A principal's role in student achievement is immense but some educators may not quite comprehend the full scope of a building leader's influence on outcomes.
Everyone's talking about putting equity into action in K-12 education, but there are some key pieces missing from conversations—one critical piece being the role of teachers.
Our comprehensive approach is based on being open to change and includes giving teachers access to engaging software, student data, coaches, consultants, PD—and, most importantly, more time to teach.
"A long, long time ago I heard a superintendent talk and say, 'The problem with communication is 90% of the time people think they communicated, they didn't communicate or they miscommunicated,'" says Sean Maika, who was recently named a Superintendent to Watch by the National School Public Relations Association. "That leads to 90% of your problems."
No matter how much teachers demand PD, experts and educators are still looking for effective ways to measure professional development's impact on student achievement.
"There are success stories of our students and staff each day that need to be shared," says Superintendent Josh Reitz of McHenry School District 15. "There are strategic plans that need to be carefully conveyed and feedback that we need from people to improve them. There are areas of confusion that need clarity and important resources or information that might be unknown to others which we need to shed light on."
"It forces collaboration between social studies, math, English and science teachers," explains Superintendent John Dignan of Wayne-Westland Community Schools, about embedding interventions into core instruction. "They're working together and our kids are getting the medicine they need—it's not just about remediation, it's about acceleration."
