ISSLC Standard 3, Research Paper Example

Weekly Journal

School Administrators are expected to be versatile leaders, dealing with a wide range of administrative tasks.  As the organization is a living and evolving entity, equally the Administrator must learn to adapt and continuously learn and educate himself.  ISSLS Standard 3 was designed to guide and help this process. “Standard 3: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by ensuring management of the organization, operations, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.” (D, 2009).

It is necessary for the effective leader to develop certain managerial skills. The need to understand the Mission, Goals and Objectives of the Organisation and the necessary tools and techniques to achieve them. Further it is considered that planning, motivation and organizational control are at the very centre of management priorities.  ” Other leadership style inventories have been developed by Blake and Mouton (1994) and by Hersey and Blanchard (1996). Blake and Mouton’s inventory provides a measure of five different leadership styles on two dimensions as follows: people versus task orientation” (Clete Bulach, 2006).

Health and Safety at School remains a prime concern for Administrators. Alarming statistics indicate a tendency for pupils to bring weapons to schools.  This has resulted in victimization of both pupils and staff.  Key learning points include the need for continued professional development, the need to adopt flexible leadership styles and to adopt policies that promote the safety and well being of both staff and students at school.  The statistics on weapons at school and the recent spate of shootings across US Educational establishments are indeed alarming.  This has heightened my thinking on the need for stricter policies in these areas.

Managing a School District

Introduction

This paper provides the results of my interview with the School  Budget Director.  The interview focused on the initiative of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) as adopted by the School.

1. How has the NCLB initiative affected our School District?
2. Essentially the Act required that all Public Schools must administer a standard test across the State. These to be conducted on an annual basis under uniform conditions for all students. The objective to obtain scores to determine the performance of each student and ultimately whether the School had provided effective tuition.  The initiative had a considerable cost impact on our school in terms of making a number of important qualitative changes to eliminate possible deficiencies.  We had to enhance our communication systems and in particular the interface with parental control, making parents more aware of what they are required to do in order to support the learning process.  We invested heavily into bringing on more qualified instructional staff where we determined that either areas of weakness existed or insufficient expertise in that area. Finally we overhauled the support infrastructure to support the educational learning environment for the Teachers.  This had a significant impact in improving the qualitative aspects of tuition for both our staff and students alike.
3. How were these changes communicated to Educational Stakeholders?
4. We considered ourselves ahead of the game here. We already had a very good website, so we worked with our stakeholders to consider how we might improve the overall level of communications.  This identified the following level of improvements that we have now implemented:

• Incorporation of a bulletin board for placing notes and important news items;
• A page for frequently asked questions whereby common information items can be posted;
• A Chat room facility for online staff / student / parent discussion
• Incorporation of our monthly newsletter into an online format
• Monthly stakeholder meetings that incorporate both audio/visual facilities and the ability to conference call or dial in;

1. What kind of budget lines were changed or incorporated as a result of this legislation?
2. The Budget was most impacted in the areas of improving our teaching curriculum standards. In specific terms the adjustment of teacher salaries, bringing on additional staff – particularly in the areas of English and Mathematics, providing improved level of support facilities to our teachers ( including capital acquisitions in the supply of additional computer equipment, audio/visual aids, improved teaching and communications software). In addition we provided additional funding to our two main libraries in order to incorporate additional computer facilities for browsing and conducting research.
3. What kinds of professional development activities were added for preparation of its’ implementation?
4. We carried out a comprehensive training needs assessment (TNA) with all of our staff impacted by the change. This resulted in defining a statement of continued professional development for all of our teaching staff.  All Teachers to attend courses that we have built into a program called ” Level of Currency Training” ( aimed at ensuring all Teachers are at the top of their game and have a full appreciation of latest trends and techniques in their elected subject area).  Additional training was provided to all staff in the area of audio visual training and on line conferencing tools.  We have built additional purpose built facilities for conducting interactive online meetings and tuition facilities.
5. As a future Administrator what changes would you propose based upon which ISSLC Standards?
6. The School is examining specific changes in the following areas:

1. Standard 1: Improved vision and stakeholder collaboration – investment in new technology, improved computer technology, more integrated meetings with staff and stakeholders
2. Standard 2:  Considerable upgrades in Staff continued education, student welfare and improved learning environments particularly with latest technology.
3. Standard 3: We have completed a thorough assessment of our Health and Safety policies and made improvements in a number of key areas.  Particularly those relative to student welfare and safety.
4. Standard 4: Closer relationships with parents and interested committees.  More aligned meetings, use of technology for consistent information / communication feeds, additional capacity to “listen” thereby gaining direct feedback for our action plans
5. Standard 5: No current adjustments required at this time
6. Standard 6: We have updated our student advocacy plans to become more integrated and more inclusive amongst all of our community and stakeholders.

It is important to recognise that School leaders are not entirely on their own, relative to interpretation and usage of the ISLLC guidelines.  There is a considerable amount of online help and assistance available.  35 States in the USA have now formally adopted the standards and this represents a considerable user community for sharing knowledge and experience.  The Institute  for Educational Leadership (IEL) is providing firm direction for Principles and Senior School Administrators ” “the top priority of the principalship must be leadership for learning.”  (e-lead, 2009).  The IEL declared that there are three specific objectives that School leadership must fulfil :

• Instructional Leadership: This really refers to the quality of tuition and maintaining high standards of performance in the schools. As such it is important to be accountable for the end results and ensuring that the teachers are provided with the right levels of support to remain at the top of their profession. This means maintaining currency in the teaching skills by attending appropriate update courses, conferences, research and discussion forums;
• Community Leadership: The holistic role of the School in both Society and the Community. Ensuring that all stakeholders are kept informed of progress and that an interactive dialogue is maintained between parents, school communities, the governing boards  and the students.
• Visionary Leadership: Inspiring the Teachers, Staff, Students and Stakeholders that the leadership understands and appreciates the School philosophy, mission, goals and objectives. It has a true sense of purpose that inspires both students and teachers to excel in the learning process.

The ISSLC provides with its’ standards a framework that contains performance indicators for the Principals who wish to attain the requisite standard of knowledge.  The  National Association of Elementary School Principals ( NAEPS) provided a more integrated framework of ISSLC standards and prescribed that School Leaders  should know and be able to accomplish:

• Have a student / teacher centric learning approach;
• Maintain a high level of performance expectations and quality metrics to enforce same;
• Ensure students agree with content and instruction programs maintaining alignment with teacher and student i.e. joint learning objectives;
• Ensure that the teaching materials are from a diversified source. Do not build a reliance upon one specific approach or learning source of information;
• Ensure that the relationship with the Parents, Stakeholders, Teachers and Students is a shared one. This relates to responsibility sharing but recognizes that accountability remains with the School leadership.  This is all about communications, acceptance to school policies and getting others to share in the decision making process.

Conclusion

Overall the School has derived great benefit from the adoption of ISLLC Standards and revisions made resulting from the guidelines.  Whilst the NCLB initiative had some financial impact on the School, the overall improved levels of administration and control have greatly fostered improved stakeholder relationships and increased public awareness of the quality of our educational services.  Our push towards improved communications has achieved additional success with the local business community and resulted in two major sponsorship arrangements that have considerably reduced the financial burden on the school.

Works Cited

Clete Bulach, D. B. (2006, 8 21). Analyzing the Leadership Behavior of School Principals. Retrieved 11 6, 2009, from Connexions: http://cnx.org/content/m13813/latest/

D, O. (2009). Leading Learning Leadership Development. Retrieved 11 6, 2009, from DODEA: http://www.pac.dodea.edu/edservices/LeadingLearning/isllc.htm