Web viewVisionary Leadership Analysis (VLA) Part One: Pages 1-7 & Part Two ... Report only cohort-tracked trend data: See Below. 4th Grade MSP 2012-2013. 5th Grade

Katie DeFazioFall Quarter 2014

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Visionary Leadership Analysis (VLA)

Part One: Pages 1-7 & Part Two: Page 8-17

Part One:

1. Description of the School a. Neighborhood/Attendance Area: All students living in the Rosa Parks

Elementary community are eligible to attend. The current boundaries include the Redmond Ridge and Redmond Ridge East developments. Redmond Ridge is a newly developed area. Housing surrounding the school include: homes, townhomes, apartments and a 45+ senior living options.

b. Student/Parent SES, Ethnicity:The neighborhoods surrounding Rosa Parks are very affluent with a high SES that is typically above the average income for Redmond, WA. A large number/majority of the families living in Redmond Ridge work for Microsoft.

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c. Staff & Faculty Information:

d. Business in the attendance area: The surrounding neighborhoods hold a few newly developed business/shopping locations. There are several restaurants and food options, grocery store, banks, gas stations, gym, preschool/daycare options, hair/nail/tanning stores. There are also baseball playing fields across the street from the school. There are also a few business parks holding several different companies nearby. Redmond Ridge also now has a library book pick up and drop off center right in the neighborhood that is connected to the Redmond Library.

2. Mission & Visiona. List the district mission and vision: Lake Washington School District’s Mission

statement is: Each student will graduate prepared to lead a rewarding, responsible life as a contributing member of our community and greater society. LWSD’s Vision statement is: Every student is Future Ready: Prepared for college, Prepared for the global workplace, Prepared for personal success.

b. List the school mission and vision: Rosa Parks Elementary Mission statement is: Academic Rigor- The Arts- Laughter & Joy. Rosa Park’s Vision statement is: Every student is Future Ready.

3. School-Wide Visioning Processesa. Description of how the mission/vision/goals were developed: For Rosa Parks,

the mission statement was created back when the school was first build with the administrator and staff. Rosa Parks is an art infused school, and everyone that was a part of the staff when it was first built agreed that they wanted to include the arts within the mission statement. Years later, the mission statement has remained the

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same but staff members have changed. I am not sure that 100% of the staff has a buy-in to our mission. The vision statement was taken directly from the district and implemented as our school’s vision statement too, every student is future ready.

b. Description of how general decisions are made: Our building has a decision making model that is followed for majority of the decisions that are made. See below

c. For 3a & 3b include: i. Who is involved? See above. Advisory Team, Administrator, and staff are

involved. ii. Level of collaborative decision-making: See above. Issue goes to advisory

team, then advisory meets with principal. Then advisory team goes back and debriefs grade level team. Discussed and advisory brings answers back to principal and decision is made. Other times, after advisory talks with grade level team, it is voted on during a staff meeting (depending on topic).

iii. Level of Engagement? High engagement level from staff & advisory team.

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d. Description of how the vision/goals are sustained over time: To begin each meeting, our administrator reads our vision statement and norms to the staff. All year long we are looking at individual student data, grade level data, and school wide data. With this information, we are constantly making adjustments in our practice to help get all students up to standard over time. We are also constantly implementing times for laughter and joy throughout the building during the year with competitions, fun courage award assemblies and much more. I do however feel that our mission statement needs to be reviewed as a staff and tweaked to better fit the new members of the building.

4. Student Assessment Trendsa. Test Results Trends

i. Develop a table with a summary of results for relevant grade levels: See table below

ii. Disaggregate the data by ethnicity and SES

iii. Report only cohort-tracked trend data: See Below

4th Grade MSP 2012-2013

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5th Grade MSP 2013-2014

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***Look at the Red and Green circles to see cohort trending data: In both Reading and Math, scores dipped slightly.

b. College attendance rate (if relevant): Not relevant to Rosa Parks Elementaryc. Graduation rate (if relevant): Not relevant to Rosa Parks Elementary d. Student Behavior data if available (discipline referrals, suspension rates, dropout

data): Not Available e. Student attendance data if available: Rosa Parks Elementary has a 95.6%

attendance rate. 5. Relevant Specialized Program that may be housed or assigned to the school (SPED,

AP, ELL)

a. Enrollment %: See Above b. Achievement % ridiculed

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c. Impact on educational processes: Students that qualify for SPED have extra support during the school day. Depending on what the student qualifies for, there are several options to provide extra help. We have IA’s that work with students on plans in their gen-ed classroom. There are also safety net programs in place for students on 504, SPED and students we are concern about that we call “red flag”. This year, our school has designed a program that we are trying out for the first time to help meet the needs of students who have not yet qualified for safety net or SPED that are not meeting standard that teachers are concerned about. We have this program for reading and math. It is called Intensive Reading Group and Intensive Math Group. Teachers select a student or two that they feel will benefit from the extra 4 on 1 support with the key connects in reading and math. ELL programs within our school are there to support the students just learning English. ELL teachers and IA’s work hand in hand with classroom teachers to help provide support any way possible. This support could range from pull out time to work in leveled groups or helping teachers create visual schedules and cues for lower level ELL students.

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Part Two:

1. The purposes and rationale for a site/program-specific vision for learning.The vision and mission statement acts as the building blocks for a school. It is the

foundation that helps guide the administrator and staff members towards a common goal. In

Organizational Behavior in Education it states, “We define vision for an organization as the

ideal toward which the organization is focused, whereas the mission is how the organization

will achieve the vision” (p.14).

a. How is the vision consistent with the district-wide vision?

The vision statement for Rosa Parks is closely tied into the district-wide vision

statement. Lake Washington School District’s mission statement is: Each student will

graduate prepared to lead a rewarding, responsible life as a contributing member of

our community and greater society. LWSD’s Vision statement is: Every student is

Future Ready: Prepared for college, Prepared for the global workplace, Prepared for

personal success. Rosa Parks Elementary Mission statement is: Academic rigor for all

students- laughter and joy and the infusion of the arts into the academic program to

enhance the learning of our students. Rosa Park’s Vision statement is: Every student

is Future Ready.

b. How the school develops an inclusive shared vision that promotes success for each student?

When the school was built, the administrator and staff created the school’s

mission statement together. The infusion of arts was very important to the entire staff

and something that was agreed to build the foundation of our school upon. By

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allowing the arts into our academic program, Rosa Parks strived to use the arts to

enhance the learning of our students. Years later, the mission statement has remained

the same but staff members have changed. I am not sure that 100% of the staff has a

buy-in to our same mission statement that was written nine years ago. The vision

statement, ever student is future ready, was taken directly from the district and

implemented and woven into our mission statement as one in the same. The mission

and vision statement were never clearly separated into two. I feel that the vision and

mission statement needs to be revisited in our building and possibly rewritten. A lot

of times a staff may never know what their school’s vision and mission statement are.

Principals often enter a building and might be hesitant to revisit these goals and

rewrite them with their staff. “The point to remember is that the ongoing discussion

of the organizational vision is a crucial dialogue through which the leader and the

followers mutually engage in the process of forging the destiny that units them in

common cause” (p.14). The vision and mission statement is what should tie staff

together to form around a common goal.

2. How the leader builds a shared understanding and commitment among stakeholders?

In several class discussions this quarter we have touched on the importance of having an

administrator that is aware of the critical balance in decision making within a building. There

are situations where only the administrator should be the one calling the shots and making a

decision, and there are other times where the staff voice needs to be hear and their thoughts

need to be taken into consideration, allowing for a staff vote. In Rosa Parks, we have a

decision making model that the staff and administrator created for times just as I mentioned

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above. Every August, this model is revisited and staff members agree it looks good or will

edit it as we see fit. This model allows for all staff members to be aware of how decisions are

made within the building (See Part 1- 3b). Issue goes to the advisory team, then advisory

meets with the principal. Then advisory team goes back and debriefs the issues and possible

solutions to their grade level team. These options are discussed, additional ideas are provided

from grade level team if they have anything to contribute and advisory brings answers back

to principal and decision is made. Other times, after advisory talks with grade level team, it is

voted on during a staff meeting (depending on topic). When decisions are made as a staff

vote, this is done during Wednesday morning staff meetings or during our Wednesday LEAP

time. Members of the school know what to expect and how decisions are made so there are

no surprises.

a. The objectives and strategies used to implement the school vision?

Rosa Parks has found a few different methods to help implement the school

mission and vision statement. Each time, the staff and administrator come together to

use our building decision making model to cast our vote. In chapter 10 of

Organizational Behavior in Education it states, “First, empowering people to

participate in important decisions is highly motivating to them; second, broad

participation infuses the decision-making process with the full spectrum of

knowledge and good ideas that people throughout the organization have to

contribute” (p.281). The staff also decided to implement committees that go along

with the art infusion. We have an Art committee that staff members run. They are in

charge of managing the supplies in the art and science room that the art smart

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program uses. They keep track of materials and ordering new and nice items for all

grade levels and classrooms. We have also implemented a few after school clubs that

allow our students to continue with the arts after school hours. We have implemented

a choir, cub choir (grades K-1), and drama club.

In regards to staff members, we too are given professional development time

within our building to collaborate with our drama and music teachers on how to better

incorporate their teach points into our everyday work. Our drama teacher coaches us

as a staff how to enrich and support our curriculum. We have opportunities to share

how we would like to implement drama in our classroom and she will come and teach

an example lesson for how to enrich skills in our area of focus.

b. How systems are affected by a shared vision?

The systems within the building are affected in a few ways in order to instill our

shared school vision. One large piece to this is allowing the school to incorporate

drama as a weekly specialist. Our drama program is not included as a typical

specialist like library or music, a lot more work had to go into getting this set up. As a

school, we had to come to an agreement that our schedules would have to be adjusted

in order to accommodate the needs to add the program. Each year, drama is added as

an additional “class” for a grade level. By doing this, that grade level is sacrificing

lower class sizes for the opportunity for the school to have the program. The teachers

within the chosen grade level is compensated in other ways, such as an additional

drama time and extra money for the higher student body count. Another way our

school and staff accommodate to our art infused vision is donating our open space to

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a PTSA ran program called Art Smart. This is a program that all classrooms are able

to participate in. The wonderful art and science room has become the classroom for

this program. We gave up our free use to this extra space to allow this program and

all classrooms to sign up for an arranged time to use the space and supplies.

Having these programs then requires teachers to reach out to their parents and

sometimes even their community to help these programs flourish. Our drama program

recruits help from outside sources to help make their program the best it can be. We

have also used some of our building budget to send and staff member that wants to

attend to a week-long professional development seminar called Bringing Theater into

the Classroom. This company then comes into your classroom and helps incorporate

strategies learned at the seminar into their classroom in any subject area to support

and further the students learning in any topic- all surrounding the arts.

Another few strategies that were implemented to help guarantee that all students

are future ready are monthly grade level team meetings with our administrator. These

meetings are held to look at data surrounding our students and focusing on a subject

area and looking at performance and then coming up with strategies to implement to

help all of our students reach academic success.

c. How data, research, and community input are used to shape vision, plans, programs, and activities?

Rosa Parks is a newly built school that is in the middle of a very affluent

neighborhood. Surrounding Rosa Parks are several newly developed apartments,

townhomes, homes and businesses. It is still a growing neighborhood. Looking at

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student data and assessment results will show parents and community members very

high achieving students. Rosa Parks Elementary has some of the highest test scores in

Washington State for a public elementary school. Parents and community members

are very much involved in their child’s education and always curious to how we are

going to challenge their students because they are already performing above grade

level standard in several components (see Part 1-#4). Since students test scores are so

high within our building, it is very critical that teachers are proving they are able to

further student learning and success. Academic rigor is important for this community

and parents do a good job at holding each teacher to that standard. Also, by cohort

tracking student data (see Part 1-4Aiii), teachers and our administrator are able to

hone in on where our focus should lie and where we could use extra support to bring

success to every child and help them meet and/or exceed standard.

d. How the leader keeps the vision while still involving stakeholders?

To help sustain our mission and vision, to begin each meeting, our administrator

reads our vision statement and norms to the staff. All year long we are looking at

individual student data, grade level data, and school wide data. With this information,

we are constantly making adjustments in our practice to help get all students up to

standard over time. We are also constantly implementing times for laughter and joy

throughout the building during the year with competitions, and things such as our

monthly courage award assemblies where we take the time to look at and recognize

student achievements and accomplishments. My administrator does a great job at

allowing her staff members to have a voice and feel they have been heard. By

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allowing parts of the staff to be a part of the decision making process helps keep

grade level teams in the know of big items going on in the building. She works hard

to make our staff to feel comfortable and open in being able to share concerns, and

suggestion on how to improve our approach in furthering the success of our students.

3. How the vision uniquely serves the needs of students, staff, and community?

By looking at the data provided in Part 1 of this paper, you will see that overall student

achievement is high. Rosa Parks has won several awards for academic achievement. (See

Part 1- 5b)When looking at demographics you will find that Rosa Parks has a very large

diverse cultural (See Part 1- 1b). Not only is the student body diverse, our staff is made up of

teachers from various places, experiences and levels of education (See Part 1-1c). Our

school, PTSA and parents have put our heads together to come up with sponsored programs

and after school clubs to help give students a wide range of options for ways to help shape

them into a well-rounded individual. Our school often brings in programs to speak to and

teach lessons to our children as a form of enrichment to set curriculum. Our vision and

mission statement includes academic rigor, laughter, joy, the arts and that every student is

future ready. A large piece of this is “future ready” Several components go into being future

ready that is outside of academics and performing well on a test. That is where our

community, staff and PTSA does a great job at helping our students be well rounded and

have exposure to several different opportunities. Rosa Parks offers the following after school

programs: sports clubs (basketball, soccer etc), Taekwondo/ Martial Arts Club, Mad Science

Club, Chess Club, Aerobics Club, Keyboarding Class, Art Club, Drama Club, Choir, Spanish

Club, Homework Club and many more. Our staff and PTSA really pay attention to the needs

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and wants specific to our learning community which aligns perfectly to the mission and

vision statement surrounding Rosa Parks Elementary.

a. How the vision is used to facilitate effective communication, nurture and maintain trust, and develop collaboration among stakeholders?

Rosa Park’s vision of every child is future ready requires a lot of collaboration,

teamwork and trust within the staff, with families of our students and also with the

surrounding community. When the vision is the center of the work within the school,

every member and piece of the puzzle that goes into making a school will be on the

same page. It requires parents to maintain trust in the teachers to challenge and help

their child gain skills they will use for the rest of their lives and it also requires

parents to have trust in the administrator that she is overseeing that the teachers are

performing and following through with their many duties. It is critical for the teachers

to also trust within their administrator and parents too that the collaboration

throughout the year works to help the students’ success and ability to be future ready.

The vision is touched on at the start of every staff meeting by our administrator. This

is a great quick way to check in that our minds are all in the right place at the start of

these meetings where important decisions are made and topics are covered.

Communication, collaboration and maintaining trust within a building takes time and

work. This is not something that develops overnight. It is critical to have buy in from

your staff members that are working for and with you. If a member of your school is

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not on board with you vision or mission statement, it can throw off the entire flow

and purpose of the school’s workings.

4. Be sure to include a concluding reflection that conveys or addresses your own leadership dispositions towards this standard.

Successful leadership requires several different qualities. It requires the ability to guide,

direct, control, manage, and teach. Standard one really hones in on promoting success for all

students through a vision that is shared and supported by the school community. A piece that

as a future leader I would really work hard to incorporate is the fact that it is a topic that

needs revisiting each year in August. A school mission and vision statement is what drives

the school. Every staff member and parent should be aware of the school’s mission

statement. I also believe that each year brings change within a building. I feel it is only smart

to start each school year in August, looking at the mission and vision statement for the

school. Collaboratively, it should be reworked and tweaked where needed to better fit the

dynamic of the school. In some cases, such as my school, the vision and mission statement

was created so long ago, that majority of the staff that advocated for it are no longer working

there. I feel that as an administrator, communication is key. It is also important to obtain

negotiating and problem solving skills when staff members disagree. I also believe that as a

leader, your school vision should be high standards of learning and should always include not

only the staff at the school, but the members of the surrounding community as well. All the

components that were researched in Part 1 of this paper factor into a successful school that is

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run and built on a mission and vision statement that the staff is united in achieving. There

also needs to be a way to prove or show that progress is made towards this vision as well.

There needs to be some type of proof to show exactly how as an administrator you are

helping your staff strive for achieving the mission and vision statement for the building.

Overall I feel the most important piece of this standard is to communicate with your staff at

the beginning of the school year to either go over or be open to revising the school vision and

mission statement and make it known for all, allowing staff, parents and community

members to be on the same page to help ensure success for all students.

Citations:

Home - Rosa Parks Elementary. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://www.lwsd.org/school/rosaparks/Pages/default.aspx

Owens, R. (1981). Organizational behavior in education (2d ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall

Washington State Report Card. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/summary.aspx?groupLevel=District&schoolId=5324&reportLevel=School&orgLinkId=5324&yrs=&year=2006-07

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http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/summary.aspx?groupLevel=District&schoolId=5324&reportLevel=School&orgLinkId=5324&yrs=&year=2006-07



http://www.lwsd.org/school/rosaparks/Pages/default.aspx

Documents

Web viewVisionary Leadership Analysis (VLA) Part One: Pages 1-7 & Part Two ... Report only cohort-tracked trend data: See Below. 4th Grade MSP 2012-2013. 5th Grade