Reflect

1. At which level (emerging, developing, performing, or transforming) in the progressions do you NOW place yourself for each of your foru chosen competencies? Name each competency.

Overarching Competency #1 Personal Effectiveness: Transforming

Overarching Competency #2 Reflective Practice: Transforming

Diversity-Equity-Cultural Competency- Collaborate Purposefully: Performing

Instructional Competency- Coaching and Mentoring: Between Developing/Performing

2. How did the TLI experience- both curriculum and Capstone project- impact your growth as a teacher leader in each of your four chosen competencies? What evidence supports each of your claims? The first overarching competency that I chose was Personal Effectiveness. When I initially examined myself in this context early in the school year I felt as though I was somewhere between Developing and Performing. I utilized the rubric and examined the Transforming category repeatedly throughout the year, as I did with all my chosen competencies. I had to step out of my comfort zone to establish the school counseling advisory committee that would focus on disruptive behaviors. Initially it was very uncomfortable and challenging to plan the meetings, prepare information, get feedback on my ideas, and bring the team together. For years I have seen part of my role as helping teachers to respond to adversity and challenging situations or students, but this year as a result of this program, I worked to very intentionally and routinely meet with our kindergarten and 1st grade teachers, especially the two that were first year teachers. In developing this project I took some huge risks and really stretched my ideas and proposal with some of the ideas I brought to the committee. They provided excellent perspective, feedback, and expertise to these ideas helping to determine which were feasible, which were adaptable, and which were great ideas. Many of these practices that I developed were the direct result of going through the Teacher Leadership Competencies repeatedly and evaluating whether I was intentionally gathering the evidence to support being at the Transforming level.

I also chose the competency Reflective Practice. Initially in the fall I wrote myself a note that I need to learn to utilize data to find patterns. I was able to create the disruptive behavior survey for staff (Artifacts # 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, & 12). I created a lesson describing the expectations of the playground for all students and grades (Artifacts # 37 & 38). I also collected data all year long from my supervision of recess and then find a platform to report the data (Artifacts #32, 33, 34, 35, & 36) . I was able to use the data collected at recess to demonstrate an incredible transformation of the playground lunch recess. Many teachers commented on how many fewer issues their students were having coming in from lunch, there was a dramatic decrease in office referrals during or in the hour after lunch recess. In addition the data demonstrated how the interactions between myself and students became largely proactive and positive reinforcement of the lesson on expectations that I did at the beginning of the year. The positive interactions also reinforced the core characters and core values of the school. My ability to design systems to collect data, utilize it, and organize it in a meaningful way is a completely new skill set for me. I believe that I have achieved the level of Transforming this year.

The Foundational Competency of Collaborate Purposefully was the most challenging for me to accurately evaluate. At the beginning of the year most accurately could be described as Developing. By the end of the year, I recognized the necessity of being so intentional and persevering at the task of understanding our families, cultures, and students. This proved true for even students that were Caucasian, like me. I realized that even with the same ethnicity, I come from a very different cultural, socio-economic, and educational paradigm. Being able to connect with people and help them feel valued and respected is critical. I worked very hard this year, for the first time in my career, to get to know the parents by name, greet them at drop off every morning, and mingle with them at every opportunity. Even so I'm not sure how effective I was at this because it is so difficult to get out of our own frame of reference and not look at the world and assess my actions out of my own lens of the world. I also worked extensively with our Indian Education For All coordinator to continually process and learn better approaches with our minority students, and sometimes just to learn about families and backgrounds since she knows the families so well. I believe that by the end of the year I was at the level of Performing, with lots of room for growth still.

For my Instructional Competency I chose Coaching and Mentoring. As I examine where I have been in previous years and where I was at the beginning of this year, I believe I was performing at the level of Emerging. It was something that I have shied away from over the years, sometimes even actively avoiding situations where I would be placed in a position of authority. This is an area where I feel as though I went from almost nothing, to making attempts. I really tried to coach and support our new teachers, and teachers that were struggling. I even had several very deep and difficult conversation with staff about next year. I helped talk one teacher through the decision to put in for a transfer because she was burned out working at a difficult school like ours. I also helped one teacher consider and decide to stay at Ponderosa for another year rather than quit. I also talked one teacher through her guilt of feeling like she needed to request a different grade and teaching partner. She was struggling because she felt as though she couldn't handle another year with her current teaching partner. I helped her realize that this was actually a form of self-care. I believe that by the end of this year I was performing somewhere between Developing and Performing, which demonstrated a significant amount of growth for me.

3. What are your next steps to continue your growth as a teacher leader? Some of the next steps to continue my growth as a teacher leader will be the implementation of my massive intervention next year. I had to write a grant to OPI in order to get the Second Step Program. As soon as I get that curriculum, I will have to prepare my lessons for the 22 lessons in all three kindergarten classes, 2 first grade classes, and 3 second grade classes next year for the first weeks of school. I also will be working extensively with small groups, teachers, and working with a school counseling intern that has been assigned to me next year. In addition to the implementation of the intervention, I am collaborating with OPI to collect data and present my findings to them. I am also working with Robin Cormier in her new role as Professor of the School Counseling Program at MSU-Billings. We are working together this summer to prepare this intervention and to make it supportive of her Kinder Boost Program for her dissertation. I have spoken with Tanya Kirschman about presenting at the MSCA conference next year and reporting the results of this intervention.

I am also simultaneously working toward RAMP (Recognized ASCA Model Program) certification for my school counseling program (Artifact # 39). This process is extensive and I worked on it all year last year and will compile all the information and apply for certification this fall. Many of the activities for RAMP certification dove-tailed perfectly with the efforts I was making for my TLI Capstone. It provided structure for things like creating the school counseling advisory committee, action plans, etc.

Finally, next year I will begin a new leadership program called the Townsend Leadership Program, which is a 3 year process that takes candidates through training, interactive group work, professional and personal counseling, and goes through specific leadership models, books, and instruction.

4. What was the most valuable part of the TLI process for you? I think that the most valuable part of TLI was being challenged with new ideas, concepts, and expectations. The result was a journey of both self-reflection, and professional examination to assess my level of performance, identifying both strengths and deficiencies as a professional and individual. Part of this process was being able to interact and work with such high caliber professionals, instructors, and coaches. I honestly feel as though there were blindspots in my leadership that I became aware of, areas that I didn't believe that I could perform that I actually did perform in, and structured, intentional growth in areas of strength. I also felt as though being engaged in the process for a year, going through the stages, and continuing to engage made it so my retention of concepts, and consistency of implementation proved exponentially more effective than typical learning experiences from conferences. I can honestly reflect on this crazy COVID-19 year, and recognize that this was one of the biggest, most dynamics years of my career as a school counselor and much of that is directly attributable to the TLI process.