A leader effectively directs operations and manages resources.
Managing of Budget This was the area of the LQS that I have the least amount of experience with and was the most concerned about at the start of the year. I have worked very hard to remain in close contact with our Business Services department to ensure that I am able to understand and stay on top of our financial accounts and make informed decisions. In order to do so, I have create a master binder, where I keep our monthly summaries after I have spent time reveiwing them with my admin assistant and assistant principal. This is good practice for me, as well as informative for her, so that she will have some experience with this aspect should she decide to pursue a principalship in the future. In addition to monthly reviewing, I also complete the quarterly reports, and have shared this information with our staff to ensure that I am being transparent about how our dollars are allocated out and then spent. In years past, I have been accountable for some key accounts including our Learning Support, Program Unit Funding (when it was managed at the school level) and some of our General School Accounts for school generated funds.
Growth, Supervision and Evaluation In the spring of last year, I was able to go through the process of hiring new staff, and allocating funds in the budget for hiring of staff including our support staff and EA's. Under Audrey's supervision, I was able to gain this valuable experience, and this year will be able to do this more confidently. This year, we were lucky to have added many great teachers to our team. Part of my role has been providing leadership to these new teachers, supervising them, and helping them to grow as professionals. I have also taken five staff through the evaluation process this year, including my assistant principal! This was a new experience for me, but it was a very rewarding part of my position this year. At the start of the year, I outlined my expectations for all staff and also shared what they could expect from me. One of those expectations were that there would be supervision of all teachers on a regular basis in order to achieve our school goals, collaborate and grow as a team. For some, I could tell they were uncomfortable, but others were very open. Alli and I decided to split up div 1 and div 2 supervision responsibilities, and then switch throughout the year. This worked well for both of us, and gave us time to work with a group of teachers for a considerable chunk of time. We committed to offering each teacher some positive feedback after viewing a lesson, as well as pose some questions or make a suggestion. We also identified teachers who we wanted to showcase at our next staff meeting, something that was of value to other teachers from our school goals. As a result, at our weekly staff meetings, we often started with 2 or 3 staff members showcasing something they did with their students, or some Professional Development they could share with the group. This has become a valuable part of our day, and has helped both Alli and I to grow as teachers and leaders as well. In addition, to prepare for this area, I attended the U of A Leadership Excellence Summit for Masters Course credit. This course focused on the new TQS and LQS that will be implemented in September 2019. This course was so valuable in exploring the changes that will come, and how to assist my staff in ensuring they are able to meet the new competencies expected of them. I also arranged for our staff to receive a TQS presentation in September 2018 in order to prepare us for our teacher growth planning, and to consider what areas we may want to focus on this year in preparation for implementation date this fall.
Managing of School Operations Currently, I am working on choosing school based PD dates from our base calendar, and ensuring our stakeholders have input into the process. As part of this process I will need to ensure we have enough instructional hours and time free from instruction as well as begin thinking about assignable time. All of these responsibilities were new to me this year, and I have reached out to my mentors to assist me in making sure I am understanding the process, and to help with troubleshooting.
Staffing Considerations As I begin to plan for next year, our administration will make staffing decisions which will be based on our school needs and priorities. We have embarked on some new programming this year, including our CTF program for grades 4,5,6 as well as our embedded PLC time which allowed staff for half days on our PD days to collaborate as well as two additional half days throughout the year. In addition, grade level teams also had time every six weeks to meet with our learning support to discuss program plans for individual students and collaborate on IPPs. Although our structure for next year will largely remain the same, we will have some considerations to make after receiving feedback from staff on how effective certain areas were and suggestions for modifications. Then we will take that information as an admin team along with our proposed budget, and move ahead with timetabling for our next year.
Policies, Procedures and Legal Considerations As I have stated an important part of my growth this year as principal has been consulting with my mentors Paul and Audrey. Both have been invaluable resources and have been able to guide me in much of my decision making. I also rely on the knowledge at our admin council table, as well as our divisional senior administrators. They have also helped me to refer to our LRSD Administrative Procedures often to check and ensure that we are following these as closely as possible whenever reasonable. This has become a habit now, and I am modelling this for Alli when she has questions of concerns. In addition, I have been working on the completion of my Masters and have taken a Spring course in Legal Aspects of Education. This course has provided me with the necessary background information in legal issues and also given me more confidence in recognizing and dealing with issues that have legal implications. Support for Student Learning This year, we had to make a few staffing adjustments to accommodate for changes in student needs. Our students are our number one priority so it was important to us as a leadership team, to evaluate our placement of EA's mid year and due to EA expertise and changes in student need we made some changes to accommodate. We also added an EA in order to better support our Grade Five students, who had a change in teacher half way through the year. This group was needing more support prior to the change in teachers, so I freed up one period each day to go in and support small groups in math to assist the teacher. This worked well for this particular group, and we decided in February to be able to increase the support in this classroom needed to be a priority so we switched an EA placement and increase the time of both EAs to make sure needs were met in the grade six ream too (where we had taken an EA from). So far, this has been a positive move, and the students are moving through the material with more ease and students with some significant behaviour concerns are being better supported. Going forward... These are just a few of the ways that I have directed operations and ensured smooth management of the school this year. In another section I have shown our School Plan which includes our vision and mission, so I will not post that again, but I often refer to that to ensure that I am prioritizing those goals when decisions are made. These goals are linked to our divisional goals and provincial priority areas, and I will continue to refer back to these when decisions are made. This year I have learned so much in this realm, and I will continue to grow and learn in this area.
A.B Daley Playground Project We have worked hard with our Friends of AB Daley Fundraising Society, School Council and Playground Committee to upgrade our playground and incorporate some new structures and engaging play based activities for students at recess. In October we have upgraded our swing area with funds raised from community donors, and our currently in the planning stages for Phase 2. Our hope for Phase two is to include picnic tables on front lawn and back playground area, painted tarmac to include games for students to play as well as a Timber Stacks climbing structure and an agility course. This will support our strong belief in play and learning through play, as well as encourage students to use their imaginations while being active! This was a great experience for me to organize a project like this and manage all the details and logistics as well as the financial aspect. I learned a lot through the process in terms of playground standards and safety, working with our LRSD Maintenance department, contacting outside vendors and fundraising, and securing fundraising commitments.