Standard 3: An education leader promotes the success of every student by ensuring management of the organization, operation, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.
Artifacts:
The following artifacts represent alignment with standard 3 by demonstrating my ability to manage the safety of a school as well as efficiently synthesize the litany of documents. These artifacts also demonstrate my ability to maintain the complex systems and groupings of individuals to ensure what has been implemented are effective and consistent. It is important to use the mission or vision to prioritize the budget, let it guide day-to-day decisions regarding spending.
Budget Projects:
I believe the budget may be one of the most important documents a principal has to deal with. It affects a school culture, it affects students and how we meet their needs, it affects teacher attitudes toward the administration and the district, it affects the communities’ perception of the school, and it affects how effectively a principal is able to guide people through these variables. In this exercise I was afforded the opportunity to learn a great deal about funding sources, district operations, school policies, the effect of enrollment on the budget, and staff needs. It really captured the extent to which the budget matters, and how a principal goes about dealing with the budget, talking about the budget, and ultimately deciding how to spend the budget impacts the entire school from top to bottom.
Crisis Management Plan:
This artifact was an awesome project that really solidified my interest in making emergency response procedures a high priority. In this project I was able to help our school nurse update our school’s emergency binder, design training opportunities for staff, set up practice drills, build emergency responder teams within the building, and ultimately rewrite our school emergency operation policies. This was an invaluable experience that underscores the emphasis on creating and maintaining a safe school environment.
Student Handbook Review:
I think that student handbooks should be written by, or at least for students. As I perused our school’s student handbook it read more like a teacher or administrator handbook. Part of organizing an effective learning environment for students means involving students. I believe students are capable of creating their own handbook and wish more so-called student handbooks were products of students. For this project I was asked to identify inconsistencies or items that caused me cognitive dissonance. This was a good practice in looking at things with a critical eye and focus on resolution of problems.
This blog is a place for school district officials to peruse my administrative portfolio without breaking their neck over a thick 3-ring binder. I have listed all of the ISLLC standards, letters of recommendation, and my resume below. You will see that I have written abstracts for each of the artifacts instead of providing each artifact and making you comb through it. However, references and full artifacts are available upon request.
