REFLECTION OF PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS FOR EDUCATIONAL LEADERS

Gabrielle Levy

Reflection of Professional Standards for Educational Leaders

Great Neck Cohort

EDL 651

Fall 2018
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Reflection of Professional Standards for Educational Leaders

Standard 1: Mission, Vision, and Core Values

Standard 1 states, “Effective educational leaders develop, advocate, and enact a shared

mission, vision, and core values of high-quality education and academic success and well-being

of each student.” According to this standard, “effective leaders are able to develop an educational

mission for the school to promote the academic success and well-being of each student. While

also being able to articulate, advocate, and cultivate core values that define the school’s culture

and stress the imperative of child-centered education; high expectations and student support;

equity, inclusiveness, and social justice; openness, caring, and trust; and continuous

improvement.”

During my internship, our school district went through a process of adopting a new

mission statement district-wide. Schools throughout the district formed committees in order to

determine what our school district stands for as a whole. Administration, classroom teachers, and

support staff worked to find the best way to share our educational philosophy through a joint

mission statement. The approved mission statement now reads, The School District provides an

innovative and collaborative educational environment that supports academic excellence and the

social and emotional growth of all students so that they may become life-long learners and

compassionate, productive members of a diverse, global society.

This was the first time that our school district had ever published a mission statement in

our 200-year history. According to Walker (2012), “Mission statements require consideration

and care to fully reach their potential value. Though seemingly simple and often short, mission

statements often are the product of great deliberation. Research from communication,
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management, leadership, and nonprofit organization scholars highlighted important

considerations for mission statement creation and dissemination” (pg. 87).

Subsequently, each school created its own mission statement to articulate the philosophy

of each individual school within the district. Our school’s committee met and created a mission

statement tailored for our school. We collected input from administration, faculty, and students

through a survey style data collection format. We then joined together to draft a succinct

statement, while also sharing our strong vision. Our approved mission statement is as follows:

Our Elementary School is a place where all students are encouraged to strive for

excellence academically, socially, and emotionally in a safe and supportive atmosphere.

We promise to:

● Partner with our parents and community to create an environment where students are

empowered to discover their strengths and to achieve their maximum potential.

● Set high expectations for all students and address individual needs.

● Create and nurture a collaborative and individualized path to learning.

● Strive to develop independent thinkers and passionate lifelong learners.

Through working collaboratively, setting the bar high, and keeping our finger on the pulse of

education, our school community will always excel.

This was also the first time in the 50 years of our school’s history that a mission

statement had been published. In order to develop shared understanding of and commitment to

mission, vision, and core values within the school and the community, we needed to find a way

to publicize and share the mission statements’ vision for faculty and students. We accomplished

this by printing the mission statement on large banners and hanging them all around the school.
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We also shared the mission statement at our beginning of the year faculty meeting. We worked

with the webmaster to publish it on our website, and emailed it home to all of the JFK families.

To ensure that our students also have a deep understanding of the goals of our mission

statement, 5th grade students read the daily announcements on the loudspeaker and end each day

of announcements by saying, “Remember to be responsible, respectful and ready to learn

because this great day begins with you. And please remember our school excels!” This has

taught me that the duty of the administrator is to take the vision and mission of the school, and

integrate it into the students, faculty, and families. When everyone has a clear understanding of

what we believe in, it is much more attainable to achieve.

Standard 5: Community of Care and Support for Students

Standard 5 states,” Effective educational leaders cultivate an inclusive, caring, and

supportive school community that promotes the academic success and well-being of each

student.” According to this standard, “Effective leaders are able to build and maintain a safe,

caring, and healthy school environment that meets that the academic, social, emotional, and

physical needs of each student.” By way of the adoption of the Responsive Classroom Approach,

our school is able to meet this standard by “Creating and sustaining a school environment in

which each student is known, accepted and valued, trusted and respected, cared for, and

encouraged to be an active and responsible member of the school community.”

The Purpose of Responsive Classroom

Engaging Academics: Adults create learning tasks that are active, interactive,

appropriately challenging, purposeful, and connected to students’ interests.

Positive Community: Adults nurture a sense of belonging,

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significance, and emotional safety so that students feel comfortable taking risks and

working with a variety of peers.

Effective Management: Adults create a calm, orderly environment that promotes

autonomy and allows students to focus on learning.

Developmentally Responsive Teaching: Adults use knowledge of child development,

along with observations of students, to create a developmentally appropriate learning

environment.

Guiding Principles. The Responsive Classroom approach is informed by the work of

educational theorists and the experiences of exemplary classroom teachers. The following

six principles guide this approach:

• Teaching social and emotional skills is as important as teaching academic content.

• How we teach is as important as what we teach.

• Great cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.

• How we work together as adults to create a safe, joyful, and inclusive school

environment is as important as our individual contribution or competence.

• What we know and believe about our students—individually, culturally,

developmentally—informs our expectations, reactions, and attitudes about those

students.

• Partnering with families—knowing them and valuing their contributions—is as

important as knowing the children we teach.

As an administrator, we have to make sure to provide professional development and

learning opportunities for teachers and staff to learn about the program. We also need to provide
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opportunities for faculty and staff to put the theories into practice. Some of the classroom

strategies and practices that we implemented include:

Interactive Modeling: An explicit practice for teaching procedures and routines (such as

those for entering and exiting the room) as well as academic and social skills (such as

engaging with the text or giving and accepting feedback).

Teacher Language: The intentional use of language to enable students to engage in their

learning and develop the academic, social, and emotional skills they need to be successful

in and out of school.

Logical Consequences: A non-punitive response to misbehavior that allows teachers to

set clear limits and students to fix and learn from their mistakes while maintaining their

dignity.

Interactive Learning Structures: Purposeful activities that give students opportunities

to engage with content in active (hands-on) and interactive (social) ways.

In order to create Responsive classrooms, we set a goal of implementing the following

routines and procedures into every room in our building. Each piece of this plan was a way to

enable social-emotional support while making the children feel significant and belong. These

routines and procedures are:

Morning Meeting: Everyone in the classroom gathers in a circle for 20 to 30 minutes at

the beginning of each school day and proceeds through four sequential components:

greeting, sharing, group activity, and morning message.

Establishing Rules: Teacher and students work together to name individual goals for the

year and establish rules that will help everyone reach those goals.

Energizers: Short, playful, whole-group activities that are used as breaks in lessons.
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Quiet Time: A brief, purposeful and relaxed time of transition that takes place after

lunch and recess, before the rest of the school day continues.

Closing Circle: A five- to ten-minute gathering at the end of the day that promotes

reflection and celebration through participation in a brief activity or two.

Last year, I participated in two levels of training for Responsive Classroom, including

Responsive Classroom I and Responsive Classroom II Advanced Course. The job of bringing a

program into our school and implementing it successfully was a challenge. I so strongly believe

in this philosophy of teaching social and emotional learning, and I feel that it has so strongly

influenced my students and my teaching practices. As an administrative intern, I worked to

promote this type of language, approach to learning, language, and consequences throughout our

school building. Proudly, I can say we are now a responsive classroom school. Every teacher

uses a chime in order to gain student attention, including areas large and small like the cafeteria,

auditorium, classrooms, and special areas like gym, art, and science. Every classroom teacher has

adopted quiet time after they return from recess in order to regain equilibrium. We also held a

Responsive Classroom training for our paraprofessionals and teaching assistants in order to make

sure that our language, approach, and support is universal building-wide.

According to Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, and Schellinger, (2011),

Teaching and learning in schools have strong social, emotional, and academic

components. Students typically do not learn alone but rather in collaboration with their

teachers, in the company of their peers, and with the encouragement of their families.

Emotions can facilitate or impede children’s academic engagement, work ethic,

commitment, and ultimate school success. Because relationships and emotional processes
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affect how and what we learn, schools and families must effectively address these aspects

of the educational process for the benefit of all students. (p. 405)

Current research has proven that Social-emotional learning is a key to a successful

education. The Responsive Classroom Approach is a social-emotional learning approach that

believes that social-emotional education is just as important as an academic education. This

aligns with the research of Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, and Schellinger, (2011) who

state, “Current findings document that SEL programs yielded significant positive effects on

targeted social-emotional competencies and attitudes about self, others, and school. They also

enhanced students’ behavioral adjustment in the form of increased prosocial behaviors and

reduced conduct and internalizing problems, and improved academic performance on

achievement tests and grades” (p. 417). Through this experience, I learned how to roll out a new

curriculum to an entire school, grades kindergarten through fifth. I was able to observe how an

administrator can support an initiative and ways that help a vision become reality. I really

enjoyed being part of this opportunity, since I so strongly believe in this philosophy. I look

forward to continuing to promote social-emotional learning for years to come.

Standard 6: Professional Capacity of School Personnel

Standard 6 states, “Effective educational leaders develop the professional capacity and

practice of school personnel to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.

According to this standard, “Effective leaders: a) Recruit, hire, support, develop, and retain

effective and caring teachers and other professional staff and form them into an educationally

effective faculty”. Stronge and Hindman noted (2003), “Research suggests that curriculum, class

size, district funding, family and community involvement, and many other school related factors

all contribute to school improvement and student achievement. But the single most influential
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school-based factor is the teacher” (p. 48). In our district, specific hiring practices that adhere to

our teachers union contract were created. All union members are eligible to sit through a

selection committee training session. I decided to go through the training to learn about the

selection committee process in our schools. As an administrative intern this year, I had the honor

of serving on a selection committee to hire teachers for a brand new pre-K program teaching

position that would include a probationary tenure track. I found this to be a valuable opportunity

to serve on a committee, since I did it alongside my building principal/administrative mentor. I

know how special it is to be a teacher in our district, and how offering a probationary position is

a critical decision. It is essential that our district maintains the highest standards and continues to

select top quality candidates for the interview process.

A selection committee has three sessions. In the first session, after meeting the committee

members, we divided the number of applications and carefully screened resumes one at a time.

We then created a list of Hopes and Dreams to find a candidate that meets the needs of everyone

on the committee. We ended the day by selecting/crafting questions to ask during the interview,

selecting the writing sample question prompt, and the demonstration lesson teaching topic. From

this list of over 400 applicants, we selected our top 12 candidates to invite for an interview and

writing sample. At our second session, we held interviews for many hours. We allowed 25

minutes per candidate and asked a total of eight questions to each candidate. I had a note form

for each candidate to log all of the important information that they shared. We also had an

opportunity to debrief each candidate’s responses. We ended the day by reading through the

writing samples. Our district holds teaching candidates’ writing in high regard. We checked for

topics, spelling, and thoughtfulness in their answers. From the list of candidates, we selected the

list of candidates that we would invite back for a demonstration lesson. The last day of the
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selection committee was devoted to demonstration lessons. Each candidate receives 25 minutes

to teach a lesson in a pre-K class for the committee. We compiled notes on the candidates’

performance as well as formulated follow-up questions for the candidate . After each lesson, the

candidate has a reflection debrief to share his/her evaluation of the lesson, and to share some

insight into the planning and teaching process. Our district looks for reflective teachers who

demonstrate their thirst for continuous development and improvement. We finally ended the day

with a committee debrief to select the successful candidate for the position. According to Stronge

and Hindman (2003), “Examining what research has ascertained as the qualities of effective

teachers gives decision makers a solid foundation for evaluating applications, resumes, and

interviews. A well-constructed selection process helps schools hire teachers who have the

qualities that enhance student achievement. And by selecting the best teacher candidates, schools

take the first crucial step in ensuring an effective teacher in every classroom” (p. 50). I found this

to be an extremely important learning experience as well as a significant responsibility . In

selecting new teachers to work closely with me in my own building, I found myself to be

thoughtful and thorough. We worked hard as a committee to be sure that we only hired the

highest caliber of teachers, who met the needs and expectations of our school district.

Standard 8: Meaningful Engagement of Families and Community

Standard 8 states, “Effective educational leaders engage families and the community in

meaningful, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial ways to promote each student’s academic

success and well-being.” According to this standard, “Effective leaders: a) are approachable,

accessible, and welcoming to families and members of the community; b) create and sustain

positive, collaborative, and productive relationships with families and the community for the

benefit of students and; c) engage in regular and open two-way communication with families and
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the community about the school, students, needs, problems, and accomplishments.” Our school-

wide goal this year through the Shared Decision Making Committee was to improve the home-

school connection. We invited a Scholastic Team to come into our school to evaluate our needs,

progress, and set goals on how we can take on this grand task. Together we discussed positive

aspects of the school and well received school initiatives including highly respected teaching,

expertly designed and informative monthly newsletters, and the availability a to speak to parents

via phone and email. According to Cotton and Wikelund (1989), “The research overwhelmingly

demonstrates that parent involvement in children's learning is positively related to achievement.

Further, the research shows that the more intensively parents are involved in their children's

learning, the more beneficial are the achievement effects. This holds true for all types of parent

involvement in children's learning and for all types and ages of students” (p. 3).

The Scholastic Team helped us to brainstorm some ways that we could increase parent

engagement. I served as a member of our Shared Decision making committee to assist with this

goal. Our first task was to increase parent involvement by creating a variety of language

translations for our parents to be enable them to read all school messages and publications. Our

school is quite diverse, and in my class alone, I have parents who speak only Spanish, Hindi,

Cantonese, and Russian. Using software provided by our English Language department, we were

able to reach all parents regardless of their language.

A second task was to increase parent engagement by inviting parents to come into school

more often and be part of our class. I did this by organizing one field trip a month and

designating parent chaperones to join us. Parents were thrilled to join their children on these

experiences, and we have received exceptionally positive feedback.

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We also decided to launch Mystery Readers in kindergarten, where we invite a parent to

show up to school and read a book to our class. The child never knew who was coming in, and it

was always a wonderful surprise.

A final way that we are working to increase parent involvement is by creating a class

wide Remind text account. Parents receive free updates, notes, and important reminders right to

their cell phone. Scholastic pointed out that most parents don’t read through wordy emails and

lengthy letters. A quick text message would be an effective way to send an action photo or

reminder that helps parents to be alert and informed about their child’s education.

I have noticed a significant increase in parent involvement in my classroom. Providing

these opportunities has allowed parents to be more hands on in the classroom. I have taught in

many grade levels, and I found that doing this work in Kindergarten really sets the tone for the

families in my class. They will learn how to be an active participant in their child’s learning for

years to come. I am so proud to participate in this initiative, and I hope that the work that we did

will continue as our students continue to move up in grades.

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References

Cotton, K., & Wikelund, K. R. (1989). Parent Involvement in Education. School Improvement

Research Series,6, 1-15.

Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011).

The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning: A Meta-Analysis of

School-Based Universal Interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405-432.

Stronge, J. H., & Hindman, J. L. (2003). Hiring the Best Teachers. Educational Leadership:

Keeping the Good Teachers, 60(8), 48-52.

Walker, J. L. (2012). Mission Statement Creation and Dissemination in Service

Organizations: Reaching All Employees to Provide Unified Organizational

Direction. Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal, 39(6).