21 Principal Competencies: A competency is a combination of knowledge (factual and experiential) and skills that one needs to effectively implement the practices. Factual knowledge is simply “knowing” content; experiential knowledge is the knowledge one gains from understanding – it is knowing the when and why. Skills bring structure to experiential knowledge. It is when one can put their accumulated knowledge into a series of steps that – if followed – will lead to practice. There are many competencies that are obviously inherent in the successful performance of all of the practices listed under each of the eight critical functions of leadership.
The principal may or may not personally possess all of these competencies but must ensure that a team is in place that not only possesses them, but can effectively and efficiently execute them. Although the principal may not personally possess them all, he or she is still responsible for their effective use in the various leadership practices. The competencies listed below are not so obvious in the practices, can be applied to multiple practices and are absolutely essential for all school executives to possess to ensure their success. For example, the competency – conflict management is important in Micropolitical Leadership, Strategic Leadership, Cultural Leadership, and perhaps one could argue that this competency is necessary in all eight Standards. These competencies are listed here to emphasize their importance and to make sure they are incorporated into the development of school executives.
Communication - Effectively listens to others; clearly and effectively presents and understands information orally and in writing; acquires, organizes, analyzes, interprets, maintains information needed to achieve school or team 21st century objectives.
Weekly Messages As a member of the administrative staff, it is important to disseminate all information to our school community. Every week we send home weekly messages to the staff and school families about what is happening at our school. This came in the form of weekly emails, weekly phone messages, and social media posts. The more communication we have with our parents and families the more connected we are as a school community to grow each one of our students. The artifact below shows my effective communication to the school community
Change Management – Effectively engages staff and community in the change process in a manner that ensures their support of the change and its successful implementation.
True Colors Presentation As a member of the administrative staff it is important to make sure that the school continuously changes and grows. I held a professional development opportunity for the whole school during a staff meeting called True Colors. During this professional development the staff learned about their own personalities as it ties to the color spectrum. The teachers then met in groups based on their color, created posters that represented the needs represented by their color, and presented the posters to the group. This information was then taken back to PLC's where they discussed ways in which understanding their colors and needs would bring about better collaboration. This information was then brought back to the next faculty meeting to show the progress that was made. The artifact below is the True Colors Professional Development presentation I gave to our school.
Conflict Management – Anticipates or seeks to resolve confrontations, disagreements, or complaints in a constructive manner.
Student and Family Handbook Having tools to utilize in order to prevent and or resolve conflict is a major asset to an administrator. Along with the Assistant Principal, I reviewed and updated the student and parent handbook which is one such conflict management tool . This handbook gives information to parents and students about classroom expectations, behavioral expectations, and elaborates on how issues/problems will be handled. The collection, publishing, and dissemination of information makes it easier to talk to parents and students about the expectations at Southwest Elementary School. The artifact below is the student and family handbook that was given to all families at Southwest Elementary School.
Creative Thinking – Engages in and fosters an environment for others to engage in innovative thinking.
Digital Story of Student Work
As an administrator, it is important to create an environment that empowers teachers to create lessons and opportunities that allow our students to grow both academically and creatively. During the Mexican holiday of "Día de Los Muertos" our students designed projects that represented people that were important in history. They connected the holiday and showed off their projects to the school educating students on major holidays in different parts of the world.The artifact below is a digital story of the students projects.
Customer focus – Understands the students as customers of the work of schooling and the servant nature of leadership and acts accordingly.
Digital Data Walls Students and families are a schools customers. As such, I created digital data walls for each individual grade levels to better highlight just how we were serving each student. These data walls are used by teachers to monitoir the growth of individual students. The data walls serves as place for teachers to also add MTSS data which devises a safe place for the team to discuss individual students and strategies being utilized for growth. At the end of the year, the data will be transferred to the next grade level to streamline information and data of the new incoming students. Teachers will be able to refer to past interventions that have worked for those new students. The artifact below is an example of the digital data wall.
Delegation – Effectively assigns work tasks to others in ways that provide learning experiences for them and in ways that ensure the efficient operation of the school.
Faculty PLC Agenda A strong administrator delegates work to staff members to create leadership and growth throughout their staff. Our administrative team delegates leadership of school related teams to teachers. These teachers lead different teams and give information about those teams to the rest of the school at staff development meetings. The distribution of leadership builds trust, engagement and capacity in the teachers and staff that work at Southwest Elementary School. The artifact below is an example of faculty PLC's where delegated teachers led informational sessions about teams in our school.
Dialogue/Inquiry – Is skilled in creating a risk-free environment for engaging people in conversations that explore issues, challenges or bad relationships that are hindering school performance.
Faculty Handbook Administrators need to create environments that allow teachers to dialogue about what they would like to see changed. As part of our PLC's norms administrators have protected one PLC day a week for teachers to have open dialogue around students success and/or failure. This "kid talk" allows teachers to discuss issues and receive help from PLC members while problem solving issues to help all students succeed. Below is a picture of the faculty handbook that sets the expectation for these PLC's. As part of the administrative team we make it a point to be part of these conversations about student achievement and growth.
Learning Walk Professional Development Form
I also created a questionnaire form for teachers to give us information about what they would like to see in professional development this year. This allowed teachers to have a voice in what they want/ need to grow their practice. When teachers have a say in their professional development, they get more out of the learning and try to expand themselves in the classroom.
Emotional Intelligence – Is able to manage oneself through self awareness and self management and is able to manage relationships through empathy, social awareness and relationship management. This competency is critical to building strong, transparent, trusting relationships throughout the school community.
Personal Leadership Board As an administrator it is important to know oneself and use that to manage the complexities of a school. Through the BB&T leadership training I made a personal leadership board. This board explains what is important to me as a leader and this will help me build relationships throughout the school and the district. The artifact below is my leadership board that explains what I believe as a leader and what I will bring to my school.
Positive E-mails to Staff
Building relationships is a key to having a positive culture in your school. As an administrator positive relationships are crucial to having a strong, trustworthy and transparent school culture. After every walkthrough of a classroom I made sure to e-mail a positive message to the staff member thanking them for the hard work that they do and allowing me to join in their class. Below is an example of a positive e-mail that was sent to a staff member after a walkthrough.
Environmental Awareness – Becomes aware and remains informed of external and internal trends, interests and issues with potential impacts on school policies, practices, procedures and positions.
Southwest Discipline Form An administrator needs to have a pulse on the building. At Southwest Elementary School we have a positive behavior specialist that handles many of the discipline issues. To keep all administrators informed of discipline at all times, I created a Southwest behavior form. This form allows us to look at trends, policies, and behaviors thought the school to be able to make changes that will impact instruction, keep students in the classrooms, and serves as data for our PBIS team so they can problem solve issues for our school. Below is the discipline behavior form that I created.
Global Perspective – Understands the competitive nature of the new global economy and is clear about the knowledge and skills students will need to be successful in this economy.
Career Day Administrators need to have a global perspective of the world and build a school that understands its importance. Our 5th grade students participated in a career day. The students were able to talk to adults in many different careers. The students asked questions and really enjoyed being able to see many different jobs, discussing what it takes to have those careers, and the focus they need to have to obtain a major career. I was involved in the setup of the day, and I facilitated one of these sessions. The artifacts below are pictures from the career day held at Southwest Elementary School
Judgment – Effectively reaching logical conclusions and making high quality decisions based on available information. Giving priority and caution to significant issues. Analyzing and interpreting complex information.
Administrators need to look at the data of the school and make important decisions about how we can change issues. As part of the administrative team, I helped create the plan for the spending of the Focus Funds. We decided to create an after school tutoring program for students to help grow students to reach or exceed proficiency. This program was also designed to make smaller classes enabling a teacher, that the student knows, to work on specific standards that the student needs. Below is the template we used when creating Focused Funds.
Organizational Ability – Effectively plans and schedules one’s own and the work of others so that resources are used appropriately, such as scheduling the flow of activities and establishing procedures to monitor projects.
Administrators need to be able to effectively organize staff and resources throughout the school. As part of the administrative team, I helped create an intervention schedule for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. This schedule allows for each teacher to use interventionists to help students review standards and fill in missing skills as they get ready for the North Carolina End of Grade Exams. Teachers used data and meetings with the interventionists to create groups that worked for both the teacher and interventionists. These groups also lowered the number of students in regular classes so that he teachers could work with smaller groups of students.
Personal Ethics and Values – Consistently exhibits high standards in the areas of honesty, integrity, fairness, stewardship, trust, respect, and confidentiality.
To show stewardship and respect for the amount of work that they do for our school, I recognized all of our instructional assistants at a faculty meeting. We brought them up front and gave them a standing ovation. We finished the celebration by giving all the assistants a free lunch of their choice to show our gratitude and appreciation. Without them our school would not run as smoothly as it does.
Personal Responsibility for Performance – Proactively and continuously improves performance by focusing on needed areas of improvement and enhancement of strengths; actively seeks and effectively applies feedback from others; takes full responsibility for one’s own achievements.
Administrators need to take responsibility for the performance of their staff. I created a presentation for the staff at Southwest Elementary school to show the progress that we have made and what work still needs to be done to continue the positive growth of our school and community. The artifact below is the presentation given to the staff about the achievements of Southwest Elementary school over the past few years.
Title One Documentation After our parent information meeting for Title I information, I created and sent out a survey in at effort to improve the way we work with the Title I program and to better connect to parents of the Title One students at our school. Below is the Title One form sent home to parents.
Responsiveness – Does not leave issues, inquiries or requirements for information go unattended. Creates a clearly delineated structure for responding to requests/situations in an expedient manner.
PBIS Team Spread Sheet An administrator needs to respond to issues in a timely manner. As a response to the PBIS team, who was struggling to discuss discipline without a specific place for data, I created a excel sheet for them to analyze the discipline in the school. This is an add-on from the behavior form I created. This allows them to see when the behavior is happening and discuss possible solutions to the issues. The artifact below is the spreadsheet that I created for the PBIS team
Results Orientation – Effectively assumes responsibility. Recognizes when a decision is required. Takes prompt action as issues emerge. Resolves short-term issues while balancing them against long-term goals.
Southwest Data Presentation Administrators need to be results driven. When teachers were starting to struggle as the year progresses, I created a PowerPoint to show the staff how far we have come as a school. This helped boost morale and keep the staff focused on the vision and mission of South West Elementary. It also generated discussion about what we have achieved. Furthermore,we also focused on what we wanted to do to get our students and school to the next level. The artifact below is the presentation to the staff.
Sensitivity – Effectively perceives the needs and concerns of others; deals tactfully with others in emotionally stressful situations or in conflict. Knows what information to communicate and to whom. Relates to people of varying ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds
Motivational Speaker Administration needs to understand the needs of the students and staff. One of our instructional assistants knew of a great motivational speaker that would talk to the students about dreams and working hard to reach their goals and potential. He accomplished this by discussing his heartache, struggle, and how he overcame the odds. As part of the administrative team, I helped facilitate this assembly by coordinating the use of/set up of the gym and movement of the students to the assembly. The artifact below is a image of the motivational speaker with the students.
Systems Thinking – Understands the interrelationships and impacts of school and district influences, systems and external stakeholders, and applies that understanding to advancing the achievement of the school or team.
Southwest Reading Week Administrators need to understand the systems that impact the school. During our Southwest Reading week, we invited School board Members, parents, local television celebrities, and community members to come to our school and read to our students. This created a sense of pride and empowerment among our students and staff while showing off our great school to the community and to the district. The artifacts below are pictures from this great week.
Technology – Effectively utilizes the latest technologies to continuously improve the management of the school and enhance student instruction.
Technology Templates and Digital Data Walls As an instructional leader it is important to understand technology and improve student instruction by enhancing teachers ability to use technology in the classroom. I was involved in developing teachers technology know how in the classrooms. This included teaching lessons to students with technology, creating templates for teachers to use, and creating digital data walls for teachers to access information needed to make more effective decisions about student learning and instruction. The artifacts below are examples of a template created for teachers to use and and example of the digital data walls.
Time Management – Effectively uses available time to complete work tasks and activities that lead to the achievement of desired work or school results. Runs effective meetings.
School Improvement Team Minutes Administrators need to be time managers. As a member of the administrative team, I believe that it is important to protect teachers time. As a member of the School Improvement Team I facilitated the meeting that created the goals of our school. We discussed what was important to us as a team and worked together to create school goals that would represent what Southwest Elementary School wants for all of its students. We set a time frame for the meeting, and I held us accountable to the time frame. The artifact below are the meeting minutes from the School Improvement Team meeting.
Visionary – Encourages imagining by creating an environment and structure to capture stakeholder dreams of what the school could become for all the students.
Community Relationships Digital Story An administrator needs to create an environment that allows all students to have their individual needs met. As part of a special team at Southwest, I have pushed the effort to make the school become a Community School. A Community Schools is a place that serves all parts of a students life both academically and social-emotionally in and out of the classroom. Southwest is in the final stages of becoming a community school, and I have organized all the resources that have helped Southwest streamline this process and to connect families at our school with ways to meet their needs. Below is the digital story I have created about the community relationships we have at Southwest Elementary School.