Artifacts

__Samples of Completed NC Teacher Evaluation Rubrics __
//Throughout this year, I conducted several iterations of the formal observation/evaluation cycle with teachers at Belmont. Their experience ranged from first-year educators to those with more than twenty-years in the classroom, and I learned from each one. Below are several samples of my completed NC Teacher Evaluation Rubrics from these observations. // media type="custom" key="22504994"

__ Formal Observation Cycle Example (Pre-Conference, Observation Notes, Post-Conference) __
//These are documents from one of the formal observation cycles I conducted with a veteran teacher. In the first document, you will find the pre-conference notes and evaluation rubric, followed by the observation post-conference notes. This particular teacher demonstrated strengths in the areas of student collaboration and ownership of work, and we discussed various opportunities for incorporating greater global awareness into her centers activities. // media type="custom" key="22505004"

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__ Post-Conference Video __
//This is an excerpt from a post-conference I conducted with one of our 5th grade ELA and social studies teachers. Our administrative team uses a protocol we collectively designate for post-conferences, but my style is also very conversational; I use the questions from our protocol (the "Reflecting Information Record) to spur thought and reflection, but I also want the post-conference to be a dialogue between two professionals about what's working and not working in the classroom. The video below highlights this approach to post-conferences. // media type="youtube" key="DVhdswIlztY?rel=0" height="315" width="560"

__ Interview for New Teacher – Gallup “TeacherInsight” Model __
//Early in the school year, I assisted in conducting interviews for a new 2nd grade teacher. Our numbers panned out so that we realized late in the summer that we needed to add an additional classroom for 2nd grade to reduce class size, and that involved bringing on new personnel. Our school had chosen the "TeacherInsight" questionnaire model for our interview process, as it is research-based and covers four primary areas of educator practice: Relationships, Instructional Approaches, Motivation, and Fit. Below is an example of notes and template from one of those interviews. // 

__Presentation to School Leadership & School Improvement Teams - Determining my 'Problem of Practice'__
//These are the materials I presented at our SLT/SIT meeting in November to garner their input around my "Problem of Practice", the focus of my internship project, as well as the video of that presentation. I had spent much of the fall gathering data (both qualitative and quantitative) around both of these areas, and I wanted teachers to make the final decision about which option I would pursue throughout the rest of the year. I knew that I would have the most buy-in on this project if I truly listened to and included teacher input, so I presented both options (with background and context), and had the teams vote for which one they believed would be most beneficial for our school.//

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__Monday Morning Monitor Samples __
//These are samples of our weekly staff newsletter; this was my responsibility to create and distribute all year. In mid-October, based on feedback from the School Leadership & Improvement Teams and the School Progress Management Team, we realized that there was a need at Belmont to systematically celebrate accomplishments of staff and students. Hence, I instituted a "Shout Outs" initiative schoolwide. Each week, teachers and administrators would send shout-outs to me, and I would publish them in the next week's Monday Morning Monitor. We made an effort to celebrate individuals for outstanding performance or service to our school community, whether they be teachers, district staff, custodians, or students. Teachers really appreciated this, and it soon carried over to a "Shout Outs" time at the end of our monthly faculty meetings, where each grade level would share out at least one celebration of their students or colleagues.//

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__School Progress Management Team (SPMT) Work: Analyzing Belmont's 2012 NC TWC Survey Results __
//<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">During my time at Belmont, I was able to be a part of a very unique committee: the School Progress Management Team. This team met on the first Wednesday of every month, parallel to the Data Team. While the Data Team was primarily focused on quantitative & qualitative academic data, the SPMT's sole purpose was to analyze and discuss the school's results from the 2012 (and 2010) NC Teacher Working Conditions Survey, and to collaborate around improvements that can be made to Belmont's culture and working environment. Our first step as a committee was to look at the results, determine our areas of greatest strength and challenge, and compare those both to our results two years ago and to those of our sister elementary school, Manning. From there, we would spend time each month looking in-depth at specific constructs in our areas of challenge, and trying to determine root causes and potential solutions. These meetings were extremely insightful for me, as the teachers on the committee added "texture" to the numbers on the page, and were very honest about where they believed we were as a school. They underscored for me the fact that the issues we face are often quite complex, and that solutions don't come easy. . .but that doesn't mean we stop working towards those solutions. Below are sample documents that outline some of our work, including meeting notes and TWC construct analysis charts. //

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Samples of Weekly Logs __
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//These are some examples of the weekly logs I have completed throughout my internship this year. These were submitted to my executive coach, and they gave me a great space to a) track the activities I was engaging in each week, to detect patterns and to plan my time strategically, and b) to reflect on how I handled specific situations, and get those reflections down on paper. These logs are a structure that I will certainly continue to utilize when I enter my future position as a school leader.//

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Formation of Belmont Bullying Intervention Plan __
//<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">With the rise of bullying nationwide and a spike in bullying-related incidents this year on our campus, we saw the urgent need to develop a very clear, school-wide procedure and set of interventions to address these issues. The two documents below demonstrate the work we did on this plan as a leadership team. This intervention plan is just one aspect of our efforts to curb bullying this year; as we began this process, we recognized the need to define what "bullying" actually is (and what it isn't), and plan for how we will roll out that definition to parents and students through an anti-bullying compact distributed and signed at the beginning of each school year. In the meantime, however, we knew that we needed to put a clear set of steps in place //<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> this //year to address any instances of bullying that arise. As the planning for next year is taking place, we finalized our bullying intervention plan for use effective immediately. The first document outlines our rough draft as an administrative team, with notes/questions added from our discussions with the School Leadership Team, and the second document is our final draft with that feedback incorporated.//

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Calendar Committee Work __
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//This year, I was able to serve as Belmont's administrative representative on the district's Calendar Committee. Each school is allotted 3 representatives (an administrator, a teacher, and a parent), and the purpose of the committee is to build the district's school calendar for the following year for presentation to the Board. Not only did I learn a lot about the legal requirements of school calendars for students and teachers, I also learned a great deal about the calendaring process and timeline, and the varying scheduling needs unique to elementary and secondary schools.//

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Mini-PD" - Guidelines for Writing Clear Daily Learning Targets __
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//During our walkthroughs as an administrative team early in the year, we realized that many teachers were having trouble translating the Common Core & Essential Standards into very directed, daily learning targets (or objectives). The objectives written on boards across the school had the right content, but they were too broad, and didn't capture what students should be able to do// by the end of class that day//. Therefore, I designed a quick one-pager that we distributed to each grade chair, and we spent some time briefly in the next week's PLC to discuss the guidelines and what they meant in practice. Over the next few weeks, we continued to monitor this in classrooms to see how teachers were doing with this skill, and we saw much clearer objectives in virtually all classrooms.//

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">CASE21 "Orange Item" Breakdown & Analysis __
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//After the first benchmark, teachers seemed to be having some difficulty identifying and analyzing patterns in their data, and also expressed some frustration at not having the time to truly discuss and "dig into" the data. In an effort to assist them with this, and to alleviate some of the stress associated with the task, I created the document below. One of the sheets that CASE21 sends to us is an item breakdown for each test, showing us how each student in a class did on a particular question. This information is color-coded, with green being correct and orange being incorrect. I went through these sheets for each test, and determined where the percentage of "orange items" was above a certain threshold (i.e. the items that a majority of students got incorrect). We distributed this information to every teacher, and many expressed appreciation at this added level of disaggregation; they used this information in PLCs to help determine their target areas for additional instruction.//

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Standard II "Look-Fors" Video __
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//I created the following video for one of our faculty meetings in the fall. The purpose was twofold; on one hand, it was intended to give teachers very practical insight into what we as administrators are looking for around Standard II when we come into classrooms, but because the video was solely of Belmont teachers, it was also meant to encourage them by saying "Look at the great things you're already doing!" The teachers (especially those who were featured!) expressed appreciation for this type of educational "shout-out," and said it gave them a clearer picture of Standard II.//

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Teacher Efficacy Survey Sample & Results __
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//In the fall, we administered an efficacy survey to all of our teachers. The purpose of this was to determine areas where our faculty felt empowered and/or a strong level of influence/control, and where they did not. This was in connection with our administrative team's analysis of the work of the School Progress Management Team; we wanted to know, "Are the issues that are arising in SPMT meetings a reflection of how our entire staff feels, and if so, do the areas of empowerment/disempowerment line up with that of the TWC Survey they are deconstructing?" In analyzing the results of the survey, our theories about teacher feelings of efficacy were confirmed; we found that the area where teachers felt the least amount of influence/control-- parent and community involvement & support-- was the same construct where we earned our lowest scores on the TWC Survey. Though this was concerning for us, it affirmed that we were working on the right things, and gave us an additional data source to discuss related to this issue.//

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Playground Grant Letter (w/ PTA) __
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//This year, the PTA needed help putting together a grant application to the Dominion Foundation regarding funding for a new playground at Belmont. Since I had done some grant-writing over the summer, I offered to complete the application on their behalf. We requested matching funds for a new playground (roughly $10,000), but unfortunately, our grant was not funded this year. The entire application was online, but the document below is the draft explanation letter we submitted.//

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Belmont's Fall "Family Fun Day" at Creekside Housing Authority __
//<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">We held our first ever offsite "Family Fun Day" at Creekside Housing Authority, and it was a huge success! Despite the chill in the air, we had a terrific turnout of both students and parents, who were able to enjoy a hot dog summer, carnival games, and two "Bounce Houses". We were able to talk with families who might not otherwise have come to our building, and we enjoyed the opportunity to interact and form relationships with students outside of the school day. //

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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">__Student Scheduling Profile Template__
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//As an administrative team, we discussed the creation and use of the document below in order to ensure that the process of scheduling students was designed to meet the diverse needs of all kids. We wanted a document that would capture both qualitative and quantitative data on students, as well as provide easy points of comparison when creating rosters.//

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Daily Rounds Schedule - Administrative Team __
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Below is the rotation that we as an administrative team used for our daily "rounds" each morning. We made it a goal to get into every classroom, every day, even if it was just to say hi, and this schedule helped make that possible.//

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">District Budget Flow Chart __
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//For our NELA budget class, we had to examine a) the personnel flow chart for our school and district finance office, including their responsibilities, and b) the path that a purchase order takes from the teacher's hand to the product arriving at the school's doorstep.//

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Walkthrough Samples __
//<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Below are samples of walkthrough documents I conducted with teachers throughout the school year. These were used in discussion with administrative team to determine and analyze trends across the school, as well as to help generate ideas for continued professional development. //

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__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Parent Focus Group Meeting Notes __
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//In March, Belmont held a parent focus group with our superintendent, Dr. Dennis Sawyer. This was part of what was essentially a "listening tour" for the administration across all of the schools in the district. We had an outstanding turnout of parents from a wide cross-section of our school's population, and the evening was insightful and very beneficial as we began wrapping up one school year and making plans for the next.//

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