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Over the past few years, NTC’s Teacher Induction division has built a solid reputation with their work in supporting new teachers and mentoring in the Central Virginia region. As a result, this has provided our School Leadership Development division entry for work with Richmond Public Schools and Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, and Richmond counties. SLD has now been bringing our supervision (ISA) and CLASS (Coaching Leaders to Achieve Student Success) workshops to this region to great response.
Terry Dozier (former Teacher in Residence- U.S. Department of Education and current Director, Center for Teacher Leadership — Virginia Commonwealth University) soon became aware of and interested in the work of SLD. Through Dr. Dozier and Dr. Jo Lynne DeMary’s (former Superintendent of Public Instruction-Virginia and current Director, Center for School Leadership) efforts, SLD was invited to lead the work in training coaches for an initiative that provided coaches for new administrators at hard to staff schools through the Center for School Leadership, Virginia Commonwealth University.
Based upon the very positive response to SLD’s work with VCU, our work continues to expand with them. This past month, we trained twenty-two leaders from Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, and Richmond counties in utilizing our Leadership Institute Modules with interested educational leaders in the Central Virginia region.
Future work for SLD through the Center for School Leadership, Virginia Commonwealth University, involves VCU’s federal grant funded initiative to develop a succession plan (pre-service and induction plan) for middle schools in Richmond Public Schools. SLD has been written into this grant to provide CLASS training during the 2010-2011 academic year.
What started out as a positive, collaborative, cross-divisional relationship with Teacher Induction in Central Virginia has now grown into a larger partnership in helping educators effectively supervise leaders Who in turn provide better support to teachers in their development.
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In 2007-2008, the New Teacher Center’s School Leadership Development’s work in developing tools and resources in support of the establishment of professional learning communities for teachers and school leaders was a great success. Facilitating work at three high schools (Morgan Hill - English Language Arts; Gilroy – math; Watsonville - math), Mike Heffner and Karen Hendricks collaborated with individual departments in helping establish and further their respective PLCs. This work was supported by the Morgan Family Foundation.
Their work focused on the three areas of:
- use of data teams and benchmark common assessments and protocols.
- peer observations.
- student case studies.
Key findings included the:
- clear protocols to guide their work in the three targeted areas.
- identification of what worked in student learning.
- effective teacher conversations around teaching and student learning.
Planning has begun this year for SLD to now work with administrator and teacher teams in two districts in the region to review and revise their processes for teacher supervision and evaluation, and will support the implementation of those revised processes through professional development and coaching. Mike Heffner is again leading this new initiative and is forming a team that integrates the collaboration of both Teacher Induction and School Leadership Development staff.
The new processes that are developed will build upon NTC’s work in coaching-based professional development and supervision, and will:
- build collaborative processes that integrate the work of mentors, content coaches, department chairs and other teacher leaders.
- Tie supervision into the work of professional learning communities.
As it is clear that typical teacher supervision processes do little to promote teacher effectiveness and are usually implemented in isolation from other professional development processes, the SLD team is excited to focus on and address this important area of work knowing that it will ultimately improve our students’ achievement. This work is again funded by a generous grant by Morgan Family Foundation. We look forward to updating you as the year unfolds.
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NTC’s School Leadership Division recently facilitated a successful series of workshops for the Ontario (Canada) Ministry of Education and the Catholic Principals’ Council of Ontario (CPCO) in support of their Student Success School Support Initiative (SSSI). SSSI is a partnership between Ontario’s local boards (analogous to a school district in the U.S.) and the Ontario Ministry of Education (OME) to support administration and school improvement teams.
In 2007-2008 a mentoring and coaching pilot took place in twenty Ontario school boards. The pilot explored and utilized a range of models drawing on research and experience with mentoring and coaching. In October 2007, and again in 2008, NTC facilitated our CLASS training to almost 200 participants. The success and response to SLD’s work resulted in the inclusion of the Blended Coaching model as one of the piloted models to be utilized.
The OME contracted Parker Management Consulting, Inc. to conduct an evaluation of the pilot to determine the impact of the models, or components of models, on leadership development and leadership effectiveness, and to identify critical success factors. This evaluation was intended to inform future ministry directions. Overall, participants perceived the pilot as a success, and reported individual and system benefits.
Individual benefits included:
- Support in learning the day-to-day skills involved in leading a school
- Increased confidence
- Better understanding of the role
- Opportunities for professional reflection
System benefits included:
- Improved performance of new administrators
- Capacity building
- Support of system priorities
- Access to external ideas and support
The Ontario Ministry of Education has now produced and provided all local boards with a School Board Guideline for Implementation of Mentoring for Newly Appointed School Leaders. The OME has recommended a two year mentoring (coaching is embedded within this aspect) support program, of which CLASS and the follow-ups to our CLASS trainings are an accepted part of. Most importantly, the OME is providing all local boards funds to do so.
An SLD team trained almost 200 additional CLASS participants to begin their coaching for the 2009-10 academic year and conducted a follow-up training for close to 100 previously trained CLASS participants to reflect, build upon, and deepen their practice and conscious competency utilizing blended coaching. Their work received kudos from participants, OME, and CPCO, generating much buzz and additional interest in our work.
With almost 400 New Teacher Center trained coaches now in the field, and the success of our model in local Ontario boards (both Catholic and public), we look forward to our continuing work with our neighbors north of the border.
(September 2009)
