Mission Statement:

I am a wife, mother, and a teacher. The belief that everyone can learn and all children deserve the best education we can provide guides my practice. I live with the belief that I can always be better and believe every child should be given the tools to do the same. I hope to become a leader of fellow instructional personnel and instill upon them the belief that all children are created equal and deserve the best we can give them but we too mist strive to be better to make them better. During TLI my goal is to acquire the skills to be able to not only grow in my own skills of leadership but to better support my colleagues in becoming leaders in our school. My core values in education is to always put student learning first and to reflect on my instructional best practices to better meet their needs. My ideal reality would be to work in a school where goal setting will help teachers to reflect on their instructional practices so as to better meet the needs of the students and to do what is best for our clientele instead of what is best for us as teachers. I believe when we are a school full of reflection and digging deep into the needs of our students we will see our students successful as students as well as human beings and we will see our staff building confidence in their practices.

Foundational Competencies: Diversity, Equity, and Cultural Competence:

My goal in this compentency is to address inequity in the educational system of my school district as well as collaborate purposefully with individuals in order to create support policies and practices that give rise to equitable learning environments.

I began the Teacher Leadership process while working at a school in south central Montana that was 100% Native American. The demographics of the district as a whole are approximately 28% European American, 58% Native American, and 14% other. Although I have a teaching background in instructing students who speak English as a second language and students with a variety of disabilities, I placed myself in Emerging the competency of Collaborate Purposefully.

Emerging

I was able to recognize my weaknesses when it came to collaboration skills and organizational skills when interacting with other cultural groups.

I am constantly trying to self educate and in engrossed in self-reflection.

Evidence:

Demonstrate an awareness of differences between groups.

Recognize the need for flexibility and adaption and cross-cultural communication when interacting with other cultural groups.

Recognize interactions with individuals and groups of different cultural backgrounds rather than their own because of their intentional desire to understand different perspectives.

*I began my journey by taking the time to develop relationships with my 5th grade team members. We all came from diverse backgrounds, all different from the backgrounds of the students, and needed to understand the lense we used when working with students. We began weekly collaboration to give ourselves times to talk and understand where we were coming from, as well as share strategies to better meet the needs of students.

Artifact: Foundational Competency

Collaborate Purposefully:

• Conduct Cultural audit and or survey of groups to identify the demographics. Which cultures are present.