Standard 4
Human Resource Leadership

4a. Professional Development/Learning Communities: The principal/assistant principal ensures that the school is a professional learning community.

Each week there was designated time set aside during SMART Lunch for each department to hold their PLC's. In addition to departmental PLC's, we held Departmental Leader Meetings, School Improvement Team meetings and MTSS PLC's. One important part of our PLC's was the Self-Assessment that each member completed each quarter. This was a check and balance for each PLC to gauge effectiveness and ensure each department was on the same page.

I was in charge of the MTSS PLC's which were held twice a month. In addition, I would sometimes attend their departmental meeting just to be available for MTSS questions and provide guidance for interventions. Using the PLC Agenda, each person on the team had an opportunity to discuss any student's progress to ensure the right interventions were being utilized. It was during this time we would also discuss potential students for exiting the MTSS process.

4b. Recruiting, Hiring, Placing and Mentoring of staff: The principal/assistant principal establishes processes and systems in order to ensure a high-quality, high-performing staff.

Due to the teacher shortage post-COVID, hiring during my residency was an on-going process. At any point throughout the year we had several openings for teachers and classified staff. This presented a challenge when hiring. Though the need was sometimes desperate, we had to remind ourselves that it is better to hire quality candidates than hire anyone and have to manage their performance later.

I had the opportunity to participate in many interviews and provide input to the decision making. It was always the standard to provide copies of the resume to each member of the interviewing team well before the interview so that we could study their qualifications and get a good picture of the candidate before meeting them. I also participated in the Beginning Teacher program, providing ideas and materials for monthly meetings.

During our Human Resources class, we created a presentation for our own interview as an Assistant Principal. I used this presentation often as a reference guide when interviewing other staff at CHHS.

4c. Teacher and Staff Evaluation: The principal/assistant principal evaluates teachers and other staff in a fair and equitable manner with the focus on improving performance and, thus, student achievement.

This year we began a new initiative of Rutherford WalkThroughs. The county provided training on this tool during our Leadership session over the summer. The premise of the program is to conduct a five-minute snapshot of the classroom each week. Because CHHS has over 120 teachers, we divided up the responsibilities among our Administrative team of seven, rotating lists each week so that by the end of seven weeks, we had observed each teacher. Teachers received feedback through the WalkThrough system once we entered their data and made comments. It is a valuable way to compare people's perceptions of each teacher as well as let teachers know we are present and interested in their performance.

In addition, we also kept a shared spreadsheet of all regular observations, who they were assigned to and by what date they needed to be done. This helped us to stay on schedule with our large number of teachers and ensure we met deadlines.