ISLLC Standard 2: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth.

Professional Learning and Continuous School Improvement

Statement of Purpose:  Providing opportunities for teachers to keep abreast of new developments and receive professional learning without overwhelming them

Questions the study answers:

1.      How should the faculty determine the professional learning needs of the school that would lead to school improvement, not just individual learning?

2.      What types of professional learning initiatives can be tied to the school vision?

3.      How will the professional learning initiatives be evaluated in terms of school improvement?

Situation:  IC has a diverse teaching population with varying years of experience and varying teaching experiences.  One goal of the school is continuous improvement and one way to improve is to increase your knowledge base.  Last year, the school began to implement the 8 Steps to Learning with a core group of teachers, then adding sections of the faculty until all the faculty was engaged in the process.  Instructional calendars were implemented and departments communicated effectively with each other.
            The principal, Mrs. Strong, is a strong leader with an emphasis on self-governance.  She encourages the faculty to determine, through data disaggregation, the needs of the school. Those needs can be curriculum based, schedule based, process based, and personnel based.  She also ensures that everyone has a voice in the area of professional learning.  Teachers are encouraged to attend professional conferences, but even more importantly, she brings much of the professional learning to the faculty as a whole, helping us to earn our Professional Learning Units needed to renew our certificates, while at the same time fulfilling the need for continuous improvement in the school.
            One of the most important professional learning opportunities has come through learning how to disaggregate the data that comes to us each year through the GCRCT and the school report card.  She utilizes the DOE CD that presents the data in a variety of areas, has begun the process (along with a committee) of creating a Data Room, and already has the meetings set up for disaggregating the data from this past year’s results.  All teachers have access to the data to help them determine the needs of grade levels, teams, classes, and even individual students.  With the enrichment class that was in place last year, even the Connections and PE teachers utilized the data for the students in Reading, Math, and Language Arts, depending on the enrichment class being taught.  This will continue during the coming year.  Teachers are also required to administer benchmark testing at least twice a year, once at the beginning of the year and again at the beginning of the second semester.
           The principal is instrumental in providing resources for improving professional learning and student achievement.  To determine the needed professional learning activities, Mrs. Strong utilizes surveys (both the Standards Assessment Inventory and confidential school surveys), teacher comments and/or interests, the disaggregation of the data, and through readings that she herself completes and finds ideas from.  From the previous year’s survey, Mrs. Strong has set up professional study groups that will be reading two books, Closing the Achievement Gap and Making Classroom Assessment Work.  The books will be read and discussed through not only face-to-face meetings, but through a forum utilizing our new elearn program adopted by the school system.  The minutes from these meetings and the forum will allow not only individual groups to provide feedback, but the whole faculty will be engaged.  Besides providing the ideas, she is also able to utilize allocated funds (through the Building Leadership Team and fundraisers, including dances, picture money, etc.) to purchase the books for the book studies, provide speakers in areas of need, etc.  New teachers have a mentor for at least the first year.  Veteran teachers moving into the school have a mentor to “learn the ropes at IC” while new teachers are matched with teachers who can best help them, often someone within their department and/or grade level.  The mentoring program helps not only the new teacher, but also helps guide the mentor and keeps them attuned to the focus of the school.
            Not everything that is tried at IC is effective.  It is all directed to student achievement, but all of the ideas, at times, can become overwhelming for the faculty and staff.  Last year, we began a mentoring program where each teacher had 5-6 8^th grade students to mentor throughout the year with activity logs to be turned in monthly.  We created a theme for the year – Discovering Our Roots – in celebration of our tenth year.  We also started a community outreach program where each team adopted a community service project. These were all wonderful ideas and were well received, but the teachers felt overwhelmed and Mrs. Strong and her assistant principals sat down and determined that while they were good ideas, they didn’t tie into the 8 Steps program, so the programs were discontinued at the time.  Some of them will be picked up again this year with some changes, but the focus will still remain student achievement.
            The faculty members are not the only ones charged with continuous school improvement.  The administrative team, counselors, media specialist, head custodian, and cafeteria manager are also completing a book study based on Good to Great by Jim Collins.  This is an effort to make everyone at IC focus on student achievement. 
            An area of need that was determined through surveys this year was the need for better parent communication and the new tool, elearn, will be utilized for that purpose.  Mrs. Strong will be utilizing the elearn program for the professional learning groups to reinforce the use of it and show what a useful tool it can be for students, parents, and teachers alike   Our grading program, IGPro, will be on the internet for this coming school year which will allow the parents to access their children’s grades.  Teachers will be sending out progress reports more often, and the elearn program will be utilized by teachers, including whole team information, so that students and parents can check on assignments and communication on a regular basis.

 1.  How should the faculty determine the professional learning needs of the school that would lead to school improvement, not just individual learning?
            The faculty determines the areas of professional learning through the use of surveys, both at the state and local levels.  Faculty members can bring ideas to Mrs. Strong through suggestions.  These suggestions can be based on data disaggregation, observation of programs, readings, etc.  According to this year’s survey, we asked for help in the areas of Choice (frequency, types, etc.), Learning (opportunities to practice new skills, program support, and deeper understanding of a topic), Evaluation (time to look at/evaluate new assessments), Learning Communities (whole staff meetings, observations, feedback from colleagues, and examining student work together), and Resources. We did rate favorably on the redelivery of training that has been attended. We also have a need to obtain technology to enhance instruction (which is somewhat limited due to budgetary demands).  

2.   What types of professional learning initiatives can be tied to the school vision?
            Any type of professional learning that promotes student achievement ties into the school vision, “IC works together to provide a safe motivating environment that meets the needs of all learners”.  By providing a better knowledge base for the teachers, they can help provide lessons at various levels and in various ways to meet the needs of all the students.  At our school, we have implemented the 8 Step Process, book studies (Closing the Achievement Gap, Making Classroom Assessment Work, and A Framework for Understanding Poverty), RESA presentations (classroom management, diversified instruction, etc.), the beginning of a data room, the implementation of benchmarks utilizing common assessments, and data disaggregation by all teachers, including Connections and PE teachers.

3.   How will the professional learning initiatives be evaluated in terms of school improvement?
            Evaluation will be based on the increase in student achievement, usually through looking at benchmarks and test data, and “course” evaluations at the end of the book studies.  Feedback is also given through the BLT and through teacher comments.  The surveys completed at the end of each year for the coming year would show if the needs for the previous year were fulfilled, also, because they will no longer be at the top of the “needs” list.  The focus of the IC’s professional learning program for this coming year, according to Mrs. Strong, is “personal, job-imbedded, and meaningful.” 

            The rating I would give the principal of IC is “Accomplished”.  She presents the faculty with many resources and opportunities to improve not only the individual, but the school as well.  These opportunities vary from a strong new teacher mentoring program to presentations through the local RESA to book studies to professional conferences.  She encourages teachers to take the initiative when they see new programs and often has them share these ideas with either the entire faculty or members she feels would benefit from the information.