Summary. In The Scenario, Upon Reviewing State Testing

Achieving a school district’s mission and vision requires the commitment of its stakeholders. In order to involve them in the process, it is necessary for educational leaders to “motivate staff, parents, students, board and community members” (Educational Leadership Constituencies Council, 2002, p. 4). The transformational leadership theory emphasizes the importance of educational leaders acting as role-models in order to motivate and inspire the school community. This approach has the potential to involve all stakeholders, leading to increased student success (Bush, 2007). The Assistant Director of Special Education in Northwest ISD directly supervised the school district’s assessment staff. Her education, experience, and passion set an example for her subordinates, stimulating them to achieve more, leading to her promotion to Executive Director of Student Services.

According to Michael Fullan (2016) in his book, The New Meaning of Educational Change, successful organizations that demonstrate change followed principled concepts of change. The reason for their success if that there is tangible proof of alignment in keeping components of actions. Fullan (2016) stated that successful change incorporates five factors. In this essay, three of the five factors will be discussed and an example of an organization using components of the change be revealed. Often when organization shave to go through the process of change it means either they have gone through change to repair broken areas or they are going through change as a reflective exercise before embarking on a larger scope of practice perhaps to expand into new growth within their organization. In either course, the larger concern is that organizations must embrace change and engage in meaningful constructed ways to promote the best growth with the fewest steps to reach accomplishment. A key decision factor to change is whether an organize will change because they adopt a model and see a better way or whether they want to save their resources. Fullan (2016) suggested that the reason for the change is largely to work is because, the organizations, “Define closing the gap as the overarching goal,” “Assume that lack of capacity is the initial problem and then work on it continuously,” and “Stay the course through continuity of good direction by leveraging leadership,” (Fullan, 2016,

he most fundamental responsibility of schools is teaching students to read. Indeed, the future success of all students hinges upon their ability to become proficient readers. Recent scientific studies have allowed us to understand more than ever before how literacy develops, why some children have difficulty, and what constitutes best instructional practice. Scientists now estimate that fully 95 percent of all children can be taught to read. Yet, in spite of all our knowledge, statistics reveal an alarming prevalence of struggling and poor readers that is not limited to any one segment of society:

In every school across America, effective practices of reading instruction are being discussed. Calkins (2012) suggests that over 85% of students being tested on grade level literacy standards are non-proficient. Research suggests that students, who are unable to read proficiently by third grade, are not predicted to ever learn to read or have successful lives when they reach adulthood (Martinez, 2008). For these reasons, it is important that districts implement literacy models and instructional reforms that have been well researched and shown to be successful. The instructional reform method of Balanced Literacy is being used throughout the country to meet the challenging standards of the Common Core. Teachers will need

This is a very important component in education to be aware of and when you are a teacher. I interviewed a first-grade teacher at my local elementary school to gain more information about the processes that our local schools go through for professional training, interventions, and in the classroom to ensure that students are developing their abilities in reading. My main focus was on what our school’s process was, how support is given, professional training offered, and what more is needed to be done to increase success for students.

There are three major conflicts that are present in this scenario, for example: Barb Johnson is a new hire at her current place of employment, her assistant superintendent would like her to present a curriculum change to her new colleagues, and the resistance to change expressed by the middle school teacher. Each of these issues is something a reading specialist would need to take care of in any school district.

“The transformation model requires replacement of the school principal, strengthening of staffing, implementation of a research-based instructional program and new

The purpose of this report is to propose change within an organization and evaluate 1) Knowledge, 2) Skills, and 3) Dispositions as they apply to the change process. This report is structured in a fashion to allow a school to reflect on how it provides teaching and learning

Pea Ridge High School (PRHS) has long prided itself of being a high achieving school in academics; it is number six in the state for the 2013-2014 school year. Since the implementation of the Common Core Standards, PRHS has found itself having to reteach educators to use the literacy standards because most in the non-literacy/math disciplines still use the Arkansas Frameworks. Not only has the literacy standards been an arduous task to implement in the literacy areas, the high school struggles with the concept of teaching literacy in the areas that are not necessarily considered literacy areas. According to the schools’ Arkansas Consolidated School Improvement Plan (ACSIP) of which the author of this essay and project is the literacy chair for the high school, two things that is essential and requires immediate implementation in all areas is the teaching of literacy and closing the achievement gap for the target groups which are considered lower socioeconomic (free/reduced lunch), minorities, and English language learners. In an effort to ease the minds of the educators and administration, this project was instituted to help those of history, science, art, physical education, and other areas to implement the literacy standards assigned by the state. It also gives assistance and clarification for those not only in the literacy

The Alabama Reading Initiative is a federal statewide program in Alabama. This program involves a statewide movement that aims at ultimately achieving grade-level reading for all Alabama’s public school students. This program is completely voluntary, and schools are selected from a pool of applicants who must agree to seven commitments to enter the program. These commitments include the following: must set a one-hundred percent literacy goal, achieve commitment of eighty-five percent of the faculty, attend a ten day training program, principal must be the site leader, each school must adjust their instruction to the program accordingly, each school must model research-based reading instruction for other schools, and be evaluated by an outside

On Monday,October 14, 2013 at 7:00 P.M., I attended the Bradford Area School District school board meeting at Floyd C. Fretz Middle School in the large group instruction room. This meeting was important for the teachers, students, and the schools in the district. It provided information that correlated to the material in class and a perspective on what situations as a future teacher I may experience.

The second research question the independent evaluator chose to ask was how does the program affect the reading coaches? This question was extremely general and could be answered in a number of different ways; Margo chose a questionnaire that was answered by Team Read coaches to determine whether or not they were impacted by the Team Read Program. The results were generally positive as Trish McKay had felt the same way about the results, as they were looked upon in a positive light. The questionnaire was administered towards the late stages of the school year as students were beginning to wind down all programs and head into summer. This questionnaire differed in response from one area to the next on certain questionnaire questions which directly gives the Team Read program information and data that can be interpreted to change policy

An effective school leader possesses skills to create, implement, evaluate, improve and share a staff development plan. I met with Ben Rhodes, Sandy Creek Middle School’s principal, to interview him on the specific elements of his yearly staff development plan. We began with the design process focusing on the district and school goals. District goals include improving literacy across the content areas in reading and writing, Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum (GVC). Guaranteed and Viable Technology (GVT), and Closing the Achievement Gap (Equity in Excellence). Using a variety of assessments to focus on specific needs, Ben Rhodes and Mary Sonya, our Pupil Achievement Specialist, examined CSAP, Explore, MAP, and RAD data. They use the

Systemic change is a recurrent process in which the influence of change on all parts and their relationships to one another are taken into contemplation. Systematic change allows for change on the policy, technology, education, and information levels, it goes beyond thinking about individuals and single problems. Change is an important part of progress and systematic change is a huge undertaking for a school, even any business. People are resistant to change, they like being comfortable, but sometimes being comfortable is not being effective. This week while discussing change, an article stood out; the author wrote “…comprehensive school reform will succeed only if it’s predicated on a sustained, cooperative, and trusting relationship among parents, school and district staff, and the school board governing the system” (Usdan, 2010, pp.9). In many ways this is true, systematic change is such a large amount of change, people that are not supportive of the change can ultimately cause it to fail. In some cases, one person’s lack of interest in the change can cause a successful school to

In a perfect world, district administrators would be the change agent for solutions. These individuals need to connect with teachers and become involved in the problem-solving process with building leaders. My theory of the change process will focus on four essential items I believe leaders need to empower a group in light of “uncertainty, chaos, and rapid change.” Change leaders should (a) use their knowledge of the