Competency XX:!

Job Shadow Narrative description of specic task: Over the next several weeks spend time with the administrators at both the High School Principal, Dave Johnson, and the Middle School Principal, Elizabeth Lozen. The goal will be to spend a chunk of time, roughly 2-4 hours, with both principals in their buildings to observe the systems they have in place, see the things they deal with and how they handle them as well as have them come and spend time at Lockwood to see how things are run and offer input and suggestions for improvement. The purpose is to create a culture that both allows and encourages the exchange of ideas between the principals and buildings. Write a reective summary of the observations made. Process, Purpose, and Approach Observation 1: With High School Principal Dave Johnson from 12:30 - 2:40 I met Dave in his ofce where he was meeting with another staff member, a young teacher that currently serves as the MTSS (Multi-tiered Support System) specialist about what he was looking for in his future. I believe Dave scheduled it for when I was there because Dave made the comment that I had been on the same career track he was as a beginning as a teacher, coach, and thinking about becoming an administrator. The three of us talked for about 15 minutes about the opportunities available and then he returned to his room. Dave and I then sat and I had an opportunity to ask him questions about how he spent his day. I asked him what types of things he focusses on during the day and he said he really does very little discipline. He deals mostly with the juniors and seniors and as he put it, At some point they just grow up and discipline isnt really an issue. We talked for almost hour and a half about what was happening in the High School and specically about data, test scores, interventions, and the need for K-12 curriculum alignment. Dave pulled out a folder labeled Focus School, which the high school was recently labeled, and expressed frustration about the fact that he felt they were being penalized because they made such a jump in their ACT scores (showing they were doing the right things), but because that now created a gap between the high and low achieving students they were being labeled. Dave stated that at the High School level he did not feel that they were equipped to do the intense interventions needed for that bottom group because teachers already felt like they did not have enough time to cover the material they needed to and they were content driven, not reading experts. He also asked how we used data at the elementary level and how we intervened with struggling students. I could tell that his question was two fold; he wanted to know what we were doing both for ideas he may be able to adapt and use, but also to see if we had a plan for addressing the issue before they reached students High School without coming out and saying it. I explained how we used DIBELS (reading) data to identify struggling students for intervention during our PUP Time (a 30 minute block set aside to work on specic skills like phonics, letter recognition, word blends, etc.). I also explained some of the issues we ran into, such as the wide-range of exposure students coming into the building had when it came to reading and letter recognition and the big drop we see

over the summer between our end-of-year testing and our beginning-of-year testing that following school year (at the end of kindergarten 83% were on level, the following Fall that number dropped to 49%). All and all it was great to sit and talk to someone who has been doing this for a while, he may retire at the end of this year, and get his view on things. Over the next 20 minutes he gave me a tour of the building, went into some classrooms to talk about what types of things were being done. He answered questions I had about how often he is in the classroom and how much time he spends on evaluations (not as much as hes like to be in the classroom and he showed me a collection of folders he has for each teacher with artifacts they submit). The day ended by monitoring the hallway at the end of the day as students exited the building. Observation 2: With Middle School Principal Elizabeth Lozen from 7:00 - 12:00 I should point out that until November I taught at the Middle School for 5 years. I have a good relationship with the staff, including the Principal, Billie Lozen, who I lled in for on a number of occasions and consider a mentor. I arrived as Billie was coming into the building, we exchanged greetings, and the secretary let her know of a parent that called and wanted her to call her back. Billie already knew what the call was about and explained that yesterday she picked up the womans daughter who was walking to school by herself in 0 degree weather, wearing a thin coat, and gave her a ride. She added that to her list and we moved to the hallway to greet students as they arrived. The two of us greeted students for about 15 minutes and then walked the hallways as they went to their lockers. We stopped and talked to a few teachers that were in the hallways and had to hurry some kids to class after the bell rang. As we were walking there was some blood in the hallway that we made sure no students walked through until the custodian arrived. After that was taken care of the two of us headed back to the ofce where we talked with the MTSS (Multi-Tiered Support System) teacher that handles many of the discipline and scheduling issues. They talked about and divided up the list of issues from the previous day that needed to be dealt with and talked about things that would be coming up. The big things on the horizon were who would do the ELPA (English Prociency for those that have a second language spoken at home), the ACT Explorer, and getting the AIMS web data. Afterwards she had a private meeting with the Association Representative (building AR) so I took the opportunity to go and present information to the 8th grade students about the upcoming Washington D.C. trip. The presentation took about 10 minutes and covered rooms, what to bring, and getting them the itinerary. When that was done I went back to Billies ofce as she called the young ladys mother from this morning. Billie stated before she called her that she felt it was the right thing to do and shes sure a lot of it is the mother feeling like she was judging her on her parenting for letting her walk in those conditions and a fear that the daughter would get into someone elses car (I should point out that the young lady has been in the building

for 3 years so she has known the principal for a while now). During the call Billie explained why she picked the young lady up and apologized if that was something the mother did not want to happen. Billie was right on with her guess on what the real issue was and in fact the mother asked directly if Billie thought the mother should not have let her walk in those conditions. Billie said that was up to her and again explained that she was driving by and saw her walking by herself and was just trying to help the young lady. The call ended on good terms. Next there was a tornado drill that I helped Billie monitor and when it was nished I received a message from my building secretary that we were short a sub in the afternoon. I told her to keep working on it and let me know if I needed to come back and cover it. When we got back to the ofce Billie and I were talking about different things, her son, my new position, etc., when the Language Arts teacher came in with a question about GATES testing (it tests reading levels). The teacher is the department chair and there were some 6th grade teachers that wanted the test done before conferences, but in the past they had done it at the end of the year. The department chair didnt care which way they did it, she just wanted to make sure Billie would not have an issue if they gave it early, which she did not. Billie and I went and checked in on the lunch room, grabbed lunch, and went back to her ofce to continue our conversation. We talked for roughly a half hour about stafng issues, student numbers, student testing, issues with the buildings, and the next school year. I had planned on staying longer, but the secretary was not able to nd a guest teacher and I had to go back and cover a class. Lessons Learned: ! In both cases I talked with the other administrators more than anything else. We talked about a variety of things, but mostly they asked questions about my building, the curriculum, interventions, and what issues we had. At times they offered insight on how they handled similar situations. During those conversations it occurred to me that neither one of them had any idea of what really happens at the lower elementary level (in fairness I did not either until I moved over there in November as the building principal). Dave was a high school teacher before moving into administration and Billie taught 8th grade before she became the assistant and then principal at the Middle School. I knew that communication, or an understanding of what happens, between buildings is an issue that the district has been trying to address, but did not realize how isolated the buildings were. We have monthly administration meetings, but they tend to focus on issues that either need to be dealt with, or recently all of the snow days and how to make them up, but rarely address curriculum issues or just what is happening in each building. I also realized in our conversations how nice it is to discuss and/or bounce ideas off of someone who understands what it is like to be in charge of a building. Dave has an assistant principal at the High School he can have these types of conversations with, but the rest of us do not have that person in our building. In the future will be important to both keep and further develop these relationships to avoid feeling isolated. !

I also learned how difcult it is to get out of the building. It took several tentative schedules before I could actually perform the job shadow, and even then one was only a few hours and the other, while longer, I had to leave early because of issues in my building. Billie had made arrangements to visit a few different times, but things came up that forced her to stay and deal with in her own building. Even though she was not able to visit, we have had several phone conversations which she provided me a number of ideas. One of the most help full was arranging for substitute teachers so we could hold IEPs during the day instead of everyday before and after school. She made a similar suggestion for our BIT (Building Improvement Team) team to get the 40 indicators done, both of which relieved a great deal of stress.