Self-Assessment: Current State
Thirty-one years in special education, the last several as principal of an out-of-district school now integrated into Kean University, has built instructional and administrative competence. It has not, by itself, built a systematic mechanism for adopting and scaling educational technology across a special-education setting where students present a wide range of communicative, cognitive, and physical access needs. That is the specific gap this plan addresses. The vulnerability Brené Brown (2018) describes as a leadership asset, not a liability, is the honest admission that intuition and experience are not a substitute for a technology-adoption framework, and that building one requires exposing my own practice to critique from faculty, from the doctoral committee, and from the districts that send students to AHM.
Vision and Philosophy
Leadership that expects innovation from staff has to model the confidence Yvette Jackson (2009) describes in her pedagogy of confidence: the belief that intellectual capacity is present and simply needs the right conditions to surface. This plan draws on two additional bodies of research: Bandura's theory of self-efficacy, which explains how belief in capability is built or undermined at the individual and collective level, and Wenger-Trayner's community of practice framework, which explains how professional learning becomes embedded practice rather than a one-time training event.
Theoretical Grounding
Self-Efficacy (Bandura)
Bandura's (1986) triadic reciprocal determinism holds that behavior, personal cognition, and environment shape one another continuously. A principal's instructional leadership behavior shapes teacher self-efficacy, which shapes classroom practice, which shapes environment, which loops back into belief. Zhang, Siaw, and Jiang (2025), using the Educational Leadership Instrument and the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale across 459 teachers, found specific dimensions of principal instructional leadership significantly predict teacher self-efficacy in engagement and classroom management. That is a direct empirical link between what I do as principal and what staff believe they are capable of doing. Bandura also extended the construct to collective efficacy, the shared belief of a faculty in its combined capability, which is the more relevant unit for a school-wide technology initiative than any single teacher's confidence. This same anchor, individual and collective self-efficacy so the plan below is deliberately built to reinforce rather than duplicate that work.
Community of Practice (Wenger-Trayner)
Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner's (2020) value-creation framework moves the concept beyond “professional learning community” as a scheduling term into a structured account of how shared practice develops: through domain, community, practice, and leadership/social artistry. Notably, this exact framework was adapted by the IDEA Partnership in the United States specifically to help states provide quality education for students with disabilities, which makes it a closer theoretical fit for my AHM's cross-district, special-education context than generic CoP literature. Wenger's community of practice construct is the secondary theoretical anchor which makes it the connective thread.
Long-Range Professional Growth Goals
These goals extend beyond the current program year and beyond the doctoral program itself. They describe where this trajectory is headed, not what is due this semester.
Goal 1: Complete the Doctorate and Establish ES²TEAM as a Field Contribution
Defend and complete the dissertation on the CTE pathway for students with disabilities, then pursue at least one peer-reviewed publication or conference presentation derived from the findings within two years of graduation.
Goal 2: Scale Convergence Education Beyond a Single Campus
Move the convergence-education model, integrating emotional stability and social-emotional learning with CTE instruction (ES²TEAM framework) for neurodivergent learners, from a single-site practice at AHM into a replicable model that can travel to the satellite sites under development in Hoboken, Union County, and Monmouth/Ocean County.
Goal 3: Build a Durable Leadership Pipeline
Develop internal capacity, not personal indispensability, so that instructional leadership practices grounded in self-efficacy theory and the AHM community of practice persist and are transferable to future site leaders as the satellite model expands.
2026-27 School Year Objectives
Each objective below is a target, an artifact, and a timeframe. The plan runs on an annual cycle, reviewed each June against the prior year's targets.
1. Technology-Adoption Competence
● Gap: no formal framework currently guides how AHM evaluates or adopts assistive or instructional technology.
● Action: complete a TPACK-based audit of current classroom technology use by December 2026; adopt a formal adoption/evaluation protocol by June 2027.
● Evidence: written protocol document; faculty survey pre/post showing shift in confidence using new tools.
2. Collective Self-Efficacy Building
● Gap: no current measure of staff collective efficacy exists at AHM.
● Action: administer the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (or comparable instrument) to AHM faculty by fall 2026; use principal instructional leadership behaviors identified in Zhang, Siaw, and Jiang (2025) as the intervention target; re-administer in spring 2027.
● Evidence: pre/post efficacy scores; documented change in specific leadership behaviors (e.g., frequency and structure of instructional feedback).
3. Community of Practice for Convergence Education
● Gap: cross-district collaboration currently happens ad hoc, not through a structured CoP.
● Action: establish a formal CoP among AHM staff and partner district liaisons, structured around Wenger-Trayner's four disciplines (domain, community, practice, leadership), meeting quarterly starting fall 2026.
● Evidence: CoP charter document; meeting artifacts; value-creation stories collected per the Wenger-Trayner framework.
4. Adaptive Leadership Practice
● Gap: no structured mechanism currently exists for reflecting on and adjusting my own leadership decisions in real time.
● Action: maintain a leadership reflection log tied to specific decisions (staffing, technology rollout, district negotiations); review quarterly with a mentor or coach outside AHM.
● Evidence: reflection log; documented changes in decision-making resulting from review.
Specific Plans to Meet These Objectives
Professional Reading Plan
Reading is scheduled against the theoretical gaps identified above, not chosen at random. Fall 2026: Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner (2020), Learning to Make a Difference, read alongside the IDEA Partnership's CoP guidebook for special education, to finalize the CoP charter for objective three. Winter 2026–2027: Bandura's (1997) Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control, to strengthen the theoretical base for the collective-efficacy measurement work in objective two. Spring 2027: current issues of the Journal of Special Education Technology and Educational Leadership, reviewed quarterly, to keep the technology-adoption audit current with the field rather than static once written.
Seminars
NJECC Annual Statewide Educational Technology Conference (Montclair State University), attended for sessions specific to special education technology and IT leadership, next scheduled for March 2027. NJSBA Tech Conference, run jointly with the New Jersey Educational Technology Administrators, for district-level strategy on technology adoption. Build IT LIVE (Jersey City, August 2026), for exposure to K-12 technology implementation outside the special-education sector, deliberately chosen to pressure-test convergence-education thinking against general-education practice.
Continued Plan of Study
Complete remaining doctoral coursework and the dissertation defense on the Fragmentation of CTE in Special Education framework within the Kean University Educational Technology doctoral program. Attend the NJPSA/FEA/NJASCD Fall Conference (Atlantic City, October 2026) for Educational Technology maintenance. Pursue any Kean-affiliated coursework or certificate offerings tied to the AHM-Kean merger that would strengthen standing to lead the satellite expansion conversation with Kean leadership.
Creative, Holistic, and Renewing Activities
Time at the beach in Lavallette with family, protected deliberately rather than left to whatever is left over after work, functions as the primary renewal practice this year. Physical activity tied to a skateboarding and surfing, adapted to a 2026 body rather than a 1980s one, is planned as a recurring outlet distinct from work. Both are treated as load-bearing parts of this plan, not optional extras, on the premise that a principal running on empty cannot model the resilience this plan asks staff to build.
Other Professional Growth Activities
Continued mentorship conversations with dissertation committee members, Dr. Dana Mason, extended beyond the defense into ongoing professional relationships. Direct engagement with Kean leadership, including Dr. Sancha Gray, on the satellite expansion model, treated as a leadership-development activity in its own right since it requires operating in an interdependent, multi-institutional structure rather than a single-school hierarchy. Cross-district relationship building with the sending districts that refer students to AHM, since effective leadership in an interdependent world means the plan cannot be built around AHM in isolation.
Closing
Northouse (2021) defines leadership as a process of influencing a group toward a common goal. The test of this plan is not whether the language above sounds like leadership, but whether, a year from now, there is measurable evidence that staff believe more in their collective capability, that technology adoption follows a repeatable process instead of individual initiative, and that cross-district collaboration has a structure instead of a schedule. That is the standard this plan is written to meet.
References
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W. H. Freeman.
Brown, B. (2018). Dare to lead: Brave work, tough conversations, whole hearts. Random House.
Jackson, Y. (2009). The pedagogy of confidence: Inspiring high intellectual performance in urban schools. Teachers College Press.
Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice (9th ed.). Sage Publications.
Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2020). Learning to make a difference: Value-creation in social learning spaces. Cambridge University Press.
Zhang, X., Siaw, K., & Jiang, Y. (2025). The relationship between principal instructional leadership and teacher self-efficacy in student engagement and classroom management: A cross-sectional study in China. Frontiers in Psychology, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1589958