PDP Reflection

It is very easy to live in the moment and neglect planning for the future.  Developing the PDP helped me think and reflect on what I need to learn to accomplish my goals.  One thing my superintendent made an impression on me about was the need to network with other superintendents.  She is part of a group of area superintendents that meet together to discuss education issues and also give and receive advice.  I really wanted this as part of my PDP, because it seems very valuable.  Developing my PDP helped me articulate why I needed this and how I would accomplish it.  The PDP helped me develop my other goals as well over the next three years. 

SISE Conference

My SISE meeting was short and simple.  My superintendent reinforced some of the important aspects of  the superintendent's job, such as fostering a strong relationship with the board.  It really stuck with me that the board has the power to get rid of a superintendent.  It seems much easier to get rid of a superintendent than a teacher or principal.  She also emphasized the importance of networking with other people, especially other superintendents.  She has some positive comments for me and the work I had been doing and wished me luck on the upcoming superintendent's exam.  The meeting seemed a fitting end to the program. 

The Value of Reflection

Reflection is an important part of leadership.  When I think of reflection, I think of the popular phrase, “pause to reflect.”  This is what reflection is.  It is taking some time to pause, to stop moving, to slow down.  Strong leaders are always moving forward and looking for ways to accomplish the vision and mission of the organization, but an important part of personal growth is to turn the focus inward for personal reflection.  This is how a leader internalizes the lessons he or she has learned and looks for ways to apply those lessons.  This is how we learn from our mistakes and victories.  Throughout this course we were asked to take our experiences and lessons and reflect on them.  I was fortunate to have people around me who were willing to help me in any of the activities I was trying accomplish.  I was lucky also in that these people would ask me good questions that would help me think about what I was doing and reflect on the lessons. 

Week Three Reflection

Review the above analysis, and write at least one page thoroughly describing recommendations and lessons learned from experiences with the improvement initiatives or action research plans.


I learned a lot in dealing with the aftermath of the tornado that blew through Rice destroying the brand new building that had just opened.  Although this was a terrible thing to have happen in our district, it provided me with a wealth of opportunity to see our district administration deal with the aftermath.  The thing that made this such a learning experience for me was the high profile the incident had in the media.  Before I could even get to the school that night to view the damage, the media had already set up shop in the parking lot.  Our superintendent, who has a lot of experience, was trying to figure out exactly what to do also.  I learned through experience just how pushy and scummy the media can be as they constantly pursued and tried to trap our district leaders into interviews and giving information.  My recommendation for this type of high profile media event is to immediately get in touch with the region center and get some resources on campus to help deal with the media. Through this experience I watched the board and district administration work together to get the district up and running again.  I saw firsthand the importance of a good superintendent/board relationship.  It was also interesting to see the contrast between our superintendent who was desperately trying to avoid the press and the mayor of the small town who was running after the press trying to get any air time he could.  I did disagree with our superintendent on this one matter.  She released a written statement and nothing more.  She never spoke to the press or gave a press conference.  In my opinion, this led to the underhanded tactics the media were adopting to “get the story.”  I feel if the superintendent would have sought some council on what needs to be said to the media and then offered one press conference to address the state of the district and give some basic information, much of the tension of the situation would have been eased.  There was not a feeling of transparency during the event, and this made people feel like the district was hiding something.  This whole experience involved everything from superintendent/board relationships to many physical plant issues. 
    It was a valuable experience leading my staff to evaluate our early literacy program and implement some changes.  It required the team to focus more on data and ensure that our program is data driven and structured around that data.  Part of our district’s vision statement is about a rigorous curriculum, and I believe we made some changes to ensure we were accomplishing the district’s mission.  We evaluated, made recommendations, made appropriate changes, and then engaged in on-going evaluation of the program.  This was valuable on a campus level, but is also valuable experience for leading a district as well.  These basic concepts are important on a district level to ensure that the district is accomplishing its vision and goals. 
    During this program it was required to do several interviews and I enjoyed learning from the experience of others.  As a principal many times I see the large picture of what our maintenance men, transportation director, nurse, human resources director, etc do, but do not see the smaller details of what their jobs involve.  It will help greatly as a superintendent to understand these jobs and the value they play to the district.  It will be hard as a superintendent to make decisions involving these jobs and programs without an in-depth understanding of the role each plays in the district. 

Job Entry Plan Reflection

I am serving my first year as a campus elementary principal after serving for three years as an assistant principal for both high school and elementary.  I am getting my superintendent certification because one day I would like to serve as a superintendent; however, I feel that I need more experience as a principal before I make this transition.  I feel an important step to this is transitioning from an elementary principal to a high school principal.  I am not saying this is a necessary step, but seems like a natural one.  High school is much more complex and involves more issues a superintendent needs to have a grasp of.  For my job entry plan, I created a plan to step into the role of high school principal.  Most of my activities focused on creating an academically successful campus.  It would be nice to be successful in athletics also.  The reality is that a superintendent search committee is not going to be interested in a superintendent who can’t lead an academically successful campus.  AYP and TAKS (STAAR) results are going to be an important component to promotion.  A successful football team may stand out as well to some of the old-school board members.  Having a qualified and competent athletic director is an invaluable asset to a principal, and I will want to develop a good relationship in that area as well as with the rest of the staff.  At the end of the first year as a high school principal I hope to have an in-depth understanding of the campus and what is working and what is not, so that we can make appropriate changes going into the second year. 

Week Two Reflection

Really the ten pages of review really are my reflections over the various activities I did.  It is always helpful to learn about how to do something but this falls short by itself.  This type of learning needs to be done with hands on training as well, and I feel this is what the internship addresses.  It allowed me to read about the ten competencies, but also to go out and experience the real world application of these competencies in the appropriate context.  One of the most beneficial activities I took part in was dealing with the destruction the tornado caused in our district.  During this time I had to work with the superintendent, principals, board, media, town government, etc.  Some of this involved me just observing the various interactions of these people and some I had to be directly involved with.  It was particularly interesting being a part of something that had such a large media impact.  I am confident that the intense week we spent dealing with all this hit on areas from all ten competencies.  The internship activities forced me to look beyond the campus and try and see things from a district perspective and how decisions affect the district. 

Week One Summary

Having taken these classes, I feel I have a much better understanding of the superintendent’s job and responsibilities than when I first began the course work.  Completing all the activities for the internship has helped as well.  However, I feel there is much that can only be learned through actual experience as an assistant superintendent or superintendent.  This is why for many of the areas I marked a “C” but still did not feel I could mark an “S”.  I gave myself higher marks in domain I because many of these leadership traits, such as ethics are shared with being a principal.  I feel these skills are somewhat transferrable from being a principal to being a superintendent.  I felt the same about domain II as well, so I gave myself higher marks in this area as well.  In domain III I scored myself a little lower especially in dealing with audits, budgets, and the physical plant.  I feel confident in dealing with physical plant issues for a campus, but not necessarily an entire district.  I feel much more confident in handling budget concerns with the board after taking the finance class, but I don’t feel I will ever be really confident in it until I am actually am involved with it.  I began this course work with little understanding of what it takes to be a superintendent.  I feel that having completed this course work, I am ready to begin the journey towards one day stepping into the superintendent’s role or a similar one. 

TEA Budgeting Guidlines

The TEA Budgeting Guidelines are very informative and really helped me realize just how complex the whole budgeting process is.  It is very comprehensive as it gave a great overview of what a budget is and how the process works. 
    I liked the descriptions it gave about site-based budgeting and zero-based budgeting.  When I met with out chief financial officer, he told me that our budget was a combination of the two.  However, I believe most of the budgeting decisions for the district are still site-based.  When I read TEA’s description of site-based budgeting, I realized that this is exactly what I am asked to do every year as a campus principal. 
    The section on TEA legal requirements would be very beneficial when preparing a budget.  There are a lot of legalities involved and so it is important to make sure the district is in compliance.  This is where the TEA Budgeting Guidelines would be beneficial.  It would be easy to forget one of these important steps without these guidelines in place. 
    The TEA Guidelines also listed all the stakeholders as well as their roles and responsibilities.  This would be invaluable information to help ensure that you do not leave important stakeholders out of the loop.  This information also serves to make sure that the groups are operating in their correct capacity.  For example, this section lists the campus improvement committee.  Using this chart would ensure that you do not leave the CIC out of the process while at the same time serves as a reminder that they are to review the preliminary budget and non-allocated fund requests.  This would be important information to have on hand while preparing the year’s budget.  As a principal, this section lists all of my duties involved with budget preparation. 
    I would also rely heavily on the budget calendar when preparing a budget.  Our class assignment of listing the top five dates helped me really understand these dates better.  Many of these dates serve as guidelines to help the budget process stay on track.  These dates would be key in helping meet the mandatory dates.  The dates would serve to help meet the end of August deadline to have the budget adopted.  No one would have all these dates and actions memorized, so having them listed in one place is a great resource. 
    I found this document to be very thorough but also gave me a little information overload.  I found appendix I, School-Based Budgeting Guidelines Sample to be helpful.  This document took all the important parts from the TEA Guidelines and synthesized it into a budget plan.  The appendix gave a simple five step process to budget planning.  I would find this information very helpful to reference when planning a budget. 

Goal Driven Budget

A goal driven budget is very important to the district planning process.  All districts implement goal driven budgeting to some degree; however, many districts are probably not implementing this process to its fullest degree.  According to the lecture the purpose of the goal driven budget is to, “assist in the attainment of a shared vision for the school district and each campus.  Goal driven budgeting is implemented in any district to the point that a common goal is shared and funds are allocated towards that goal.  This process many times fails to take into account input from various stakeholders.  Input from all stakeholders should lead to a definite connection between the Board of Trustees and the district and campus goals stated in the improvement plans.  When this level of connection occurs, it is evident of a goal driven budget. 
    In Rice ISD I know our budget is goal driven up to the point I have been involved with the process.  On each campus site based committees work with the principal and other campus level stakeholders to develop goals for the campus along with budget requirements.  Principals meet with the superintendent to make sure the campus goals are in line with the district goals.  In late August the board approves the budget for the upcoming year after several budget reviews.  Because of the involvement of the board in this process, I assume the goals and budget reflects the Board’s goals, but I do not know exactly to what degree.  The Rice ISD district improvement plan is specific with goals; however, it is very non-specific with money amounts.  It simply states if the funds are locally or federally provided. 
    Our deputy superintendent is the one who oversees the budget.  His primary job responsibility is to work with the Summary of finance Template that is provided by the Texas Education Agency.  He also is responsible for making sure the goals of each campus and district are aligned.  Our deputy superintendent makes sure there is open communication to all budget stakeholders. 
   

Deputy Superintendent Interview

I was only able to speak with our deputy superintendent briefly about this assignment.  In our district the superintendent is primarily over things dealing with curriculum and instruction while our deputy superintendent serves as the chief financial officer for the district.
    The first thing he wanted me to know was that our budget planning is primarily site-based; however there is no official site based team.  The district is small with only three schools.  Principals and program directors are asked for input into the budget.  Some items are zero-based as well.  Knowing your ADA and WADA is very important when planning the budget.  These must be taken into account.  ADA is basically how much money the school will get based on attendance.  WADA takes into account that is cost more to educate some students than others.  These numbers determine your funding.  Out ADA last year was 738, but our WADA was 1149.  We also get money from free and reduced lunch students of about 120,000 and title I money is about 119,000. 
    Requests for budget proposals go out in March to principals and program directors.  They meet with faculty and staff to determine needs.  These are returned by the end of April.  The proposals are returned and discussed.  A preliminary budget is drafted by mid June.  The final budget is approved by the board in late August after 2-3 budget studies.  Funds do not roll over from one year to the next.  The budget is approved at the August board meeting. 
    With everything going on in our district right now, I appreciate his willingness to give me this information, especially with some actual numbers. 

Superintendent Interview: Five Responses

Five Paraphrases

1.     What does ethical leadership look like?

A superintendent must model the highest level of standards and hold ones self accountable.  A superintendent must acknowledge that she is superintendent 24 hours a day.  Integrity must be modeled at the office, football game, and community restaurant, etc without exception.  A superintendent needs to know and understand policy so that it can be followed appropriately.  I like the fact that she focused on integrity extending beyond just the school walls. 

2.    How does the Superintendent accomplish such wide ranging strategic planning?

The superintendent needs to understand budgeting; however, the state has this so regulated now that there is not a whole lot of room for playing with the numbers.  The superintendent must understand curriculum, scope and sequence, research based programs.  Our superintendent looks at every single PO that comes through to check that what is being purchased is research based and is in line with the vision of the district.  She assess what tools and technology are required to get the job done and then makes sure that the appropriate people have access to these tools.  I thought her comments on budgeting were interesting.  She said that today it is mostly a matter of plugging numbers into the right boxes because of how heavily the money is regulated.  I would like to see this process for myself. 

3.    How do Superintendents address these issues aimed at improving the performance of all staff members?

When our superintendent decided that the school was going to adopt C-Scope, she knew this was going to be a struggle for much of her staff.  She understood the importance of staff development, so she provided the training required before she had the teachers implement the new curriculum.  She knew it would cost a lot of money to make the necessary changes so she put the money where her mouth was so the teachers would have the needed tools.  There is no change without proper training and tools.  It can take some time to put the proper steps in place, but in the end, it is worth it.  Then you need to create a process for continual evaluation.  This resonated with me because I was here on the ground floor of implementing C-Scope so I know first hand the difficulties that were involved.  I liked seeing her though process as she planned how to introduce this to the staff.  Putting the money on the line is so true and I enjoyed seeing her perspective. 

4.    How should Superintendents approach the management of everything from budgets to technology applications?

Procedures must be in place to carry out the vision.  Years ago the district was only a k-8 campus.  It remained so for many years and things were done very loosely.  Then the district began to grow rapidly and many things changed with the inclusion of 9-12.  Accounting, policy, personnel, certification, book keeping, etc all had to be approached differently.  The right people and procedures had to be put in place to manage everything and make sure the school’s accountability remained where it needed to be in relation to the state.  All of this took knowledge, skills, time, and change.  The superintendent has to be able to initiate change in these areas when needed.  She mentioned the right people for the job, and I think that this is very important.  Part of leadership is being able to delegate responsibilities to the right people.  Our superintendent has done a good job with this. 

5.    Please discuss the importance of organizational leadership, as well as decision-making and problem-solving skills in addressing these compliance areas and maintaining positive change.

The organizational leadership and problem solving skills come through knowledge.  It takes a lot to keep current in today’s ever changing educational system.  Educational trends are always changing and evolving.  There are demands at the local, state, and federal levels.  A superintendent must network with county and regional superintendents, TEA, associations, etc to stay current and have a pool of resources to meet the challenges faced in these varied contexts.  Staying current is a huge task that she repeated many times.  A good leader must be knowledgeable in his or her field to lead effectively. 

Summary:  I was encouraged as I study the different competencies, to keep in mind that they are inter-woven concepts.  Pulling them apart can be difficult.  Decision making will require a superintendent to draw from all the different competencies.  All through the interview the superintendent kept hammering on knowledge and skills.  A superintendent must be a committed life-long learner.  Always ask how the decision is going to impact kids and never lose sight of the students.  The last thing she wanted me to know that was instrumental to her was, prayer. 

Education Leaders and Modern Blogging

One benefit I see to blogging is that it allow educators to collaborate on a much larger scale than what was once possible.  One's sphere of influence was once limited to the campus building and perhaps to the district for a few leaders.  Every once in a while you could break out of that sphere in a conference setting, etc.  With blogging, the sphere of influence and information is now limitless.

Action Research

Action research refers to a group of people who collaborate together to solve a problem.  The group decides on certain action steps and puts them into effect, usually quickly.  There is a certain amount of trial and error involved because of the quickness of the action, but also allows for changes in the action steps to take place.  Action research should be based on scientific practices, so problem solving should take place in a systematic way and should be based on data.  This type of problem solving can be quite beneficial in the educational system.  Obviously in a large organization such as an educational system, there are many problems that arise.  Many of these problems are outside the expertise and knowledge of any one individual.  This is where an action research team can be of value.  The group can look at the problem by identifying what the related data says about the problem, and then produce a set of action steps to address the problem.  Again, one of the benefits to this method of problem solving is quickness, and the ability to make changes while the action steps are being carried out.  Reflection should always be built into the process to analyze if the solution is working and if changes need to be made.  Action research can be of great benefit to any leader in any organization.