Greenway Elementary Case Study Evaluation

In Leverage Leadership, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo presents seven principles or levers that great principles and other school leaders take to effectively transform their schools into greatness. These seven principles, or levers, enables continuous, about-face, and duplicable growth for schools and their leaders. More than half of a principle time is spent on things that does not transfer into student achievement and/or success. However, with purposeful emphasis on these seven levers, the exact time investment leverages more learning. School leaders plus the seven levers equal more student achieve, thus setting the school on the path for greatness.

Achieving a school district’s mission and vision requires the commitment of its stakeholders. In order to involve them in the process, it is necessary for educational leaders to “motivate staff, parents, students, board and community members” (Educational Leadership Constituencies Council, 2002, p. 4). The transformational leadership theory emphasizes the importance of educational leaders acting as role-models in order to motivate and inspire the school community. This approach has the potential to involve all stakeholders, leading to increased student success (Bush, 2007). The Assistant Director of Special Education in Northwest ISD directly supervised the school district’s assessment staff. Her education, experience, and passion set an example for her subordinates, stimulating them to achieve more, leading to her promotion to Executive Director of Student Services.

According to former Indiana state superintendent of schools Dr. Suellen Reed, “We know from our research that there’s no turnaround school without a turnaround principal” (as cited in Gammil, 2007, para. 2), further supporting the fact that “school leaders have an essential role in cultivating a positive school culture in public schools” (Peterson and Deal, 2002, p.30). However, it is imperative to improve our understanding as to how principal leadership impacts the school culture in high poverty schools to ensure that all children receive a quality education, regardless of zip code, in an environment conducive to learning. The six measured factors are as follows:

Kowalski (2011) expressed the view that “organizational development, including school improvement, requires change” (p. 15). From the time Dr. Angela Murphy-Osborne (Dr. O) introduced herself to our Palmetto Family, as she called us, she brought this change. This change that I speak of is positivity. She spoke positive words and wished great accomplishments for us. Furthermore sharing her honest feelings about coming to PES. She explained that she did not want to come, but everything happens for a reason. Although she was hesitant about the decision, she still continued to be positive.

Park Middle is located in Scotch Plains, New Jersey and is one of two middle schools within the town. On average there are 930 students enrolled at Park over the past three years (See Appendix A, Table A1). Additionally, Scotch Plains’ population consists of 77.4% White citizens, but is also composed of 11.1% of African Americans, 7.7% Asian, and 6.7% Hispanic citizens (see Appendix B, Table B1). The town’s population is largely representative of the school’s demographics (see Appendix C, Graph C1). When referencing the school’s performance on district benchmarks and state testing, Park Middle School has met most of their established targets. However, even with most established targets met, certain subgroups are in need of further attention

Education: Makiyah attends Barack Obama Green Charter High School in Plainfield. According to Ms. Mitchell, Makiyah is classified special education. When CM asks Ms. Mitchell what is Makiyah’s classification she could not remember. Ms. Mitchell also informs CM that Makiyah is doing well in school and she will be moving to mainstream classes sometime this month. Makiyah reports that she enjoys attending school and at this time her grades are good and she is not having any issues in any of her classes.

I teach in the Westside Consolidated Number Five School District in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The school district is a consolidation of three small rural town school districts Bono, Egypt, and Cash, Arkansas in 1968. I met with my mentor Mr. Scott Gaunt the school district superintendent on January 18, 2017 between meetings with district leaders and countywide superintendents. We met and discussed the community relations plan and identified the two most important issues for our district as identified in the poll by the Phi Delta Kappan and the Gallop poll. The issues were the lack of financial support for the school district to provide an adequate education for students and the testing and regulations imposed on school districts that lower educational time for students while in school.

Because of the principal’s silence, Mr. Jones did not demonstrate a balance on his task of managing the day to day to ensure the efficiency of the operations of the school. Also, he did not achieve the task of enabling or removing obstacles that the learning community encounters to continue the learning process. Even yet, when he decided to inform his faculty he should have act as the leader that he was supposed to be. He was not a successful leader, but just a manager when he did not motivate or create synergy between them. As a team, brainstorm ideas on how to challenge the school consolidation, could have been achieved.

Our Principal at Peoria Notre Dame High School allows change. My grade school principal hadn’t changed a thing, during my time in grade school. Mr. Simmons brought new traditions to school. For example, recognizing all the sports and clubs after school mass for their accomplishments. He hired new and younger faculty members, to create a better environment for young people.

Build human capital that will drive our school progress toward school goals by improving teacher and leader capacity.

In light of accountability requirements, fear of not meeting AYP (Annual Yearly Progress), and required school improvement plans, often the idea of “school improvement” is considered a negative attribute. Obviously schools do not want to be singled out or identified as in need of improvement. Teachers often take the same view towards the idea of improvement. We as teachers take very personal that concept of improvement; we often parallel the need for improvement to failure. However my belief is that effective schools are always in a school improvement process and effective teachers too also are constantly adapting their practice in a culture of continuous improvement and growth. Therefore it is important as an effective leader to build a community of trust and collaboration. I quote “We are all in this together. Once we know that we are, we’re all stars and we see that we’re all in this together.” (Disney High School Musical, 2006) These lyrics from a popular Disney movie put to light exactly the school culture where the goal is not personal but as a community to use data driven and research based approaches in reflection and growth that assist all stakeholders.

Greenpoint has been more commonly referred to as “Little Poland” of New York City as a result of the large population of polish immigrants who settled in the 1880s onwards, along with Russian and eventually Italian immigrants (1). Consequently, a strong polish presence through faith communities, foods and social networks is strongest in Greenpoint compared to other areas of the city, although later immigrants from Puerto Rico settled there and more recently young people gained more interest in the area for rent or in an effort to opening up small businesses and restaurants as an extension of Williamsburg’s gentrification(1).

This case study defined exceptional leadership, in how two people that were passionate in their beliefs could create positive change in a challenging environment. Odiotti and Seiberlich accepted the challenge and remained strong in their commitment to improve a high school that was in despair, (Berger, Howard, & Walker, 2010). They implemented change by first understanding the problems. They conducted several interviews and collected a substantial amount of data before implementing any drastic changes, (Berger, et al., 2010). After analyzing the data, they worked on developing sound solutions that addressed the critical problems, (Berger, et al., 2010). They realized that the school was operating without structure. Communication and positive interaction was nearly obsolete, which in turn created issues regarding trust and teamwork, (Berger, et al., 2010). They knew they had to break through the communication barriers and get to the heart of the problem, in order to establish relationships. Odiotti and Seiberlich started with the teaching staff, reestablishing the bond through positive interaction and commitment, (Berger, et al., 2010). They reinforced the need for accepting responsibility and encouraging positive behavior. They held the students accountable for their actions by implementing guidelines to establish a positive learning environment, (Berger, et al., 2010). Odiotti and Seiberlich supported their students by following the key elements of servant

Marzano, McNulty and Waters propose five steps for a plan of effective school leadership. The first step is developing a leadership team with purpose. The definition used for a purposeful community is one with the collective efficacy and capability to develop and use assets to accomplish goals that mater to all community members through agreed-upon process (Marzano, et. al, 2005). The second step is distributing some responsibilities throughout the leadership team. The third step is to select the right work. The fourth step is to identify the order of magnitude implied by the selected work. The last step is to match the management style to the order of magnitude of the change initiative. The last step incorporates whether this is first or second order change.

As we review and synthesize data of a district for planning school improvement, the following information is needed to access and determine the needs of a school. First, a thorough analysis of performance data must be reviewed to see how school districts measure up with state and federal accountability. During this process, it is very important that schools focus the performance indicators that will guarantee growth and success. School teams must refer to the districts mission and vision to guide the planning process. The performance indicators will provide data that will be beneficial in creating improvement strategies. So, after careful evaluation of the data, the next step would be to plan effective methods and strategies that will improve student achievement. Moreover, this plan should include needs, demographics and opportunities for students to be successful. Additionally, the baseline data is important information to include in the improvement plan.