Reflect

Reflect Questions At which level (emerging, developing, performing, or transforming) do you NOW place yourself for each of your four chosen competencies? Name each competency and the level at which you started and now place yourself

• Overarching Competency # 1 Interpersonal Effectiveness developing and trying to start preforming but I'm in the process of getting it approved by my union.

Through this project, I have personally learned that I need to seek my own opportunities to be come more effective when supporting my coworkers so they feel supported even we don't. I have made it a point to at least check in on each one of my colleagues in the morning and once in the afternoon to see how they are doing and offer my support to them.

• Overarching Competency # 2 Personal Effectiveness developing and trying to start preforming but I'm in the process of getting it approved by my union.

I usually just keep to my self because I tend to not want confrontation in my workplace but after a few professional training's I have learned that in public education we need to stand up for our selves and be our own voice or as para we wont be heard. I have been working on adapting to all situations to help with balance and work on my own resilience.

• Foundational Competency Collaborate Purposefully developing and trying to preforming. I have been working on taking more education classes that i thought might be helpful for different situations. We have talked about appreciation weeks in our classroom so like one week we shout out one staff member and do a little celebration of appreciation, the next week we do a different staff so on and so on. I know we all talked about gathering this summer to do a end of the school year celebration but haven't quite got that in stone yet.

• Leadership Pathway Competency coaching and mentoring emerging into ways to provide a coaching/mentor program. I want to gain more advocacy for our para staff but its been very hard with out the support of administration.

Honestly, I wasn't 100% sure what the heck i was doing at the beginning of TLI because of everything going on in my own personal life but now i have a project and I'm ready to take on my administration and get some support for these paras.

How did the TLI experience-both curriculum and Capstone Project- impact your growth as a teacher leader in each of your four competencies?

I will be the voice to hopefully get some things changed. Policy hasn't always been something I have been into but I feel like things need to be addressed. We are instructional coach that provides one on one or in small group to reinforce learning for kiddos with Individuals with IEP'S so i will be able to provide helpful tips that i have learned from different things i have learned from reading. I really have a connection with the articals of Supporting Paraprofessionals to support students with Individualized Education Programs (IEP'S) because it defining the roles and responsibilities as a para. One key factor that I really like in the artical it talks about the important outlines of paraprofessional responsibilities in relation of the teacher responsibilities. We have very out of date policy from august 2002. I can see where it talks about some responsibilities like we are an extension of the teachers who are legally has the direct control and supervision of the kids welfare and control of the students. But i feel like this year alone we haven't been doing this fully. 90 % percent of my day i spent worrying about when the kiddo was going to escalate so that i can be prepared. One of my third grades started to decrees in his academic because his support staff got moved to the other kiddo who escalated all day long. We spent from December to June with only 3 para and our supervising teacher.

What evidence supports each of your claims?

Emails and conversations that i have had with my fellow administrations, fellow union members and my colleagues. I also found a great artical about supporting paraprofessionals.

What are your next steps to continue your growth as a teacher leader?

My next steps are to get people to see the needs and concerns of our para. I want to address the concerns I have personally encountered with this year. I want to get a coaching/mentor program in place in our district and I want to try the appreciation weeks to show the staff that we care about them and everything they are doing. I personally feel like if the teachers didn't have the support from the para how would they make it through a day with 8 to 10 kids with IEP's . I want to continue to get the support from admin and other people in the district. I want to bring this to the MBI team and see if there anything they can do to help me get a coaching/ mentoring program at our school because when others are interested in the program i started, i want to be ready to share out how i got there.

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What was the most valuable part of the TLI process for you?

I have always loved digging deeper into situations that need to be changed. I feel like getting more support for para a where my calling is because personally, I have felt unsupported this whole school year. Every time I was injured and brought up my concerns they tell me it's their job to be here to support of the child and their needs. Where do our needs and safety for our self come into play? This has been a great learning experience for me and has brought me out of my comfort zone but sometimes i was ready to throw the towel in when life through a curve ball at me like when my 3rd grader kicked and broke my ankle and had to have emergency surgery and ended my school year on May 23rd. I was extremely sad because that means i was going to miss the last two weeks of school with the kids. I was also sad because this means i wouldn't get to see my 5th graders move up.