Socio-Political Context: An educational leader integrates principles of cultural competency and equitable practice and promotes the success of every student by understanding and responding to context and influencing the larger political, social, economic, legal, and cultural context.
What I have learned about Socio-Political Context as an Educational Leader...
- When a true partnership exists, the question of when to involve them doesn't.
- It is not enough to know a community; a school leader needs to be a part of the community.
- Follow-up during the change process is as critical as involvement in the planning stages.
- Schools need partnerships to provide the education experience students deserve.
- In connecting with others, leaders become actively engaged in the storytelling process.
- Fear can paralyze us, while urgency compels us.
- If I don't know you, that's my fault.
- A leader who works in isolation isn't doing the right work.
- "Tell me more..." is a beautiful, honest, and powerful phrase for a leader to know and use.
Experience Artifacts: Community Engagement Plan
There is a powerful relationship between schools and their communities. The following slides are part of a presentation of a comprehensive Community Engagement Plan for one school. The plan, specifics not featured here, is tied to current student data and the school and district improvement plans. It highlights partnerships between the school, students, families, and a rich variety of local organizations.
Experience Artifacts: Standards-Based Grading & Reporting
I helped lead the district's transition from a traditional grading system to a standards-based grading and reporting system. This involved research, district planning, and working closely with IT, principals, and teacher leaders. The images below are from a brainstorm with Executive Directors about how to utilize a student systems transition as part of the transition to standards-based grading and reporting.
Experience Artifact: Community Engagement-ELL Parent Night
In my attempt to become more connected to our ELL community, I volunteered to help at an ELL Parent Night. I ran errands, took photographs, listened in on school staff discussions with parents entirely in Spanish, catching approximately 70% of the conversation, practiced my limited Spanish when I had the opportunity, and walked away feeling empowered to know more and do more. It was the first time I had used my Spanish outside of the classroom (with adults), and I have made sure to practice more often since, even though it's still not enough.
Experience Artifacts: Pacific University Gifted Partnership
I worked with Pacific University on several projects: 1) as site-coordinator for their off-campus Gifted Education courses, held at a district high school on Saturdays; 2) to offer our teachers a discounted rate for their Gifted Education courses, for which I budgeted for a small cohort of teachers to take the courses each year; 3) to bring MAT candidates in to work with our students as volunteers during enrichment programs; and 4) I partnered with a Pacific University professor on a grant research project for Early Identification of Gifted Students. See the Inclusive Practice page for more information about the research. The professor who supported the grant and I co-presented the findings at the 2013 National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) conference. Below are resources from that presentation.