For EDL 540, Human Resource Leadership, I chose to focus on Leadership Disposition #6: develop the professional capacity of school personnel.  My leadership goal related to this disposition was: During the 2024-2025 school year, I will assist with leading the monthly New Teacher Academy PLC at Fort Collins High School.  The New Teacher Academy PLC is a group of eight teachers who are either new to the teaching profession or new to Fort Collins High School.  The purpose of the New Teacher Academy PLC is to introduce new educators to the building and professional, providing professional development around the skills needed to be an effective educator.

This disposition and goal align with Leadership Competency from Transforming Professional Practice component 2a- Demonstrates competence as an educational leader.  This goal also aligns with component 2c- Promotes professional learning and growth, as well as component 2d- Supports school personnel (Strike et al., 2019). 

To work toward achieving this goal, I laid out the following action steps:

1.     Meet with instructor of FCHS New Teacher Academy (Dean of Students at FCHS) to discuss the role I can play to introduce new educators to the school, district and profession.

2.     Define the goals and purpose for FCHS New Teacher Academy.  Outline topics covered at each monthly meeting.

3.     Meet with New Teacher Academy instructor prior to each meeting to assign roles and responsibilities.

4.     Meet monthly with the FCHS New Teacher Academy.  Following each meeting, reflect on any adjustments to be made with the instructor.

5.     Upon completion of FCHS New Teacher Academy solicit feedback from participants to uncover areas of success and improvement.

Achievement toward this goal is in process.  During Module 4 of this class, I created a revised structure for the New Teacher Academy as a new teacher mentorship professional development, based on the preexisting structure used by FCHS, but I also incorporated ideas from other schools within our district, and evidence-based sources.  A proposed structure for this profession developed is presented here.

As the school year is just beginning, the New Teacher Academy has only had two meetings to date.  The group did meet prior to the start of school to establish a sense of community and to welcome our new teachers to Fort Collins High School.  The second meeting differed from the topic listed in the proposed structure.  Members of the New Teacher Academy conducted teacher walk-throughs, observing veteran teachers in a variety of disciplines around FCHS.  New teachers gained exposure to the evaluation rubric that will be used for their teacher evaluations this fall.  They were able to use the rubrics, along with the AVID principle of WICOR (Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading) to guide their observations.  This experience was particularly meaningful as it allowed the new educators to see a wide range of effective teaching strategies.  New teachers were reassured that their teaching strategies were not that far off from those that they observed.  As the New Teacher Academy continues to meet throughout the school year, the topics covered will mirror those of the proposed structure, allowing new teachers to learn about many different programs and services within the school and district. 

To continue to foster competency in the leadership disposition, developing the professional capacity of school personnel, I will continue to pursue the action steps listed above to be involved in the planning, implementation, and reflection following each meeting of new educators involved in the PD.  I will continue my own professional development around mentoring new educators by participating in a mentoring training offered by Poudre School District.  The professional development focuses on instructional coaching strategies around developing better communication, listening with empathy, finding common ground, and building trust (Knight, 2015).   Following the professional development, I look forward to participating in the induction process as a mentor teacher for one of our new educators within our English Language Development department.  In my experience, a productive mentoring experience for a new teacher can be instrumental in fostering a long-standing career in education, with student success at the forefront.

My understanding of the leadership disposition #6 has grown in that I have developed a greater appreciation for the importance of developing professional capacity.  Developing professional capacity is directly related to student success.  Student success is largely dependent on students receiving a high-quality education.  In a profession where teacher turnover is significant, having a program in place to educate new teachers is essential to the longer-term retention of those teachers and student success.  Having a mentoring program in place for new teachers, such as the New Teacher Academy, is just one important aspect to setting both teachers and students for success.

References: 

Knight, J. (2015). Better conversations (1st ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc. (US).

Strike, K. T., Sims, P. A., Mann, S. L., & Wilhite, R. K. (2019). Transforming professional practice: A framework for effective leadership (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.