Audrey Medlin -

At the core of all great leadership lies strong moral character. The role of a school administrator especially demands a strong moral code as one serves as the role model, teacher, and mentor for both students and adults. Audrey Medlin, Dean at North Saginaw Charter Academy, came to her role as 3rd5 grade Dean with this moral character firmly implanted. Through her work with staff, students, parents, and others on the leadership team, she consistently demonstrated integrity, honesty, compassion, perseverance, fairness, and flexibility. This served her well and was evidenced in the strong relationships she was able to build and maintain with those whom she works.
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Other necessary skills of leadership include a strong desire - followed by action - to grow and learn and a willingness to take feedback and grow as a leader. In this, too, Audrey has performed well. Among other responsibilities, the role of the School Dean includes weekly observation of teachers, weekly meetings with teachers that provide them feedback on their instruction, planning, classroom management, and any other areas related to their job performance. The foundation for being able to provide meaningful feedback is grounded in strong personal relationships. Audrey's team consisted of a number of teachers who were very willing to grow as instructional leaders in their classrooms and a few who believed that they already were very strong teachers. Maneuvering the waters of challenging each teacher to grow, even when they didn't want to, was a learning opportunity for Audrey.

Those teachers that were willing to grow excelled and became the highest performing teachers in our school. These teachers' students demonstrated an overall annual growth rate on national standardized testing that placed them in the 99%ile nationally. The teachers' learning curve included a steep trajectory upward as they embraced the concepts, practices, and ideas that were presented to them in both staff professional development and through weekly feedback, meetings, and mentoring from Audrey. Those teachers that were more reluctant to grow showed mixed results. Their reluctance

was rooted in their personal resistance to Audrey as a person and their personal belief that they had already "arrived" as an instructional leader. Audrey is a can-do person, who sees hurdles as opportunities and hindrances as challenges to overcome. Often teachers are of a more fragile nature and see hurdles as opportunities to complain and challenges as excuses for lower performance. Through all of this Audrey was open to feedback from her leadership team and the teachers themselves. Audrey demonstrated integrity, honesty, and flexibility as she listened, invested time in developing even stronger personal relationships, adjusted her practice as necessary, maintained a strong focus on student achievement, and yet gently pushed teachers forward in learning and practice. The year ended with strong relationships and strong academic results.

The role of Dean also includes working and planning with the entire leadership team, handling and following up on all parent concerns, handling student discipline issues, and sharing the leading of professional development for the staff. Audrey came to her role as the 3rd-5th Grade Dean with energy, passion, and a commitment to fully supporting her team of teachers and students. She extended this commitment by fully supporting the work of the entire staff. She was instrumental in providing and leading professional development rooted in cooperative learning, word walls, formative assessment, anchor charts, and lesson development. With Audrey's help, guidance, and support, the entire staff dramatically improved their instructional practice.

Audrey demonstrated perseverance balanced with compassion when we faced a charter renewal site visit. With scores below expected, especially for a school that has been in existence for more than ten years, there was a tremendous amount of pressure on the entire system to increase academic performance. While scores and results would not yet be available, the site visit would weigh heavily on our opportunities for charter renewal. Audrey seized this opportunity to propel her team forward instructionally, to strengthen personal relationships, and to support the work of the entire

school. Accountability was high as expectations for performance and goal targets were clearly set. Audrey did not waver in her relentless pursuit of excellence through observing her teachers and the teachers of other deans, through daily touch points to encourage growth, and through weekly feedback sessions to individual teachers. She possesses a strong visual picture of good instruction and was able to coach and grow her team to the expected level. The end result was an incredibly favorable on-site review, with an anticipated charter renewal.

Audrey again demonstrated her professionalism and flexibility when called upon to support the students in our lowest elementary grades. Our Kindergarten - Second Grade reading program was struggling; Audrey stepped in to provide guidance, lesson development, feedback, and mentoring of teachers. She managed this while maintaining professional relationships with all other deans on the leadership team. Through struggles, honesty, teacher tears, Audrey's consistent support, and hard work; the year ended with improved instruction, a solid foundation for instructional growth going into the next school year, and a more stable K-2nd grade hallway.

Throughout the year, Audrey demonstrated that she is a strong instructional leader capable of handling the toughest assignments. She remained positive, energetic, and focused on student learning results even in the most trying circumstances. Audrey has been a tremendous support to not only our teachers, students, and families, but to our leadership team as well. When given the opportunity, she will make a tremendous school principal. I have thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity to serve alongside her, learn from her, and encourage

Kathy J.Williams Principal North Saginaw Charter Academy