Leadership Lines
News for Campus Leaders
Welcome!
Welcome to the 1st edition of Leadership Lines, which is a newsletter designed to help principals and school administrators become "better leaders"! This edition focuses on the topics of classroom walkthroughs, aligned curriculum, and technology applications to make your walkthroughs easier.
Leverage Leadership by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo
"By receiving weekly observations and feedback, a teacher develops as much in one year as most teachers do in twenty." This is a quote from the book, Leverage Leadership. Consider the power of this statement and the implications for conducting regular, systematic classroom walk-through observations. Even if you do not have time to do weekly walk-throughs, consider the improvement for teachers if you conduct walk-throughs every-other week. The Teacher Teacher Evaluation and Support System (T-TESS), the new teacher evaluation system for Texas that rolls out in 2016-17, is a growth model with a focus on "coaching" teachers. Regular classroom walk-through observations, in addition to formal 45-minute observations, will be critical to coaching teachers to help them improve in their practice. As an administrator, what do you need to do to improve your observation and coaching skills?
What is "Authentic Curriculum Alignment"?
In their book Starting a Movement, authors Ken C Williams and Tom Hierck explain that "Authentic alignment helps connect what we do in schools with the why. When there's no connection between what we do and why we do it, the best a school can hope for is compliance."
Walk-Through Form Ideas
DMAC has a walk-through form that is aligned to the new T-TESS rubric that is a great option if your district has DMAC. In addition, the article linked above has sample walk-through forms at the end of the article. You can also custom design your own walk-through documents using Google Forms, and if you would more information on these types of tools for administrators check out "Tech Tools for Admins" on January 21st (Session #051808) or on Feb. 19th (Session #051810).
Region 7 Education Service Center
Region 7 Contacts:
Henryett Lovely-Watson, HLovelyWatson@esc7.net - Accountability Turnaround Team
Leesa Green, Lgreen@esc7.net - State Accountability
Vicki Weatherford, Vweatherford@esc7.net - Priority and Focus Schools
Rhonda McCallie, Rmccallie@esc7.net - Coordinator for Curriculum Services
Email: HLovelyWatson@esc7.net
Website: www.esc7.net
Location: 1909 N Longview St, Kilgore, TX, United States
Phone: (903) 988-6700