Notes
Darwyn is the sole assistant principal at his high school that currently enrolls 430 students. He is responsible for administrative tasks related to athletics, discipline, and activities coordination. Darwyn has 19 years of experience as a high school social studies teacher. His goal is to become a school principal. He shared that his school just hired the middle school assistant principal to take over the principalship at the high school. That administrator is a former physical educator teacher who was responsible for tasks related to sports and various school activities at his last position. He is in his twenties and plans to make no school changes in his first year.
Darwyn’s primary goal is to develop skills and a portfolio that illustrates his instructional leadership. He aims to be a principal at elementary, middle or high school; he hopes to demonstrate his competencies in literacy development as a path to promotion.
Darwyn has several ideas to meet his goal. He indicated that he hopes to develop a tier 1 plan that utilizes various staff members to provide whole, small group and individual services to students in the classroom. He is thinking of starting with an elementary school lens in learning course module information. Additionally we discussed that he might work on a process at his current location to gain experience in the process.   Toward that end, we discussed that he might seek out permission from the new principal, seek the participation of two dedicated English teachers and a special educator. He noted that special education services are not strong.  We also discussed how he might review the KS Systems Alignment Guide to systematically develop a plan using a Decision Making Model and Inquiry cycle as first steps.
Coursework:
Knowledge: Darwyn shared that he needs to get permission from the district superintendent to complete the Quadrant assignment. He has limited data access but indicated that there is Fastbridge data that can be used. He does not need any support on course content mastery at this time.
Application assignments:
Darwyn plans two lessons next week in summer school once he examines the module assignments.
His wife is an experienced elementary teacher and currently works in a preschool teaching phonics. She uses UFLI and LETRS. He plans to observe her and participate in some teaching at her work setting.
He does not need coaching support at this time on module completion. I did remind him that I am available anytime for support throughout each week as needed.
Currently, Darwyn’s plans are very loose despite his targeted goal of gaining an administrative edge to seek a principalship. When I asked about his hopes around my coaching role, he indicated that he is looking for support as he moves through the coursework. We will needed to firm up a leadership goal at the next meeting.
After our meeting I sent the following information to Darwyn about goal setting:
Leadership Goal: To achieve your goal of evidence development in seeking a principalship, you are planning to showcase your knowledge and skills in supporting structured literacy through strong administrative leadership. Consequently you may consider one or more of the following ideas:
- Create an elementary plan to support tiered instruction
- Work with high school English and special education teachers to provide tier 1 support in the classroom
- Utilize the KS Systems Alignment Guide to systematically develop a plan using a Decision Making Model and Inquiry cycle as first steps.
My interpretations based on our conversation may or may not be totally accurate at this time, so please provide feedback before or during our next meeting. I hope that we can finalize an instructional leadership goal (or two goals as needed) to support you. I do understand your long-term agenda and will work with you to build a portfolio of evidence. This evidence will prepare you for both elementary and secondary principalship opportunities.