School district new leaders - Essay Example

1 School District New Leaders In that we are contemplating a honeymoon period speaks to the positive realm that we do sharea number of things in common. Of course our common bond in this relationship is our love, and knowledge for the Social Sciences, and the teaching thereof. In a romantic relationship we can ostensibly gauge the extent and depth of a partners love, based on how they react to the stimuli, coupled with the types and quality of actions which our partners initiate towards us.

Having said that, this is precisely what I will be attempting to do during the initial introduction and transitional period. Of course, we all have the same objective; which will be to avail all of the children whom we teach, with a quality education. Based on this premise, it is my contention that, it will be critical to our short and long term relationship for me to establish two very important things at the outset. I must have some baseline data on all of the individuals who will be members of my team.

Aside from their resumes and personnel files, therefore, during the honeymoon period, I must get to know the strengths and weaknesses of every individual who will be placed on the team. Considering the number of individuals whom I must get to know, which will enable me to make a quality assessment, I am prone to pursue this in four stages--I have chosen to label these stages as, primary, secondary, planning and formulation. The primary stage will be implemented in the immediate, as I will prepare a formal questionnaire for each team member to accomplish.

This tool will make known and establish the knowledge, skills, and strategies of each team member. This data will reflect their adherence to established curriculum criteria and their perceptions of what 2 specifically constitutes good practice. This baseline data will also enable me to determine where each member of the proposed team is positioned in accord with the short and long range objectives.

It is critically important that each member of the team is on the same page. Of course, the hypothesis is that there will be variances in knowledge and skill levels However, this can be mitigated with the proper (lesson plan) guidance. It is also important that strategy format and implementation be of one accord. I am strongly in agreement with a cookie cutter approach to presenting the Social Sciences, due to the variety and variances in the competing schools of thought. The commonality of strategy methods will be closely aligned with the accepted good practice espoused by the district.

The secondary stage will have a two-fold purpose. After collecting and assembling the data from the questionnaires, I will sit one-on-one with each team member (enabling us to become personally familiar), to discuss the finding of the preliminary survey, and to have a detailed dialogue on the strategies and the expected outcomes. These one-on-one sessions in the secondary stage will be structured to provoke input from the various team members (this process will foster the importance which I place on team participation, and reinforce the concept of teachers learning from teachers), this will also serve as fertile ground for formulating structure and content.

This bottoms-up process will empower all of the team members to personalize the instructional material. Subsequently, I will divide the team into groups (perhaps three), and they will select one person from each sub-group to assist me in synthesizing all of the data and information collected in the primary and secondary stage. In the planning stage the three team leaders will return to their respective sub-groups with all of the synthesized 3 information.

They will then produce lesson plans. After accomplishing this planning task, we will then meet as one team, with three documents. We will scrutinize these documents step by step, point by point, using the district approved curriculum and the precept of good practice as guidelines, we will on the basis of consensus, formulate a lesson plan, which will enable us to accomplish all of our mandated objectives.