School executives will create conditions that result in strategically re-imaging the school's vision, mission, and goals in the 21st century. Understanding that schools ideally prepare students for an unseen but not altogether unpredictable future, the leader creates a climate of inquiry that challenges the school community to continually re-purpse itself by building on its core values and beliefs about its preferred future and then developing a pathway to reach it.
1a. School Vision, Mission and Strategic Goals: The school's identity, in part, is derived from the vision, mission, values, beliefs and goals of the school, the processes used to establish these attributes and the ways they are embodied in the life of the school community.
During my time at CHHS, the School Improvement Team had three goals set forth by the county.
Goal #1: CHHS will improve the overall school performance composite by 10 percentage points (from 49.6 to 59.6).
Goal #2: CHHS will improve the achievement scores of our ELL subgroup by 5 percentage points (from 11.1 to 16.2).
Goal #3: CHHS will increase the percentage of students who respond favorably by 5 percentage points to "Sense of Belonging" on the Panorama Student Survey (from 32% to 37%).
I served on the Goal #2 committee who focused on the MTSS process and how we can serve our ELL subgroup by providing relevant interventions; tracking the progress of these students in the Panorama platform.
At the beginning of the second semester, the SIT team formed a sub-committee to re-vamp the Vision and Mission of CHHS to align more properly to our new goals.
1b. Leading Change: The school executive articulates a vision, and implementation strateges, for improvements and changes which result in improved achievement for all students.
Implementing MTSS at the High School level is my Problem of Practice as well as a great example of leading change. With my elementary experience in MTSS, I was able to bring real-life examples of procedures, problem solving, examples, and proven results.
We started from the ground up; defining the processes and procedures for identifying students currently on plans and needing to be put on plans based on Middle School data and benchmark tests. We then used the teachers for Foundations of English and Math 180 as our interventionists and provided training. Interventions began in the late Fall with progress monitoring updated in the Panorama platform monthly.
When we began, 147 students were on MTSS plans. To date, 67 have been exited from the program and all are making substantial progress towards their efficiency goals.
In February, 2022 I was recognized by the county as a Peer Advisor for MTSS.
1c. School Improvement Plan: The school improvement plan provides the structure for the vision, values, goals and changes necessary for improved achievement for all students.
School Improvement Team meetings were held twice monthly every-other Wedensday. As a member of the SIT team, I served on the Goal 2 Committee for improving the achievement scores for our ELL students. One meeting a month was a workshop session with the Goal Team to update progress and refine processes if necessary.
These workshops evolved into our MTSS DPST meetings which paralleled the Goal, had the same members as the Goal Team and was a monthly requirement for MTSS. During this time, we would check progress monitoring in Panorama and as a team determine if students needed to continue the interventions, exit MTSS, or move to more intensive interventions.
1d. Distributive Leadership: The school executive creates and utilizes processes to distribute leadership and decision-making throughout the school.
With a school the size of Corinth Holders High School, there is an equally large Administrative Team. My mentor Principal divided up responsibilities among himself and the five other Assistant Principals at the beginning of the year. When I was added as their Intern, (making me number six), some of the responsibilities became shared with me.
The Freshman class this year is the largest in CHHS history. I took on shared responsibility for 9th grade discipline as well as bus discipline. Other areas of responsibility included back-up for daily bus operations, auditorium supervisor during morning arrivals, cafeteria supervision during a 3-block SMART Lunch, 504 and IEP plan organization, MTSS administrator, transition station, weekly WalkThroughs, and athletic duty coverage as assigned.
Half-way through the year, we had one Assistant Principal leave the school. I took on almost all of his Administrative Responsibilities which included eleventh grade discipline, Fine Arts PLC's, duty stations, FlexTime manager point of contact and COVID protocol administration for new cases.