Standard II: Instructional Leadership
A. Focus on Learning and Teaching, Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment: The school executive leads the discussion about standards for curriculum, instruction and assessment based on research and best practices in order to establish and achieve high expectations for students.
Data WallW.G. Pearson's conference room has effectively been turned into a data room. Along all the walls are pocket charts of various colors. These pocket charts and colors correspond to various assessment data sources and their proficiency levels. This room is used to hold meetings where data is discussed, to include PLC, MTSS, Academic Leadership Team, Remediation Team and SIG Team meetings. Recently the NCDPI SIG representatives asked the SIG team to create a presentation on our data room and present it at the SIG conference. The presentation that was created is provided to the right.
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Vertical Team Planning
At W.G. Pearson we have recently begun an intentional Vertical Planning initiative. Once a month in place of a staff meeting we will be holding Vertical Team Planning. The first such event occurred in March of 2018. At this planning session, the focus for the meeting was on what teachers are seeing as students are transitioning to their respective grades from year to year. The next session is going to focus on standards and vertical alignment. The session in May is going to focus on strategies and practices that can be used in all the grade levels, but specifically from one grade to another.
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B. Focus on Instructional Time: The school executive creates processes and schedules which protect teachers from disruption of instructional or preparation time.
90 minute Planning Period
W.G. Pearson provides its teachers with an uninterrupted 90 minute planning period on Fridays, this is a requirement of the SIG grant. To formulate a plan we secluded ourselves in the media center with a team of teacher leaders to create a plan and schedule to implement 90 minute planning. We broke off into small groups and looked at the master schedule and created an initial plan and schedule for 90 minute planning. The goal was to limit the amount of changes to the master schedule as much as possible. Each group then presented its plan and we came to consensus on a final plan that included components of several of the plans presented. From there we looked at preliminary coverage options that would allow us to implement the plan. The initial schedule and coverage plan is provided below on the left. Before our first Friday we determined that coverage was going to be an issue and decided on bringing in three substitute teachers to assist with coverage each time. As a result one of my tasks each Friday is to create a coverage schedule that includes substitutes and staff members. Provided below on the right is the ideal coverage schedule that gets revised each week based on staff absences or substitute cancellations.
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