage the entire grade of students at one time via a microphone. Both of my days as assistant principal also included checking in each classroom throughout the day to be sure teachers are doing okay and removing students who are disruptive to the learning process. I removed several students to make phone calls home. I also had to work with a math teacher who wrote a child up while covering for an absent math teacher. This is a sticky situation because you have already asked a teacher to step in to cover for an absent teacher, then that teacher has to deal with behavior problems and you do not want that teacher to feel bitter about having to stand in for a colleague. On my second day as acting assistant principal, all of the actual administration and guidance staff was in an on-site meeting all day with the superintendent and members from the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). This was difficult to deal with because there was a severe substitute shortage and teachers were seeing me and another teacher out of the classroom while they were being pulled to cover for other absent teachers. I think as an administrator I would make sure the staff saw me or another administrator cover a class now and then so the teachers do not feel like they are being slighted by having to cover frequently. It would give them the feeling that everyone is in the same boat and the administration is willing to cover as well. One conflict I had to resolve involved two 7th grade boys quarreling over a shared gym locker. One of the boy’s grandmothers called the school at the end of the day saying her grandson’s gym lock had been broken and his uniform taken. This was thrown into my lap first thing the following day as the MSDE meeting was taking place and I had no idea how to handle it as no one had told me exactly what to do other than handing me a walkie talkie. I ended up getting incident reports from both students, talking to the gym teacher, and leaving notes for the assistant principal. The truth of the matter is when you are spending time managing the operations of the school, there is little time to conduct other business and so other business takes place before and after school hours. 12./3.3 Manage ResourcesManaging resources with creative problem-solving is my current area of weakness. It is difficult for me to be creative as a leader at this point because in my opinion, I have not seen enough leadership to know the ins and outs and what to do in a given situation. One area where I experienced managing resources was being charged with creating a brand new schedule for administering the MSA where only math and reading teachers would administer their respective tests to their own students and no other teacher would test students. I was told to come up with a logistical schedule for this so that the students would test with their teacher of record. I asked a lot of questions of the assistant principal because I was struggling to wrap my head around how this would work given various problems with altering the schedule and moving students and teachers and having students test over the course of a week. I was told to find a way to do it. I spent several hours one Saturday trying to figure out this schedule and I was completely puzzled. My mind would not work in the abstract way and I also disagreed fundamentally with the project I was given. Still, I tried to put my opinion aside and work at the project as an outsider and I failed miserably. I went to the assistant principal and the math department chair and was upfront about my struggle; however, I was told they would help me and then nothing ever came of it and the idea has not been brought up since. If a project is going to be taken on it should be a valuable use of time. It was odd to me that when I could not do it, it was dropped. Advising SGA requires me to manage human and financial resources, meaning the SGA students and the SGA account. So far I have managed one dance and am currently working on the next which will be January 31, 2013. I have also managed two field trips. I have managed seven SGA Executive Board meetings after school and two SGA General Assembly meetings during school. When I try to make management changes, some of the kids who were on SGA last year are resistant. They do not resist in a deliberate or malicious way, but they know how things were done last year and so they desire naturally to continue doing them in the same way. For example, to address teaching for learning, I decided that General Assemblies would take place once a month during Morning Rally rather than during a class period. Last year the monthly assemblies took an entire class period so homeroom delegates missed an entire class. This upset teachers. I decided to have the meetings during Morning Rally so that kids do not miss instruction. Of course the kids dislike this, but the teachers like it. At first the Executive Board told me that 25 minutes during Morning Rally would not be enough time and this made me wonder what they had been doing for an entire hour in the past. Despite their concerns, we have pulled off two assemblies thus far and had plenty of time at each. One problem I have had with the general assembly meetings is no matter how I advertise it to teachers, not all students show up and I am criticized for not informing them in some other special, individualized way. This actually led to a conflict between me and my team leader; however, I learned from that and resolved it effectively by using “I” statements and taking responsibility for the conflict even though I did not feel it was entirely my doing.I learned that managing resources is a big responsibility whether you are dealing with people or money. People want to feel they are valuable, appreciated resources so a leader must carefully be aware of each member of the organization so that people do not feel they are treated unfairly. For example, if students are regularly missing encore classes for assemblies or other activities, then some encore teachers might become upset and demand new ways of managing resources. Also, financial resources must be managed in a transparent, responsible way so there is never a question of a leader mishandling funds. ELCC Standard Four13./4.1 Collaborate with Families and Other Community MembersFamily and community involvement are keys to student success. After taking the School, Family, and Community Collaborations course with Dr. Sheldon at Johns Hopkins University in the spring of 2012, I believe this more than ever. In the course we explored meanings of family and community involvement and how that involvement varies based on the diverse needs of the students at a given school. It is the job of the principal and assistant principals to set the example that family and community involvement is important and that the school must seek to bridge the gap between the school and the community when the bridge is not already there or when the community seems resistant. At our school, I know our three administrators appreciate our diverse population of students. Each of them has shown their dedication to the Meade Middle community in various ways. Two of the administrators live in the community and their children attend school within the Meade cluster. All three of them visit students at their homes. All of them say, “family first” to the staff of Meade Middle. One of them even adopted a Meade Middle student as her son. Over twenty teachers at Meade Middle are involved in the Home Visits program. While there is no doubt in my mind that the faculty of Meade Middle cares about the students and feels that community involvement is important, we do not always know the precise moves to make to involve the community in a systematic way.To involve parents/guardians in becoming part of the Meade Middle community, I participated in the second of two 6th grade orientation nights. At this orientation the 6th grade guidance counselor, one of the 6th grade assistant principals, the school psychologist, and I were present. After going through a PowerPoint slide and taking questions, parents were released from the cafeteria. Several parents began asking me where to go for the ice cream and meet and greet with the teachers. I was completely caught off guard because I had never heard of either of these events. One student showed me the information on the AACPS website via her smart phone. It seemed as though someone had posted the orientation information for Maryland City Elementary under the Meade Middle page. Even though it said “Maryland City Elementary” in fine print, it was under the Meade Middle page. This was incredibly embarrassing. I am not sure if the responsibility belongs at the county or school level. I told our assistant principal and she was just as surprised. I took the parents on a tour of the 6th grade wing; however, there were not any teachers for them to meet, nor was there ice cream. This is a really bad first impression for new families, especially for those parents who said they came to the first orientation and only came to the second one to meet with the teachers. I managed to communicate with the families in such a way that none of them were aggressive or openly angry with me.An experience I witnessed with marketing to develop community support was fundraising for iPads. Our school goal is to have an iPad in the hands of every student and teacher. To do this, we have several teachers writing grants and we have requested all faculty members to network with people they know who may be able to contribute or to match contributions. While we are making some progress, the sum of money we need is very large and our community ties are not extremely strong. In conjunction with our Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA), we had a Race for Education at our school on November 16th; however, the turnout was weak. The premise of Race for Education is that kids bring in the names and addresses of potential money donors and the school mails a request for a donation to those people. The students then walk or run around the track to validate the donations. We received very few addresses from students to the point that we lost money on the race because we had to pay the company more than we are likely bringing in from the addresses we received. Some parents did show up for the Race for Education and teachers participated in walking/running around the track with the students. Another way we are involving various agencies is by going to local churches and asking for volunteers and for holiday help with our needy students. We have a Backpack Buddies program running for about ten of our homeless students thanks to people from local churches. Because we have the highest homeless population in the county, our principal is pushing for us to become a homeless cluster just as we are currently an ESOL cluster. This way we would get more funding to service this population. We also ask for gently used items such books, clothes, toys, shoes, and knick knacks for our annual Holiday Bizarre, which is scheduled for December 18th this year. We are in the process of reaching out to the community, friends, and family for donations. Students are able to use Bulldog Bucks to “purchase” gifts for friends and family which is always a big success.As a leader I would inform the faculty of all of these efforts like Backpack Buddies because I only knew about Backpack Buddies because I was attending meetings for my internship that I would not typically attend. If more people knew about what we are trying to do with the community, then we would increase our chances of reaching our goals. For example, in one meeting the Alternative One teacher said that she has five students on her field trip list who cannot afford any of the field trips. I suggested we tell the teachers that there are students who cannot afford the field trips. The Alternative One teacher sent out an e-mail and was able to collect enough money to send those students on their first field trip to Miss Shirley’s café in Baltimore to practice etiquette and manners in public. 14./4.2 Respond to Community InterestBecause the community will not always come to you, school leaders must find ways to respond to the needs of the community. The community might not go to the school with needs, which means the school should go out and discover community needs.At Meade Middle community interests vary dramatically. We have students from Severn, Laurel, Jessup, and Maryland City. Within these communities, the socioeconomic statuses range from affluent to impoverished students living in rundown hotels. Our population is officially over 50% Free and Reduced Meals, but in actuality the percentage is much higher. Twelve percent of our students are English Language Acquirers, with many being undocumented immigrants. At least 5% of our students are homeless, but those are just the ones of which we know. One way I was able to respond to the community interests was to ride the Free Summer Meals Lunch bus three times over the summer. Derick Parks, our Behavior Intervention Specialist, rode the bus Monday through Thursday from 11 o’clock to 2 o’clock. The Maryland State Department of Education funded this program. The bus stopped in four different communities each day at prescribed times. Any child under 18 could have a free meal. The catch was the children had to sit on site and eat the food; they could not take it home. This was a rule from MSDE and they cracked down on it when they realized we were letting the kids take the food and leave. This rule was frustrating because the places we were stopping did not really have any places for kids to eat except on the curb. The MSDE representative on the bus could not tell us the justification for the rule. One day when I was not on the lunch bus, reporters were on the bus so they could feature the lunch bus on the news. The day before this, I was on the bus as the MSDE representative told everyone at each stop to be sure they stayed out eating their food the next day because there would be cameras to put them on television! This made me really angry. If we were doing this for the right reasons, then we should not need to tell these people to sit on the curb and eat their free food while they are videotaped and then put on the news so everyone can see how charitable MSDE is. I was very upset by this. So was Mr. Parks and so was the assistant principal who frequently rode the lunch bus. Despite my frustration with the rules of the program, hungry kids were getting food and experiencing this Free Summer Meals program made me more sensitive to the needs of the community. I saw children in dirty, worn clothes, and special needs children out on the side of the rode by themselves to get food. Seeing my former students come to the bus during the summer to get something to eat was heartbreaking, but I was glad I was able to help out in some small way. If students are coming to school hungry, then they are not prepared to learn. My challenge for myself is to do work like this even when I do not need to do if for internship hours. I want to be generous and selfless like the assistant principal who rode the bus even when she was not getting paid for it and had other things to do. Some ways I have worked toward my goal so far are by attending a students’ football game on a Friday night because he never has anyone there for support, adding money to a students’ lunch account because his mom has not added any and his balance is zero, and visiting a homeless student at the hotel after school hours as part of the home visits program.15./4.3 Mobilizing Community ResourcesUsing what the community has to offer for the benefit of the students is the aspect of leadership by which I was most surprised. By this I mean, I had not considered the significance of this task. I knew it is important to communicate with the community, but I had not considered the time and energy that must go into mobilizing community resources. When I heard my principal speak at leadership, technology, faculty, and administration/guidance meetings, I realized how knowledgeable he is about business and how he is able to look at the school as a cog in part of a larger machine. I am really impressed by this, but it is also intimidating as a potential administrator because I do not know a lot about business and networking. My experience with mobilizing community resources was running Kids Helping Kids 2012: Harvest for the Hungry at Meade Middle. I got the information packet and learned that every school in Anne Arundel County is expected to participate in this particular food drive, per Dr. Maxwell, our superintendant. I was planning to do a food drive just for our school where we could give food to the high population of needy children which we serve. I spoke to my principal about this and he explained that we have to participate in this one because our superintendent likes to compete with surrounding counties and our county always wins. This political aspect did not surprise me, but it did throw off my plans that I would have to ask our population to give food so that we could donate it to the Anne Arundel County food bank. I spoke to two of my roommates, both teachers at South River Senior High school in the same county as Meade Middle, and they said that Harvest for the Hungry is huge at their school, right alongside state testing! This made sense to me because South River serves the most affluent population in the county; however, I was surprised to find out that teachers there are told to give extra credit for students who bring in food or money for the food drive. This is counterintuitive to accurately assessing student learning and it is not fair. Still frustrated and actually losing sleep over this Harvest for the Hungry business, I again approached my principal with my concerns and he supported me. He said we would participate, but we would find a way to keep some of the food for our own. I filled out the intent to participate form and faxed it to the appropriate person, only to find my name on a list two weeks later of people who did not fill out the form. This was frustrating because I faxed it in already and I did not want to appear incompetent. Due to situations like these, I always make sure I make copies of important documents.To make the food drive competitive within our school, the principal approved uniform-free days as motivation. Our students covet uniform-free days. Each week, the grade level that collected the most food/money for the food drive would earn a uniform-free day. Homeroom delegates would bring the food to the cafeteria each day and the SGA Executive Board would count the food with my supervision. Both weeks we did the competition, 8th grade won by a large margin. I believe this is because I was in charge of the program and so I advertised it a lot with my students and my partner teacher, who is a dear friend, also advertised it with her students. I tried to get the rest of the social studies teachers to push the food drive, but it just did not work. Seventh grade was competitive, but sixth grade brought in hardly anything. One way I worked to get the word out to parents was via my e-mail distribution lists. Parents love to get my weekly e-mails about what is going on in social studies and in the school. I believe that advertising the food drive this way and on Edmodo increased the amount of food 8th grade brought in. I am not sure how much food we collected last year because I was not in charge of it and the numbers were not shared; however, this year we collected just over 1,000 items. While this does not compare to South River’s half a million, I am proud of our school and of my first-time efforts in mobilizing community resources. For a school like ours, I think we did a good job of getting those who can to donate. In the future I will work to better mobilize 6th grade resources. I could do this by stopping in 6th grade lunches to make announcements, having the guidance counselor send out e-mails to 6th grade families, or by having the principal make a connect-ED call to all Meade Middle families. ELCC Standard Five16./5.1 Acts with IntegrityIntegrity is the quality of being honest and having a sound moral character. Because integrity should be present in every action an administrator takes, it is difficult to separate it into its’ own category. One experience I had that required integrity was explaining to the assistant principal and principal how I had “leaked” the schedule inadvertently, as previously described. I knew it was best to be honest than to try and lie about something, especially since my intentions were good, and because I am a truly terrible liar. When I acted with integrity, I found that both people were understanding and not upset because I was honest about my intentions, took responsibility, and learned something about leadership. I still feel bad when I think about it now, but I know that it was a mistake and a learning experience. Another experience I had with integrity was sharing my advisor’s expectations with the SGA Executive Board. I explained to them that as student leaders they are expected to act with integrity and a sense of responsibility and that I am going to expect academic and moral integrity. They also know that there are bylaws which mean they can be on probation due to poor academic performance or inappropriate behavior. Weekly administration/guidance meetings as well as leadership meetings require me to act with integrity by keeping information confidential. I am impressed with myself in this respect because I have worked really hard this school year to avoid gossip and to keep information to myself. I have been successful in keeping information confidential which is not always easy with having team members whom I am friends with and having a fiancé in the building. Some information I kept confidential related to MSA plans, the new reading program, poorly performing teachers, baseline rigor data, and student discipline data. I feel that it was awkward at times with me being both a teacher in the building and an administrative intern because information that I could have if I were just an intern might have to be kept from me because I have interests as a teacher.An example of my principal acting with integrity was when he had to have a hearing with someone from the Board of Education in order to have a student expelled from the school for a very serious fight. I was not able to sit in on this because of the confidential nature of the meeting.My principal also told me about times when he has received e-mails from teachers about what other people have posted on Facebook and how he has gotten calls from the Board about teachers posting political messages on Facebook. In these situations my principal has had to have courageous and honest conversations with faculty members.17./5.2 Acts FairlyWhen a leader acts fairly, he/she does not favor one party over another. Fair should not be confused with equal. Equal would be treating every party in exactly the same way, whereas fair would be treating every party in the appropriate way. Because fair actions might not be equal actions, it is important that a leader be transparent and consistent so that stakeholders do not perceive differences in treatment as inconsistent and unfair. Stakeholders should see leaders’ actions as appropriate and deserved, even if the actions are not always identical. Some ways I have displayed fairness as a teacher are grading and disciplining students. I follow and cite the revised AACPS grading policy. I adhere to my syllabus guidelines. For example, homework is not accepted late which means I only take late homework when there has been an absence. I do not take late homework even if it is from a student who has never missed a homework assignment before. The only time I waive this is with a parent note and I only accept that once. Also, I follow the discipline ladder by moving seats, calling parents, and giving students a time out before I send a student out of class or write a referral. I am fair by giving students a 50% minimum if they showed a good faith effort on an assignment. Also I give students a grade sheet every week because I want to be fair and keep students informed of their grades so they never feel surprised about their academic progress. As an administrator one shows fairness by following the discipline ladder and varying consequences only as required by laws such as laws regulating suspensions for students with Individualized Education Plans. An administrator is fair by requiring all students to follow the uniform policy. Also, an administrator is fair when he/she follows the negotiated agreement and does not send a referred student back to a teacher’s class without first having a conference with that teacher. Fair administrators only ask teachers to cover other teacher’s classes when it is an emergency and then the administrator is certain to compensate that teacher by giving him/her that time back quickly. School leaders show integrity when they act fairly. 18./5.3 Acts EthicallyEthical actions are based on a clear understanding of what is right and what is wrong. To act ethically is to act fairly and with integrity. School leaders would do well to have a trusted mentor of their own, to whom they can go with any ethical questions that arise.The most prominent descriptor of an ethical school leader is consistency. With an ethical leader, one should never have to wonder what to expect. This means if one student gets in a fight and it is his third fight at the school and he gets expelled, then the next student to get in her third fight should also be expelled, even if her mother works in the county and is articulate and educated. When leaders act ethically, their decisions are not swayed by outside factors such as social status or clout. An ethical administrator should never act for personal gain, but always in the best interests of the students. One way I witnessed ethical leadership was in watching my new social studies department chairperson, Ronni Grimes. Mrs. Grimes does not use her new leadership position to gain favor with administration or to intimidate or patronize her department. She is supportive of her department and consistent. She uses her new leadership position to guide her department toward best practices without gloating about her position or putting down the previous department chairperson who left a lot to be desired. When one member of the department was struggling with personal problems about which I do not know details, Mrs. Grimes was there for her personally and professionally and did not share the story with other faculty members. An experience I had with acting ethically was when I was acting assistant principal. When students were sent out of class I had to treat the students consistently even if the student was frequently a problem or I had heard of the student being a problem. Another experience I had with acting ethically was when I attended 504 meetings. It is important that teachers are aware of the 504 plans and follow them or else we are not making decisions in the best interest of the child and we can find ourselves in trouble for violating a legal document. At 504 meetings, and in the past IEP meetings, I am honest about what areas of the plan I think are working or not working as well as what I think should be added or taken away. When you follow a document, you are behaving ethically and then you are able to give honest feedback about a child’s performance because you have been upholding the document as required by law. I acted ethically when I discovered that a child had an IEP after e-mailing the parent and the parent mentioning the IEP. No one in the school knew of the IEP because the child was a transfer student and the document got lost in the transition. I was adamant that the child be moved to co-taught classes because he had an IEP. Another specific time I acted ethically pertains to a female student I teach. This student is in co-taught classes for everything except my class and I feel as though she needs to have a parent conference and possibly be tested for services because I have such a struggle teaching her despite following her 504 plan as much as possible. I went to the guidance counselor three times, mentioned the student in IDT meetings, called her guardian, e-mailed her guardian, and contacted the school psychologist. I was upfront about being unable to fulfill the part of her 504 that says “reduced distractions” because she is in a large class at the very end of the day and there is not another teacher in the room. Finally, on December 11, 2012 I attended a surprise 504 meeting for this student where I was able to express my concerns to the child’s foster care case worker. The meeting went well and the case workers echoed a lot of my observations. I have not tried to push the child off onto the other social studies teacher because that would be unethical, but I have voiced and documented my concerns.School leaders struggle with acting ethically when they are inconsistent in their consequences and expectations. To be a trusted leader, all stakeholders must see you as consistent and you have to know that your every move and word will be the subject of scrutiny.ELCC Standard Six19./6.1 Understanding the Larger ContextMy principal always refers to “the big picture” in both private conversation and in meetings. This means he sees the school as part of a larger context rather than a building in a vacuum. He says that a leader must look at how the school fits in the community, county, state, country, and world. While doing this, he still cannot forget what it is like to be a teacher in a classroom. In this way, being a school leader is a balancing act trying to walk the line between the needs of the students, faculty, and staff while understanding the demands of the world outside of the school building. I know that poverty has a huge impact on our population. This is why I serve free breakfast to my homeroom every morning because we have a grant for free breakfast because most of the kids in our school received free and reduced meals. This is why I participated in the Free Summer Meals lunch bus program. I understand that our students often lack basic clothing because they come to school in dirty uniforms or say they cannot abide by the uniform because they do not have the required clothes. I know this because we have found barbers to come in and give free haircuts to students in desperate need of those. Sometimes my students are sleeping in class because they babysat a younger sibling all night or worked at a parents’ store and for the same reason the child does not have his/her homework done. That is one reason I give weekly homework so kids have multiple nights to get a small assignment complete.I understand the political impact of Dr. Maxwell wanting to win the Harvest for the Hungry competition because it looks good. Still, this means we are asking kids at an at-risk school to donate food to other kids in other communities who are hungry when many of our kids are hungry. I understand this is a political maneuver because I saw Dr. Maxwell talk about it at a Board of Education meeting when he explained how every school should aspire bring in as much as South River Senior High. There are legal factors that impact our building. We struggle with how to use our iPads because there are restrictions from Apple regarding app purchases. For example, we cannot use an app unless it is free or we have paid for it to be on every iPad. This is a problem when we are already trying to get money to buy enough iPads let alone worrying about purchasing the apps for each individual iPad. We can get in trouble if we were to sync all of the iPads to one computer when we have not paid the appropriate amounts. When a school leader makes a mistake involving the larger context, he/she must be prepared to face scrutiny and to resolve conflicts to keep the school moving. For example, one student was in her third fight and was not expelled as another student was for the same thing. The teachers felt this was unfair and unethical. The leadership had to explain that one of them had made a mistake in documenting the girl’s fights and therefore we could not expel her because we did not have proper documentation to do so. When this was revealed, teachers were more accepting because leadership was honest and we were able to move forward, understanding why the seemingly unfair action took place. Experiences I had with understanding the larger context were attending two Board of Education meetings. I was able to watch the Board members vote on teachers’ 1.25% mid-year cost of living adjustment. I heard the Board members make their arguments for or against the COLA and I listened to the two people who voted against it explain why. I realized that it is not the Board exclusively denying us money; the Board wants us to have money, but it is factors beyond it preventing us from getting money, such as the county council.20./6.2 Respond to the Larger ContextResponding to the larger context is being proactive beyond your own school building. A school leader should attend workshops and conferences to stay up to date on the world of education. If a new curriculum or test is coming down the pike, then the administrator needs to be prepared for his/her response to those changes. In other words, the administrator must incorporate the larger context into the school building and prepare teachers for what is headed their way. I witnessed our leadership respond to the larger context when they had to prepare for and take part in the Steering Committee Meeting. This meeting puts the leadership team on the spot to defend what it is doing in our school to improvement student achievement. The second day I was acting assistant principal for the day was because our administration and guidance staff were in the MSDE review in our library. At this meeting, they had to defend the various programs we have at Meade Middle and explain how those programs fit within the vision of MSDE.On a school-based level, we had to respond to the larger context when a large-scale power outage shut down all power in our school. When this happened I was in the cafeteria with the entire 8th grade, ready to pick up my students for class. The outage occurred because of construction taking place on route 175, but at the time none of us knew what had caused the outage. We had to safely transition students with the power out and we had to wait patiently for answers. This is an example of a last-minute forced response to the larger context, which in this case was the widening of route 175 due to increased jobs on Fort Meade.One change we are facing is the adoption of the Common Core standards. To prepare teachers for this nation-wide change, we have had a professional development session on Common Core and integrating Common Core into our lessons. This is an awkward time especially for science and social studies teachers because Common Core is clear for math and language arts, but the rest of us are waffling between the Maryland Voluntary State Curriculum and the Common Core standards. An emerging trend that administrators must respond to is merit-based pay for teachers. This is coming to AACPS for the 2013-2014 school year. Teachers are frantic and administrators have been given vague information. I learned a lot about this topic in my K-12 Education Policy with Dr. Stein in the spring of 2012 at Johns Hopkins University. Administrators need to be prepared for a shift to high-stakes evaluations and the changes merit-based pay could bring to the culture of the school. For example, if teachers’ evaluations impact teacher pay, then there could be increased brownnosing and political maneuvering with the school. This would also make it even more important for administrators to act fairly and ethically. Principals in Anne Arundel County must formulate responses to the salary step freeze that is going on for the fourth year in this county. Because this county is the only county in Maryland that has not given teachers their steps, school leaders must respond to the fact that teachers are going to try to find jobs in other counties and new teachers are not going to want to come to Anne Arundel County. Additionally, my principal informed me that the Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County (TAAAC) negotiated that any teacher transferring to AACPS must take a three step decrease. My principal told me that he expects teachers to begin to leave the school for other counties and the only thing he can do is to try to have a desirable work environment and hope that people stay. At the first Board meeting I attended Dr. Maxwell expressed this very perspective when he explained why he was voting for the 1.25% mid-year COLA. He said if AACPS does not get competitive with pay, then he is not going to be able to provide students with the best, most qualified teachers. I responded to the larger context when I voted against Amalie Brandenburg’s Board of Education continuance because she voted against our 1.25% mid-year COLA.21./6.3 Influence the Larger ContextAfter understanding and responding to the larger context, school leaders should try to be proactive by influencing the larger context. This means going out into the community and advocating for causes that are important to you and your school. It also means attending meetings and seizing any other opportunities to speak for your beliefs and advocate for your students’ needs.One way I am working to influence the larger context is in taking my Student Government Association to county-wide meetings for the Chesapeake Regional Association of Student Councils (CRASC). This is a great way to network with other SGA advisors and find out what is going on throughout the county in other schools. Attending these meetings also gives students of Meade Middle a chance to have their voices heard. My students were rather shy at the first meeting, but I think they were able to learn about issues that are important to students across the county by hearing high school students speak out. I would love to eventually see a Meade Middle student on the CRASC Executive Board as the Middle School liaison. It is my hope that by going to CRASC functions, students at Meade Middle will fully realize the SGA vision and begin to influence the larger context rather than only think about the school. Another way to influence the larger context is to attend TAAAC meetings. Administrators attending teachers’ association meetings show their interest in the welfare of their teachers and happy teachers will provide better instruction. By attending monthly TAAAC meetings, school leaders can hear concerns of teachers throughout the county to make sure they are following the negotiated agreement and not guilty of grievances going on throughout the county. It is a good way for a school leader to understand the larger context and see the big picture of what is taking place throughout the county.One way I know my principal influences the larger context is by speaking about our ROADS program and need for iPad funding at county-wide principal meetings. Next StepsI believe I have the skills necessary to be a good leader; however, I do believe I need more experiences before I take on an assistant principal position. In order to prepare for an eventual role as a school leader, I am interesting in becoming an Interdisciplinary Team Leader or a Department Chairperson.From the program at Hopkins, I have gained valuable insight into multiple aspects of school leadership, from school law, to family collaborations, to change theory, instructional practices, and nationwide policy. Looking back, I do not think there is an alternative program that would have taught me more. I realize that I am still young in my career and I would like to stay in the classroom a few more years so that when I am an administrator I can say that I was truly a master teacher first. Meade Middle offered my both my teaching and administration internships and it has been an enjoyable experience. In an ideal world, I would have been able to complete this internship without working full-time at the same time. For financial reasons, this was not a possibility for me. I think that I did a satisfactory job of balancing the two roles.To gain further experiences, I will continue to participate in as many leadership activities as possible at Meade Middle. I will also seek out administrators at other schools whose positions will offer varied perspectives. With my internship ending, I will devote my newly freed time to SGA, planning differentiated lessons, preparing for the administration I test, and becoming more involved in the Meade Middle community. ................
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