My school has been
undergoing a re-organization lately. The head of the high school left for
another job at the end of the 2015-2016 school year. We intentionally hired an
interim head of high school so that she could help us decide what we needed in
from the person in this position and allow us to conduct a full search. She
decided to stay another year as we underwent radical changes in our curriculum
and organization over the 2016-2017 school year. For the 2017-2018 school year, she has shifted and stepped
somewhat aside for a high school "team leader"- one of our own
teachers who is liked and respected- who is building a new leadership team. We
now refer to our leaders as the "High School Leadership Team" more
often than "Administration." It was an exhaustive process to define
the tasks of each of our leaders, and I recognized the description of
distributive leadership in Hilty. With a lot of turnover in administration,
some things had fallen through the cracks and having clearly defined tasks will
help with maintaining our daily operations. We also have a commitment to
getting each of our HS leaders in the classroom- most of them are teaching at
least one class, from math to science to English. This allows us to view our
leaders as professional colleagues, as described on page 271. Plus, they
continue to remain in touch with classroom issues and sympathize with the
teacher role, the lack of which had become a problem with our former
administration.
In this new
organization, I have stepped into the role of a "grade level
coordinator," keeping my finger on the pulse of the 9th grade. I hope to
use what I learn in this class to become a better leader for my 9th grade team,
with more opportunities for collaboration. We are also in the process of
writing a new curriculum, and collaboration is very important as we hope to
make our curriculum more integrated than in the past. Understanding what works,
and how to be responsive to the needs of our students if what we're doing isn't
working, can only happen if we work together.
Finally, our newly-appointed curriculum coordinator recently sent an email asking for information about the professional development that we have received in the past- either school-sponsored or individually-selected. With the redefinition of leadership, I think my school will become more intentional about how teachers get professional training, and I look forward to seeing how I can help this process.
