Ashley Walser

11/27/16

EDAD 543
Assignment #8

Learning About and Supporting Colleagues in Role Changes

AWSP Focus Standards:
Criterion 1 Creating a Culture
1.2 Engages in essential conversations for ongoing improvement
1.3 Facilitates collaborative processes leading toward continuous improvement
Criterion 2 Ensuring School Safety
2.2 Provides for social, emotional and intellectual safety
Criterion 3 Planning with Data
3.4 Assists staff to use data to guide, modify and improve classroom teaching and
student learning

Part 1: Written Summary

In order to learn about a colleagues role change I decided to interview someone
who changed roles in the school system. I chose to interview our districts fantastic
Executive Director of Teaching and Learning. For the purpose of this assignment lets
call her Sally. Sally is a highly respected educator in our district who kindly let me
interview her. She taught in my district, was a leader in another district and then came
back to our district in a leadership role. I was excited to have the opportunity to get to
know Sally and to learn more about her transition from teacher to teacher leadership.
Sally started by detailing her move from a teacher role to a teacher leader. She
shared that her transition started after she finished her masters in curriculum and
instruction. Sally was drawn to TOSA work in her district and the impact systems have
on student learning. She participated in leadership roles within her teacher job,
including the buildings RTI team. Sally shared that she was more interested in
leadership than administration. A thought she shared that I felt was especially
powerful was that she strongly wants to always identify as a teacher first, no matter
what her role title is. People encouraged Sally to do the principal certificate program.
She did her internship with a principal who was in his first year of his position at her
building. This experience was particularly helpful because she got to be in on his
thinking. From this experience she learned the importance of having a boss that drives
his work from his core values. After she got her principal certificate she was drafted by
another school district from one of her presentations from her EDAD courses. She was
a Vice Principal in a non-traditional sense. Her role was more instructionally focused.
From this experience she learned to embrace the chaos. After two years in this role she
came back to her original district in the role of Executive Director of Teaching and
Learning. She felt more like a teacher in this role. Before accepting this position she
spoke to other district members that she trusted. Currently she feels like she is setting

Ashley Walser
11/27/16

EDAD 543
Assignment #8

into a routine now in her new role. There is more district leadership around teaching
and learning. In the past five years that have been many new factors to this role,
including CCSS and TPEP. Slowly over time the department has increased at the
building level which has supported this role.
In her new role Sally is acquiring skills that assist in shifting the thought of what
a central office role is. Sally personally believes that the role is thought of s supporting
principals in their support of teachers. She is focusing in on supporting instructional
leadership. Sally feels that her strengths are in differentiating with each principal.
Another powerful statement she shared was that she is not the holder of all knowledge
but is learning along side everyone else. She would like to grow in developing a thick
skin and confidence. A difficulty she shared in transitioning from a teacher-to-teacher
leadership is the visibility of her impact. In a teacher role the impact of your instruction
on students is immediately apparent. In a leadership role this chain is longer, making
the impact harder to measure. The chain changes from teacher student, to
administrator principal teachers students. Sally is working on how to measure
her impact on students in this longer chain reaction. She is supporting TOSAs in
developing as instructional leaders, to impact the learning of teachers impacting
student learning.
Sally is supported by a variety of people in her role. She has a lead mentor from
another district as well as a TOSA to assist her in her work that she has a long history
of working with. Sally shared that us being a part of this leadership program is
assisting her in her work. Her hope is to continue to build on shared leadership within
the district. Sally shared that the more that we grow teacher leadership in the district
the more people we will have in the district that are thinking in a systems way.
Part 2: Reflection
This assignment assisted me in confirming that continuing down the path of
teacher leadership is something that I am interested in and capable of. My journey in
this course has been around believing in myself as a teacher leader and this final
experience has confirmed that this is a path I would like to continue down. Listening to
Sally helped me find small parallels in her journey to teacher leadership with myself.
Hearing Sallys areas of growth and viewpoints on her leadership role were powerful to
me. To know that being a leader means that you are still growing alongside others
helped me see that being a leader is not being the holder of all information. A teacher

Ashley Walser
11/27/16

EDAD 543
Assignment #8

leader his still a teacher, but just with a different line of impact to students. When Sally
shared that it is important to her that she identifies as a teacher first helped me frame
my idea of a leader. A teacher leader puts student needs first, differentiates for others,
continually learns aside others and drives her work from her core values.
This assignment highlighted several complexities associated with teacher
leadership. One complexity is around figuring out how to measure the impact of your
work on student learning. There is a long chain of impact in the role of a leader that
feeds from principals to teachers to students. The instantaneous recognition a teacher
receives when teaching students is not there in a leadership role. This makes me think
that a teacher leader needs to hold a wider systems view while also holding a balance
between patience and driving her work from her core values. Another complexity of
leadership is differentiating for adult learners in order to impact the learning of
students. This is an area that I will need to continue to gain experience in. Overall,
this interview reenergized me in my journey to develop as a teacher leader.

Assignment #8 AWSP Standard Growth

Standard
Indicators of growth
Criterion 1 Creating a Culture
- Engaged in a two-way conversation
1.2 Engages in essential
about leadership in our district
conversations for ongoing
improvement
1.3 Facilitates collaborative
processes leading toward
continuous improvement
Criterion 2 Ensuring School Safety
2.2 Provides for social,
emotional and intellectual safety

Discussed the impact of behavioral

systems on school culture.

Criterion 3 Planning with Data

3.4 Assists staff to use data to
guide, modify and improve
classroom teaching and student
learning

Discussed the impact a leader has on

other staff which impacts student
learning.