Visionary Leadership: An educational leader integrates principles of cultural competency and equitable practice and promotes the success of every student by facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by stakeholders.
To me, being a Visionary Leader means...
- I need to know what I believe, what is the current status, what is the dream, and be flexible about it all at the same time.
- What I think I know to be true will likely change, maybe even tomorrow.
- One version of clarity will not be clear to everyone, and multiple versions of communication will be seen as inconsistency. Therefore, no matter what, the only path to successful communication is persistent honesty and heartfelt listening.
- Stewardship isn't about making people see MY vision; it's about communicating THE vision and helping everyone define their own place in it. It involves empathy and listening and meeting people where they are, and sometimes pushing them to where they didn't think they could go.
- Responsibility needs to be owned, but that act alone doesn't foster or guarantee trust. Trust takes time and comes from consistency and reciprocity.
- Implementation of a vision is when all the great ideas leading to action are revealed for their fallacy. It is when it is critical to keep sacred the ultimate goal, while juggling a multitude of revisions. Visionary leaders should be comfortable with mess, be able to seemingly improvise with intention, and have strong reflective roots to keep them grounded in work that might appear far off its target. There are many paths to the same place.
Experience Artifacts: Math Curriculum/Materials Adoption
As Coordinator of district curriculum and materials adoption, I facilitated the Math Adoption Leadership Team. This involved behind the scenes planning, co-facilitation during leadership meetings, and supporting math teachers as facilitators during math adoption committee meetings. Below is a sample of the documents I created as part of this work.
Experience Artifacts: Professional Development Website
As creator of the Verge Learning professional development website concept and project manager of the website's initial design development, I worked with internal and external IT and web development staff to see the brainstorm become a living frame. I also worked with curriculum specialists to develop content for the website. Below is a sample of work I created as part of this process.
Experience Artifacts: Science Study Team
As Coordinator of district curriculum and materials adoption, I started the initial work for the new science adoption cycle by facilitating the Science Leadership Team in the development of a Science Study Team plan and budget proposal. Below are the documents I organized to present to district leadership as the culmination of that work.
Experience Artifacts: CCSS for Elementary
As a Common Core State Standards "expert" I created and facilitated CCSS introduction experiences for Elementary Leadership Teams, and individual elementary school staff as requested. Below is a sample of the work I created for one elementary school.
Experience Artifacts: Secondary Leadership PLC
I worked with district leadership to design and facilitate monthly professional development workshops for Secondary Leadership Teams. The goals were to enhance their use of building PLCs (Professional Learning Communities), develop and empower new teacher leaders, align content standards by course across the district, and build a base capacity to transition to a standards-based teaching and learning system. Below is a sample of documents and presentations I created as part of this work.
Experience Artifacts: New Employee Orientation
I designed and facilitated the presentation to all new district employees about the district vision for teaching and learning. Below is the presentation slide show.
| Standards-Based Teaching & Learning in HSD-New Employee Workshop with Erin's notes |