STANDARD THREE - CULTURAL
The school leader supports and builds off of the existing values and norms within a school to promote a cycle of continuous improvement for both staff and students. Please click on the black button to view the referenced artifact.
Standard IIIa - Focus on Collaborative Work Environment
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Prior to the start of and throughout our inaugural school year, the administrative team met with the Education Elements consultant firm to plan and prioritize school initiatives. By conducting meaningful protocols and experiences, Ed Elements helped our administrative team collaborate effectively in order to be purposeful in our decision making processes.
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As an administrative team at Alston Ridge Middle School, we participated in a training called "The Collaborative Operating System." This training put our team through a protocol that helped us develop commitments to one another regarding feedback, communication, conflict management, and more. The purpose behind this system is to then take these agreements and utilize them with other committees or teams that we engage in within the building to help them create their own alignment and ownership.
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This year I am the administrator over the CTE Department. I attend our monthly meetings and serve as a liaison between the department and the administrative team. This aligns well with our Collaborative Operating System structure and allows for us as a school community to build more alignment with systems thinking.
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Standard IIIb - School Culture and Identity
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During my transition between Apex Friendship Middle School and Alston Ridge Middle School, I completed this assignment on establishing a new school culture. I was able to utilize my experiences from opening AFMS to providing meaningful feedback and ideas to my eventual administrative team at Alston Ridge Middle School. My proposal incorporated a proposed implementation order for various cultural elements found within a school. This helped us define our identity and culture at Alston Ridge.
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In developing our shared vision, the administrative team created a list of "commitments" that we wanted each staff member to represent. We expect our teachers to do things differently, which truly makes our school culture unique. Feedback from stakeholders shows that the teachers who are committed to these expectations have helped develop our school identity into a strong one.
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One thing that is unique about our identity is the use of a House System. Alston Ridge Middle School is one of the only schools within Wake County to operate on a house system where students are placed into "houses" by track. By placing students in a house, we are forming community across all three grade levels and with adults throughout the entire building. Our goal is to ensure that all students feel like our school is a place for them to feel safe and have academic success.
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Standard IIIc - Acknowledges Failures; Celebrates Accomplishments and Rewards
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One of my CTE teachers, Rachel Berube, was nominated for the Diane Kent Parker First Year Teacher of the Year for WCPSS. To celebrate her accomplishments and the strong impact that she made in developing an Agriculture Education program at our school, I wrote a portion of her recommendation letter along with Principal Williams.
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I conducted an activity at one of our School Improvement meetings which gathered qualitative feedback on our successes and difficulties in opening a new school within the Northwestern Area of Wake County. This provided an opportunity for us to acknowledge areas of growth, especially from the perspective of various stakeholders. By gathering this feedback, we were able to be more intentional in decision-making processes.
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One of my greatest areas of growth during my residency is my ability to celebrate teachers. Throughout this school year, I have celebrated teachers by shouting them out at our weekly hallway huddles, writing birthday cards, and providing glows after informal walk-throughs. One of my favorite things to do, however, is to post on twitter about the wonderful things occurring within our school. I frequently bounce between my personal account and the school account to affirm our amazing staff.
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Standard IIId - Efficacy and Empowerment
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At Alston Ridge Middle School, we strategically provided leadership opportunities to as many teachers as possible within our school. Knowing that many of us were new to the year-round system, we decided to be intentional in developing a leadership system that had co-department chairs and co-leaders on grade levels. Doing this allows us to always have a leader in the building for every team, which helps us communicate more effectively and efficiently.
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At Alston Ridge, we want our teachers to be committed to problem solving and taking on leadership opportunities that are presented to them. Instead of making decisions for each of our teams and committees, we asked them to create proposals to send to us so we could provide them with ownership. Attached is a link to the original proposal sent to us by our Staff Equity formation team.
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One book that I read upon the suggestion of one of the Ed Elements consultants is Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity. Throughout the semester, I reflected on my use of "radically candid" strategies with my executive coach. Understanding how to give both positive and constructive feedback has allowed for me to provide teachers with intentional coaching. Ultimately, I have been able to empower teachers to rise to the challenge of being the best they can be for students.
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