HOS Highlights
September 2nd, 2015
“We succeed only when students succeed. That is our goal. That is our passion. That is our work.” Nate Davis
What's new?
- Christa Patton and her team in enrollment have a 5 part series to share with us. These tips and tricks can be found in the newsletter through the month of September. If you have any questions please reach out to Christa at cpatton@k12.com
- Mid September you will have the opportunity to choose your strongest area from the leadership standards within the Leadership Excellence Framework. You will move into a smaller work group to collaborate with a subject area expert and a small group of your colleagues to really unpack that standard and codify your collective expertise. Action Item: Read through the Leadership Academy content and curriculum document and determine which standard you feel is your greatest strength. The standards include: Strategic Leadership, Instructional Leadership, Communication & Community Leadership, Human Resources Leadership, and Organizational Management.
- Leadership project- Please make changes to your Leadership Mantra and share them in the form below. We look forward to hearing your mantras during our September 11th Leadership Academy. We have exciting plans for your Mantras..more to come on that.
Head of School in the Spotlight
Amanda Conley
School: ISOH0
Began with K12: 7/2007
Superpower: System thinking and processing
Fun Fact: I have had the privilege of being a teacher, lead teacher, and a principal at OHVA before becoming the HOS for ISOH.
Advice to Leaders: Wake up and be awesome
If you have not shared your information for HOS in the Spotlight, please fill out the form below. Please upload your headshot here.
Head of School Professional Development - What's on the Horizon?
Leadership Academy - Cycle 1 Week 5
Using your strengths to leverage your weaknesses
This week's with whole group instruction focuses on leveraging your strengths to help you overcome your weaknesses with Laurie Erdman.
Leadership Video
Questions to Ponder
We are going to ponder these questions during next Friday's Leadership Academy. Be ready to share your thoughts.
1. What implications does this video have for leaders?
2. What efforts can you take as a leader to help others feel empowered to act within your organization?
Feel free to share your ideas on our School Leadership Yammer page.
School Services/Department Updates
OSk12ARs: Recognizing Excellence in Teaching
Recognizing excellence in teaching is a vital component to developing our teachers in a positive way. The OSk12ARs is a monthly contest where teachers demonstrate online synchronous instructional strategies, most recently identified in Teach like a Champion 2.0. The survey for submissions will be open September 8th. Check it out here.
Special Programs: Leader Identification
For more information click here.
Enrollment Tips and Tricks- Week 1 of 5
Ways to Successfully Transition Newly Enrolled Students
The successful on-boarding of newly enrolled students is critical this time of year. To prevent students and Learning Coaches from feeling overwhelmed and unsure of how to begin, utilize the below ideas as school is starting to create an initial connection and create a positive relationship between these new students and your school!
Below are a few ideas that will help create a bridge with newly enrolled families:
1. Creating a newsletter (just like this one!)
The sample is a great example from KSVA, which was created for families a few years ago. This is a great way to have parents “meet” your staff, collect best practices, highlight star families, and provide helpful best practices to start school off successfully. It doesn’t have to be long, and can point families to places you need them to review before school starts, such as the Strong Start website, Facebook, Parent Network workshops and your school webpage. You can also remind families about their provisional documents, to ensure those are turned in before the first few weeks of school! The newsletters can be created in Microsoft Publisher or even MS Word and then saved as pdf files.
2. Sending post cards to newly enrolled families
Sending a quick online or printed postcard is a great way to reach out to families who either just enrolled, or who might have been approved for quite a while. The postcard can include the start date, to ensure the family begins on time. It can also include links to your school-specific website and/or Strong Start website.
3. Assign an outbound calling team to welcome newly enrolled families.
Right before the first day or school, or within the first week of school, a quick call can make all the difference to a family that has been approved and anxiously awaiting to hear from you. On this call, you can check to see if students have logged into courses or started their Online Orientation. This is a great way to answer any questions from nervous Learning Coaches as well!
Best wishes for a successful school start!
Cheers to You!
- I am cheering for Marcus Moore for being a focused and dedicated leader. While the pressures of the second year of building a new online school are great, he is keeping his team focused on student learning and growth.
- I am cheering all of our HOSs for active engagement during last week's first National Head of School call of the new year!
Let's Celebrate! We would like to highlight your Cheers in the next HOS Highlights newsletter. Please submit your cheers here on the form below. We need more people cheering.
Past issues of the HOS Highlights
Reoccurring Information Below
The Leadership Academy Basics
- Weekly Leadership Academies begin at Noon EST every Friday afternoon and run for 90 minutes
- Here is the participant link.
- It is highly recommended that you participate in the weekly academies via BBC because the classes are going to be interactive. Your experience will not be as rich if you join via phone only
- Pertinent school services information that was typically presented during Friday HOS calls will be shared via regional calls, the weekly HOS newsletter, or monthly national HOS calls
- This newsletter will have all of the information you need for the upcoming training and will arrive in your inbox every Wednesday morning
2015-16 HOS National Professional Development Calendar
iLead@K12/School Leadership Development & Support Team
2015/16 Leadership Academy Content and Focus
2015-2016 Leadership Standards and Practices
Leadership Academy #1- "Explore U": YOU are the focus of Leadership Academy #1 entitled, Explore "U". Throughout the first seven weeks we will focus on your strengths as indicated in the Myers-Briggs assessment most of you took in January, 2015. Throughout the cycle you will build upon your strengths and learn to leverage those strengths to minimize weaknesses.
Leadership Academy #2- "Build It and They Will Come": Your knowledge and expertise will be leveraged to build out content for one of the leadership strands. Each School leader chooses one standard to work with over the course of the 7 week cycle. The goal will be to codify your expertise within the leadership strand to build a complete leadership Academy cycle in your area chosen area.
Leadership Academies #3-5-: Once the content is built, you will choose one strand to focus on for the remaining cycles. Choice is built into the process and we would like you to choose two standards. We suggest you work with your RVP/DRVP to choose one leadership strand that you would like additional support in. The strands include: Strategic Leadership, Instructional Leadership, Community, Human Resources, and Organizational Management.
iLead@K12 Team
The iLEAD team leads the design, development, execution, and evaluation of national programs that build exceptional school leadership across K12’s network of managed schools. The team coordinates school, regional and national efforts to improve leadership practice and school outcomes.
Mike Kazek
Board and Partner Relations