External Development Leadership
A principal will design structures and processes that result in community engagement, support, and ownership. Acknowledging that schools no longer reflect but, in fact, build community, the leader proactively creates with staff, opportunities for parents/guardians, community and business representatives to participate as “stockholders” in the school such that continued investment of resources and good will are not left to chance.
Element 6A: Parent and Community Involvement and Outreach
The school executive designs structures and processes which result in parent and community engagement, support and ownership for the school.
Our parents and the community are just as important as the students we educate and lead. We must work to forge partnerships with them and encourage their participation in as many activities and initiatives as we can to help increase their sense of ownership in our school. It is also essential to meet our prospective community partners where they are and learn how our school can serve them in return. Investigating the longstanding heritage and history of the area in which our school is located conveys the message that where the town has come from and where it hopes to be in the future are important visions for us as a school too. Our hope is to produce high-quality graduates who are not only employable, but who also have an interest in serving and enriching our town long after graduation.
The school executive designs structures and processes which result in parent and community engagement, support and ownership for the school.
Our parents and the community are just as important as the students we educate and lead. We must work to forge partnerships with them and encourage their participation in as many activities and initiatives as we can to help increase their sense of ownership in our school. It is also essential to meet our prospective community partners where they are and learn how our school can serve them in return. Investigating the longstanding heritage and history of the area in which our school is located conveys the message that where the town has come from and where it hopes to be in the future are important visions for us as a school too. Our hope is to produce high-quality graduates who are not only employable, but who also have an interest in serving and enriching our town long after graduation.
During the first few weeks of school, Bunn High School hosted our first Open House of the year. We invited our students and their families to come in and learn about all of the great things we had planned for the year and to hear about ways they could get involved in our school. I created and implemented a modified version of our regular bell schedule to give parents an authentic look into the day in the life of their child. Upon arriving to the school, parents were given an updated copy of their student's schedule and after the opening meeting, were asked to transition through their student's day. Each session lasted 10 minutes, with a five minute transition time in between classes. This alleviated the students from being able to tell their parents they did not have enough time to get to their classes each day and helped our families visualize what happens in our school from their student's perspective.
Prior to Open House, I created this Microsoft PowerPoint for teachers to save and use for their classroom presentations. Each teacher was asked to fill out the template with the requested information so that parents who attended the sessions received the same types of information in all sessions. Our goal was to be consistent in what we communicated to our students and their families, in hopes of providing all available pertinent information in a uniform and easy-to-use format.
In effort to learn more about the history and heritage of the town of Bunn, Tyler Morris (NCLA Cohort I) and I interviewed prominent community members and stakeholders about their memories, perspectives and experiences, then created a digital story to capture our findings.
Element 6B: Federal, State and District Mandates
The school executive designs executive protocols and processes in order to comply with federal, state and district mandates.
Anyone who has worked in the field of education knows the vast amount of Federal, State and District mandates which govern the work of schools and dictate how education should be provided to our students. Administrators are responsible for ensuring these guidelines are met, implemented with fidelity and delivered in a timely manner.
One of my tasks for the year was to ensure students were in compliance with the North Carolina Compulsory School Attendance laws and adhering to the District requirements related to timely arrive in classes. With a few exceptions, the majority of my work centered around students who were relentlessly tardy to their classes. I utilized this form and parent conferences as a means of deterring this behavior and attempted to avoid student suspensions related to tardiness at all costs.
Being in charge of transportation also comes with its fair share of mandates and responsibilities. My role included requiring bus drivers to log-in each day on our clipboard and report any safety or mechanical concerns they may have about their bus as well as how many students were transported to school each day. I also ensured our drivers were maintaining accurate seating charts in the event of an accident for local law enforcement authorities to use and review at an accident scene.