Brandman University Technology Badges

Almost at the end of this MAELA program! Finishing up my Demonstration of Mastery Portfolio, Demonstration of Mastery Project, Video Journals, and Blogs. What a long year and half journey this has been. Reflecting back on my assignments as I upload them into my portfolio, I realize the depth and breadth of knowledge this program covers regarding leadership. This blog entry is extra special because it is one of my final entries. My task is to provide a virtual tour of my blog and showcase my technology badges earned. I truly enjoyed this blog, I was able to post my thoughts, feelings, opinions, and ideas about education and leadership. I also incorporated some humorous memes that demonstrate clearly the life of a teacher. Below are my earned tech badges which I am proud to demonstrate mastery with a variety of technology tools that are beneficial for education and instruction. Some of the technology caused slight frustration when trying to learn how to navigate a new program but I persevered and made sure to complete a quality project using the technology. I have learned that to stay relevant in education I must continue to learn and I challenge myself and my skills, earning the tech badges was a challenge and moreso completing each of the courses offered in the MAELA program, on time and with passing grades is my most memorable feats. There were many sleepless nights, tireless work days, and never ending APA edits and revisions to my theory papers but in the end I somehow, someway, with the support of my family, friends, and AMAZON PRIME (saved me every time I ordered my textbooks last minute) manage to complete this program...well almost, we have our DOM presentation in a few weeks...and then I will let everyone know!

Reflective Practitioner Video Journal

Flipped Professional Development PREZI

I wanted to share my PREZI PD. I was proud because I hated using PREZI the first few times as a presentation platform. I think it was the need to learn a new software program. But now that I am more comfortable, I love using this to present information. Here is an assignment for EDAD 616 that I just completed.

Later Start Times for School

> https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/af/dd/dd/afdddd164b88a69d031738073ffd24b6.jpg My school board voted unanimously to “help middle and high schools that want to start classes later.” Based on the recommendations made by the American Academy of Pediatrics, their study found that starting school 8:30 am or later would improve the health of teenage students by aligning school schedules to their biological sleep rhythms. Many parents are in favor of the later start time to give their children more time to participate in extracurricular activities and keep up with homework. They believe the later start time can provide more energy and alertness for the student. Some of the challenges to a later start time is the logistics of transportation for students and if the district has enough resources to allocate for the differing start and later end times. Also, for working parents or parents that have other children in elementary or middle school might have challenges with pick up and drop off. As a teacher at a high school, I prefer the early start time of 7:30 AM. Teenagers love to stay up late and I think giving them extra time to sleep in and start the day later is not going to make that huge of a difference in academic performance. We are only looking at about 1-hour difference in time. I think it is a reality of life to have to get up in the morning and make it to work on time. I do not agree with adjusting the start time for middle and high school students. I think it is good preparation for the real world. No job is going to adjust their hours to accommodate their employees, why should we do this when they are so close to becoming adults? What are your thoughts on having later start times for middle and high school students to accommodate their biological sleep rhythms?

Clinical Observation of a very dry subject: IEP Paperwork

Meaning/Observed Perspective of Participants I was able to meet with the trainers for about one hour prior to the staff development training. We discussed the process of how and why the training was developed. The District Resource teachers work directly with the school sites administrators and special education departments. They received overwhelming feedback of the frustrations teachers had when working on IEPs with the new software program. There were many glitches and issues with calculating the LRE. The District SPED office did a random check of IEP’s and LRE calculations, pulling 2 from every school site and found that calculations were inconsistent across the district. Some schools used hours, some used minutes, some used days. There was no set guideline, policy, or procedure recommended by the district. With this information, the district office developed guidelines that are aligned with both Federal and State laws for teachers to follow as they use the new software system.

Google Classroom Platform

Google Classroom Code: o4abp7l Proud to continue earning my tech badges and improving my skills as we move further on in the MAELA program. Here is a link to a Flipped Professional Development Assignment that included a pre-assignment and actual staff PD. so much fun putting it all together!

National Association of Secondary School Principals

More information for high school administrators!

Professional Growth Observation

For EDAD 697 I observed an Induction Learning Academy Meeting and learned so much. Below are my notes and reflections on the experience! Meaning/Observed Perspective of Participants The Learning Academy purpose was for the participants to engage in meaningful and purposeful discussions with their colleagues about student engagement. I like how the district induction staff organized the activities to engage the whole group and then moved to small group discussion about how the general strategies apply to their own classroom and students. The district staff also approached our table to join in on the discussion, this kept us on task and provided us with additional guidance in our discussion. Direct Quotes Large Group Presentation addressing CSTP Standard 1: Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning District Induction Staff/Presenter Quote: “As teachers, how can we build on students’ strengths and interests to engage them in thinking critically?” This was such a powerful question that the presenter posed to the small groups. I think this strategy of using an open-ended question gives teachers an opportunity to self-reflect on their own practice. By being able to come up with their own conclusions is a much more meaningful activity as opposed to trainers or presenters just telling us the possible outcomes. My table used this question to delve into more discussions about analyzing student data, strengths, and needs and incorporating strategies to elicit student inquiry and problem-solving skills. This type of critical thinking is such an important aspect of student learning and involves a high level of self-reflection for the student. These Year 2 teachers were sharing their thoughts and ideas of how to reach their students and I think this type of support and collaboration builds a long-term motivation to keep learning and growing. This observation supported my textbook knowledge about providing support that promotes a growth mindset for teachers. I believe as a beginning teacher, this exposure of collaborative inquiry and guidance builds a strong foundation for new teachers to continue in the profession.

Data Analysis and ALSA

Discrepancy Summary Skill 3 & 4 Vice Principal Leszynski and myself agreed that I am at the developing/emerging level for Organizational and systems leadership skill 3, protecting the privacy and confidentiality of both students and staff and skill 4 following procedures and legal requirements. As an education specialist, I have access to student records that include grades, behavior, and special education records. I understand the legality of keeping this information confidential and respecting the privacy of the student and family. In addition, following procedures and ensuring we are compliant with IDEA (Individual with Disabilities Education Act) state and federal laws is a major component of being an education specialist. We must abide by the laws and ensure we are providing appropriate supports and services as designated by the students Individualized Education Plan (IEP).

Aspiring Leaders Skills Assessment Analysis

One of my most improved skill is in visionary leadership, utilizing multiple measures of data to develop a vision of teaching and learning. This year I took on a roll as a co-chair lead teacher for the English Language Arts PLC. One of my growth plan goals last year was to gain more experience in leadership type roles since my first ALSA assessment. We all agreed I was at the beginning level for skill 2. At the end of last school year, I volunteered to be a part of our School Site Council and took on the role SBAC SPED coordinator. Both these roles allowed me to move to the developing/emerging stage. Last year, our special education department found that the needs of the students with IEP’s were not fully represented in any of the PLC groups. When looking how best to address this, we assigned SPED department members to each of the core PLC groups. I volunteered for ELA PLC because I co-teach for 11th and 12th grade ELA and have developed positive working relationships with the ELA department members. This role has provided an opportunity to facilitate PLC meetings and guide discussions centered around student data and instructional decision making. More importantly, I advocate for our students with IEP’s when looking at student data and instructional strategies. I think this has been a valuable learning lesson in how to strategically present data and information to teachers to gain support and work together towards student improvement. We all agreed that I am at the emerging/developing stage for this skill.

Dealing with Challenging PD's and Teachers

i have always believed teachers make the worst students and after observing a very dry PD a few weeks ago, I was able to see this in action. The best part was one of the trainers was able to turn things around and get the class back on track and motivated! When observing the first hour of the training, I heard the comments and how frustrated they were about the new program. I heard complaints about how challenging the program can be when entering in calculations and how errors pop up and must be resolved before moving on to other parts of the IEP. Direct Quote from Observation At one point, it almost seemed like the trainers lost control of the training and everyone was just complaining. One of the trainers stood up and moved around the room and looked at each of the participants in the face and said “I completely understand your frustrations. I was an education specialist for many years in the classroom just like you. Our goal today to make your job easier with the paperwork so you can focus on the students.” Impact of being at Observation I think the Administrator that said this quote above did an amazing job deflecting the negative comments and redirecting the frustrations. By simply addressing the teachers’ frustrations and empathizing with them, she was able to make a connection. When she said she wanted to make their job easier with paperwork, I could see how the teachers became more interested in what she had to say. This quote was powerful because it allowed teachers to be heard and acknowledged. More importantly, the statement was supportive in the efforts to help the teachers. I think this made the teachers let their guard down and listen to the information. This observation was a great example of how to deal with challenging conversations and issues that teachers face. As an administrator, sometimes we might not understand the frustrations, however, these administrators were once classroom teachers and used this to empathize with the participants. More importantly, the trainers offered support to the teachers by letting them know how they value the time spent with students. By saying they wanted to make their jobs easier with the paperwork the trainers offered support and strategies in decreasing the number of hours spent on IEP’s. As a teacher, when I hear my administrators want to offer support of how to be more effective, I feel motivated to listen and see what they have to say.

ASCD Organization Information

Association of California School Administrators Overview

Just posting some research I did on joining Professional Organizations...hope this is helpful!

I just finished my Reflective Practitioner Journal Entry 1 for EDAD 616, one of our last courses before we graduate and wanted to correct my quote from Einstein. I did not quote him exactly in my journal and said once we stop learning we pretty much die...but had to go back and find the exact quote just clarify. I think being a classroom teacher for 16 years has helped me understand the importance of being a life long learner. I hope to contribute to our cohort by sharing this core value in our class discussions and reflecting on my many years of different administrators, both positive and negative approaches to Professional growth and learning.

School Growth Plan Board Presentation

Still trying to improve my technology skills! This is a presentation for EDAD 614 that outlines my current school growth plan, budget expenditures, and monitoring. I used the software program, Powtoons and really enjoyed putting the presentation together with graphics and music.

School Growth Plan

Testing and Accountability

I think only using standardized high stakes testing to determine merit pay, ineffectiveness of schools/teachers, or student performance is an unfair practice. In addition, making assumption based on results from one standardized test does not accurately reflect a student’s true academic capabilities. I believe standardized high stakes testing provides only a small snapshot of how that student is performing for that particular day or hour it was given. It is important to understand the many factors that can skew the outcome. For example, the student might not be a great test taker or the conditions for testing (large room, excess noise, etc) could negatively influence performance. There also seems to be a huge discrepancy amongst schools that chose to spend a significant amount of hours on test prep versus focusing on content area instruction. I think this practice can greatly affect equity and access for students and plays a huge role in increasing the learning gap between higher and lower performing subgroups (Cimarusti, 2015). According to the Washington Post (2014), standardized testing “highly underestimates the achievement and college readiness” for English language learners, special education, minority and low-income children. To ensure equity and access for all students, I think it is important to incorporate standardized testing as one of the many pieces of data to accurately assess or evaluate school/ teacher effectiveness or student performance. Incorporating multiple measures of data such as graduation rates, discipline outcomes, demographic information, and teacher-created assessments can provide a more accurate determination of effectiveness. Another important aspect to look at is the non-academic measures of motivation and perseverance (Strauss, 2014). These social emotional qualities can also be an important indicator for teacher effectiveness and student success. Using these types of additional data, to include high stakes standardized testing, can ensure equity and access for all students. Cimarusti, D. (2015). The network for public education. Resistance to High Stakes Tests Serves the Cause of Equity in Education: A Reply to “We Oppose Anti-Testing Efforts” Retrieved on June 4, 2017 from: https://networkforpubliceducation.org/2015/05/resistance-to-high-stakes-tests-serves-the-cause-of-equity-in-education/ Strauss, V. (2014) Washington Post. The myth of Common Core equity. Retrieved on June 5, 2017 from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/10/the-myth-of-common-core-equity/?utm_term=.fab4c60cf86b

HR & Finance Department Relations

My district is the second largest district in California that serves approximately 130,000 students and employs close to 6,000 teachers. When I interviewed my HR director, she confirmed that many years ago she experienced huge challenges managing such large numbers of employees and school budget allocations in both the HR department and finance department. She said only a handful of employees worked for each department and was constantly overwhelmed with the amount of responsibilities. This caused much stress for both departments and there was a lot of finger pointing and accusations of mismanagement on both parts. The business department accused HR of spending frivolous amounts of the budget on hiring unqualified teachers that leave the district after only a few months and ineffective retention support programs. The HR department felt the business department only saw them as numbers and not people. When it came down to budget reductions, HR always felt they would receive the brunt of the cuts. As I researched the amount of money that is spent on staffing and instruction, I found an article from the American Association of School Administrators that found approximately 61% of a school budget is allocated to staffing and instructional needs. This is a huge portion of the school budget that is necessary but does not leave much money for any of the other functions/departments of a school site or district. I can see how the HR department might get some negative press for always taking a majority of a school's budget. My HR director did report that relations between both departments have improved with our current superintendent. The district went through a huge re-organizational process to determine the needs of each department. In the last few years, there has been an increase in the numbers of employees’ for each of the departments to alleviate any undue stress and ensure effectiveness of both programs. The business/finance department responsibilities were divided up into smaller departments to ensure accountability. These changes align with our districts focus on departmental collaboration when working on the district budget. More importantly, the finance and HR departments are vital in creating and maintaining balanced school budgets. By combining the number crunching, aspect of the finance department and the face-to-face integration and relationships built from the HR department, my HR director feels that this has made such a huge difference in productivity and effectiveness of each department. American Association of School Administrators. (2012). School Budget 101. Retrieved on 7/7/2017 from: https://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Policy_and_Advocacy/files/SchoolBudgetBriefFINAL.pdf.

After researching about characteristics of a systems thinker and education, I saw many similar qualities of my district’s previous Executive Director of Special Education. With the movement of inclusive practices in our district, she demonstrated great leadership in the area of shared thinking within her district team, school administrators, teachers, and related staff. In her first year of leadership, she developed three long-term goals that were aligned with special education policies, best practices, and district goals. I think this was a great example of acknowledging the current challenges of our district and special education programs. At the same time, she kept us moving towards a reorganization of structures, thinking and beliefs that ultimately benefited the students. She challenged our district to always keep the big picture in sight yet she worked tirelessly with each of the interconnected parts and programs to help us make progress towards the long-term goals. She had a great understanding that transformational change was not going to happen overnight and was honest about the challenges we were about to face. She constantly reminded us that this change was an ongoing and continuous process (American Association of School Administrators, 2008). More importantly, she provided our district with the motivation and tools to lead the change by providing direct district personnel support and training to the school site teams. She also identified the importance of being transparent with the goals to the community and made it a priority to include families and community members in the process of change. She consistently attended our Community Advisory Committee that comprised of parents, community members, and families and shared the goals and proposed changes. She lead our district for 3 years and we were able to make great strides. Unfortunately, she retired but made sure the transition went smoothly by having an administrator that served with her during this time of change that had similar energy, experience and knowledge to continue working towards our long term goals. American Association of School Administrators. (2008). Systems thinking for school system leaders. Retrieved July 1, 2017 from: https://www.aasa.org/privateAssets/0/76/380/05888f8b-88aa-4290-b260-5a36b7cc54b1.pdf

Making Ethical Decisions

During my first years of teaching, I had a female student come in with a black eye. She was reluctant to tell me what happened. After some intensive prodding and questioning, she finally broke down and said her father had hit her. She was insistent that it was an accident because he had been drinking. As a beginning teacher, I understood my responsibility as a mandated reporter. I went to our Head Counselor to discuss the incident and seek guidance in how to report it to CPS. His reaction was disturbing, he said he knew this family well and worked with other siblings. He had filed reports before and it only made things worse for the whole family. I was completely blindsided by his answer. Although I could see how things could get worse, I knew ethically that the right thing to do was to follow the law and file the report. I walked away from that counselor’s office feeling strongly that reporting it was the right thing to do even if the parent would become more upset. Although I felt, bad that I could possibly be making things worse for the family, I think not reporting would be negligent on my part. I also think I could not live with myself if I chose to ignore it and the abuse continued in intensity. After filing the report, I felt strange when talking with that student and knowing that I might cause additional issues. However, I knew it was the right thing to do. After a few months, I received a response that the report was unfounded. This is when I realized that my only responsibility is to report was disclosed. It was not my job to investigate the incident. It is the role of CPS to investigate and determine next steps. I think I would ask myself what are my legal responsibilities as a mandated reporter. I would also reiterate that my responsibility as a mandated reporter is only to report the disclosure. The responsibility for CPS is to investigate and determine if there needs to be further action. Deviating from my responsibility would be breaking the law and much more harmful for the student if it was ignored. I think this is a great example of what Josephson (2005) identified in his six pillars of character as “having the courage to do the right thing.” I filed the CPS report despite the ill advice from a school counselor about making things worse for the family. Josephson, M. (2005). Making ethical decisions: The six pillars of character. Retrieved January 19, 2017, from http://www.josephsoninstitute.org/MED/MD-2sixpillars.html.