As an educational leader, I must have a vision and mission statement for the school that is known by the staff, students, and parents. The vision will address the needs of the students academically, emotionally, and socially. According to DuFour (1998), “ Those who seek to transform their school into a professional learning community as characterized by an environment fostering mutual cooperation, emotional support, personal growth, and a synergy of efforts.” The leader must implement a plan that will cultivate the success of all students. The mission will speak to the direction of the school community stating what the desire goals are. The building leader will lead by example. High expectations will be communicated and encourage by staff and students. The educational leader of a school must develop a culture of team work to create a climate that is student friendly. The vision mission and goals of the leader should be transparent. The establishment of common goals is the first step. Without common goals, sustainable progress will be impossible and thus everyone will have lower expectations. The students, parents, and staff should be commented to the goals of every child reaching their full academic potential. The school environment should speak to goal setting and high expectations for all students and staff. The principal should be the keeper of the schools good will and represent the school vision, so that the staff believes they are all in this together. The
The second key role for principals is stated in the title of Chapter 4 –“ Being a System Player”. Fullan qualifies this role by emphasizing that a principal shouldn’t pay less attention to school matters “but rather to engage outside in order to increase learning within your school (while at the same time contributing to the betterment of the system).”
A principal should be a leader of the school and of the community. This role includes many responsibilities but few as demanding as supervision. Ultimately the principal is responsible for supervision of the students, the entire staff, the physical school, and all school events. These
The first role in building a successful learning community is to formulate a solid base of shared mission, vision, values, and goals. These four are the building blocks of a solid foundation for decision making for school improvement. Mission or purpose is the first block and focuses on the question “Why do we exist?” The second block is vision or the direction the school is headed. It asks the question “What kind of school or district do we hope to become?” A values block asks “How
The second quality of an effective leader is to have a vision. The vision should also include the schools missions, purpose and goals. The principal should be progressive and constantly looking for ways to keep the staff and students motivated to work towards a common goal. As an effective leader you must continuously promote the vision. This could be done with a school created slogan that fits the community. Most people want to belong and feel a part of something successful or on the path to greatness. It is a wonderful feeling to be a member of a successful school community where people really
As an administrator, the mission is to use skill and dedication to build an education system, for my school, that will produce positive academic success for all students and manage a complex urban system with efficiency and effectiveness. With reason and prioritized urgency the administrator makes decisions that benefit the school, students, their parents, and surrounding community. Finally, such a mission includes the support from a staff that recognizes the importance of these elements.
I always thought I would be a teacher and I would make differences in lives and it would be the greatest experience in the world for me, yet being a teacher wasn’t enough, I had a need to expand my education. I decided that perhaps I needed a new career, however, I felt certain education remained my passion. I began to explore new areas of education and I realized I still want to be a member of a classroom, a school and curriculum. I aspire to guide those leading our classrooms.
In our school, the principal is the head of our organization and since she does not have an Assistant Principal, is the head all alone. She has been principal for 10+ years at the same establishment and loves every day. She stresses to her staff the importance of student safety, student achievement, parental
I am seeking admission to Concordia University-Chicago’s Educational Leadership Doctoral program. Currently I am an Instructional Leader with the Rockford Public School District. I would like to pursue a Doctorate degree in Educational Leadership to further my knowledge of the required leadership traits, essential skills and educational systems, practices and laws so that I may ultimately become a contributing member of a school district’s administrative cabinet.
Building leaders are tasked with creating and sustaining a culture of learning. School culture is built through administrators stewarding a school vision. As an administrator, the vision is crucial to leading change. This living vision provides a focus and gives intentional direction to the organization. All stakeholders have to be involved in the developmental process, only then will stakeholders be vested. A principal has to articulate the vision through their actions and words. Leaders
In order to create an environment where all members of the school community can strive to achieve a campus vision, a devoted educational leader has to start with the end in mind. That is, to initiate plans and develop a more effective school means that leaders can visualize what the prospective campus can become, and then work towards it. By recognizing where the ultimate goal is in relation to the starting point is crucial in identifying the areas needing improvement. It is also important to ensure the vision is shared amongst students, parents, teachers, the administrative staff, faculty, and the community at large. This can be done based on a set of core beliefs that all parties can dedicate themselves to following. In addition, campus goals
According to Ubben, Hughes, and Norris (2016), when a shared vision and purpose is present it is the one bond that holds everyone together. The purpose of a vision and mission statement is to provide a sense of direction for all teachers and staff before improvement can take place. Alice in Wonderland said it best, “If you don’t know where you are going, it doesn’t much matter what you do” (Ubben, Hughes, and Norris, 2016, p.56). If leaders do not have well-defined goals, it will be very difficult to begin the process of school improvement, because bringing about change includes implementing a plan and getting everyone involved in the process. In order for leaders to effectively improve the school’s culture, it is very important that data
After reading through the Louisiana Principal 's Teaching and Learning Guidebook and the Compass Leader Rubric, I learned that setting ambitious data-given goals and providing support to teachers is important in the future success of schools. The Louisiana Guidebook was created to provide direct support to principals in a way that best supports their efforts to lead the schools ' student success. As a leader, in order to be an effective decision maker within a school, you must be able to understand student performance results along with the school performance score. After analysis of data, school leaders must identify areas of need, set goals, and take responsibility for the growth of their educators and students within his or her school. School leaders must facilitate and support staff use of data to identify and prioritize students ' needs to set goals individually. SLT 's and learning targets must be written and aligned to those goals. It is the school leader 's responsibility to monitor progress towards the goals and assure that everyone stays on target.
According to the authors of this article (Donaldson, Marnik, Mackenzie, & Ackerman, 2009), principals need to concentrate on the development of skills and behaviors in order to be successful in motivating, leading, and changing the direction of a school. The successful principal understands that there exists a fine balance of caring for others and the need to accomplish specific tasks (Donaldson, Marnik, Mackenzie, & Ackerman, 2009).
As the leader of a 21st century school one must embody the qualities that best reflect the ever-changing face of education. Traditionally, the leader of a school focused a large portion of time and energy on typical managerial functions within the school. These tasks, although important, will not propel a school to achieve excellence. Today’s school leaders must be visionaries who create a sense of purpose driven unity. As a transformational leader, one must also be the beacon of learning in establishing and effectively cultivating professional learning communities. One must recognize and further develop the leadership skills of those within the school in order to ensure the vision and mission of the school is achieved. Keeping in
The principal must have knowledge and understanding of effective communication strategies when collaborating with staff, educators, and students (O 'Connor & Jackson, 2017). The teacher’s morale is ultimately impacted by the principal 's open-line of communication; therefore, the school environment affects how the principal is perceived by the teachers and staff morale can influence student learning. However, the principal should focus on developing a collaborative relationship among the teachers, which foster new ways of exchanging view points and ideas (Whyte & Karabon, 2016). The principal plays a major role in how effective the vision or goals are followed by subordinates. In other words, how the perception of the principal ethical and values are aligned with the teachers. Hence, collaboration in schools is, the result of teachers and principals working together for the end results, which are student’s high achievement in learning. When the skillful principals and the sagacious educators “walk the talk” effective leadership and the strategic guidance is a must in the collaborative community of succeed.