Secondary Principals Statewide Mentoring Meeting Thursday, January 30, 2014

Outcomes:  Grow your professional network;  Collaborate regarding best practices in MTSS;  Identify critical conditions for implementation of successful teacher leadership;  Revisit guidance on challenging legal issues;  Discuss best practices for hiring and building professional capital through the hiring process; and  Analyzed the Wheel of Life for a better leadership-life fit.

Grounding Activity What has been your district’s approach to the TLC grant?

Learning Community: MTSS What tool/resources do you use to support your RtI/MTSS process? What does a multi- tiered system of support look like in your building?

Success Analysis Protocol 1. Groups of First person shares his/her practice/resource/tool-- how it is used, why it’s successful, and/or what might need tweaked. Group processes by asking questions and offering insights (8 minutes). 3. Repeat steps two until all six colleagues have shared.

Break! Grow your professional network—choose a new table !

Creating Conditions for Effective Teacher Leadership

What would you guess are the conditions most important to effective teacher leadership?

In Search of Evidence…  Read the article “Critical Conditions: What Teacher Leaders Need to Be Effective in School.”  Circle those words/phrases on your chart that are mentioned in the article.  Add conditions from the article you did not have on your chart and underline those.

In Search of Evidence…  Review the chart “Supporting Core Teacher Leadership Skills: Principal Moves.”  Circle those words/phrases on your chart that are mentioned in the chart.  Add conditions from the chart you did not have on your chart and underline those.

Synthesize your Thinking  Review your chart.  Star the 4-5 conditions you believe to be most important in your building.

Standing Meeting  Travel in your mentor/mentee partnership and identify another partnership whom you do not know well.  Share your prioritized conditions and the rationale for each with your foursome.

Self-analysis  Assess your current position on the continuum  Assess your delegation skills

Two to Target

Reminders from the Legal Vortex Matt Carver, SAI

LUNCH !

Building Professional Capital: How to Hire and Retain the Best Teachers Carol Seid, West Des Moines CSD

Leadership-life Fit Dana Schon, SAI

By the end of this segment, participants will have…  Used a Life Wheel to compare our current leadership-life fit to our desired leadership- life fit, and  Identified an area for attention in order to move toward a better leadership-life fit.

Why the wheel?  Yields a visual representation of your current fit compared to your preferred fit.  Helps to identify the gaps keeping you from a better fit.  Increases awareness of how time and energy are spent.

Wheel of Life Example

Wheel of life Example Wife Mother Career Exercise Friend Recreation Spiritual Volunteer

Taking a Helicopter View  Brainstorm the 6 to 8 dimensions of your life that are important for you.  The roles you play in life : husband/wife, father/mother, manager, colleague, team member, sports player, community leader, or friend.  Areas of life that are important to you : artistic expression, positive attitude, career, education, family, friends, financial freedom, physical challenge, pleasure, or public service.  Your own combination of these (or different) things, reflecting the things that are your priorities in life.

Taking a Helicopter View Wife Mother Career

Taking a Helicopter View  Assess each area:  Consider each dimension in turn.  On a scale of 0 (low) – to 10 (high), write down the amount of attention you're devoting to that area of your life. You might also think of the ranking scale in terms of how satisfied you are with this area.  Mark each score on the appropriate spoke of your Life Wheel. Wife Mother Career

Compare  Connect the dots!  Consider your preferred fit.  Not a ‘5’ for each area—that echoes of that antiquated notion of balance.  Recognize some areas need more focus at any given time than others.  Leadership-life fit is unique to each individual—one person’s fitness may be another’s stress!  Energy and time are not in unlimited supply!  Plot your preferred scores around your wheel. Wife Mother Career Exercise Friend Recreation Spiritual Volunteer

Commit to Action  Note the gaps between your current fit and your preferred fit as indicated by your wheel.  Gaps can be both in areas that are not getting as much attention as you'd like and in areas where you're putting in more effort than you'd ideally like. These areas could be sapping energy and enthusiasm that may better be directed elsewhere.  Start with the neglected areas:  What things do you need to start doing to attain a better fit?  In the areas that currently take your energy and time, what can you stop doing or reprioritize or delegate to someone else?  Note your commitments on the back of your wheel.

Next steps…  Consider having a colleague or close friend complete the wheel for you so you can compare your perception with theirs.

Final Thoughts & Evaluation Upcoming learning opportunities: Evaluation: