It's All About Presentation - Creating a Flyer

As you were reminded in Week 2, remember it is a good idea to look ahead to Week 4 to prepare for the group activity – ask questions now in our Ask Your Instructor if you are unclear about any of the requirements for the group activity.  WEEKLY LEARNING OUTCOMES Before moving any further, please take a moment to review and reflect on our learning expectations for the week; these are also listed with their alignment to each assessment for the week on the Week 3 Unit page:

· Discuss key ideas, values, and beliefs when creating a vision statement at the school.

· Devise a plan to include all stakeholders in the planning, creation and implementation process.

· Develop activities, for all stakeholders, in the vision creation process.

· Discuss the need to include district goals in regards to creating vision statements.    

· Analyze the resources that each set of stakeholders brings to the successful implementation of the school vision.

· Discuss different strategies for stakeholder ownership in creating the vision statement

WEEK 3 – OVERVIEW In Week Two, you provided justification on creating a new vision to your school board and school stakeholders. Additionally, you compared different visions to identify key components that comprise an effective vision. This week we have two discussions and an assignment. Review the guidance below and be sure to review the full instructions for each assessment on the Week 3 Unit page. Discussion 1: In the Who to Include discussion, you reflect on which stakeholders are most effective to include in the modification or creation of a new vision for the school.  Discussion 2: The Planning Activities discussion is where you go more deeply into the vision process and determine what types of activities you need to plan to ensure the stakeholders have enough information to successfully create a vision.  Assignment: The assignment Join the Visionary Team is another opportunity to be creative and put your technology skills to use while showing what you know about recruitment to participate in a vision modification or creation. You will create a flyer that you could place in the school to attract stakeholders into joining a committee to create the school vision.  INTELLECTUAL ELABORATION Another Committee!   As teachers, we are planning, creating, and teaching students and attending to all the intellectual and physical labor that teaching entails. We are busy professionals often with busy personal lives to manage as well. Often teachers stay long hours at their school site to ensure our practices are providing enough learning for the students to succeed. When we are faced with being put on a committee, it typically reduces our direct focus on our classroom activities. However, being on a committee is a significant duty as it is one of the best ways to have your voice heard around the school and to learn with your peers about a range of topics influencing your classroom practice.  As leaders, it is our job to ensure that teachers are not feeling overwhelmed with the myriad of duties assigned; that they desire to serve on committees that will help costively to have an impact on the school. Consequently, as leaders we benefit from fostering the relationships between other stakeholders in the school; by doing this we ensure diverse group on committees. Both of these tasks, including teachers and other stakeholders, are not necessarily without challenges! Challenges are discussed by Epstein and Salinas (2007) with regard to barriers to parents’ (one group of stakeholders) involvement in schools: "Parents believe that they are not welcome. It comes in part from their own education history. They often have had a less-than-satisfactory experience with their own schooling, and so they don't feel like [being involved] is guaranteed to be a good experience" (p. 13).  As leaders and teachers we must understand the background of our stakeholders at the school in order to engage stakeholders in the school processes.  The question then becomes, how do we foster stakeholder relationships? Another work (Epstein et al., 2009) identified six types of involvement which are the keys to successful parent school partnerships.  

1. Parenting “Assist families with parenting skills and setting home conditions to support children as students. Also, assist schools to better understand families” (para 1).

2. Communication “Conduct effective communications from school-to-home and from home-to-school about school programs and student progress” (para 2).

3. Volunteering “Organize volunteers and audiences to support the school and students. Provide volunteer opportunities in various locations and at various times” (para 3).

4. Learning at Home “Involve families with their children on homework and other curriculum-related activities and decisions” (para 4).

5. Decision Making “Include families as participants in school decisions, and develop parent leaders and representatives” (para 5).

6. Collaborating with the Community “Coordinate resources and services from the community for families, students, and the school, and provide services to the community” (para 6).

By taking a look at the barriers, stakeholders have to volunteering in the school along with identifying ways to break down these barriers. We can begin to build relationships with school stakeholders to help the school obtain and retain stakeholders who share in our school vision.  Planning Effective Meetings  Jennings (2007) wrote a wonderful book titled Leading Effective Meetings, Teams, and Work Groups in Districts and Schools. In this book, Jennings discusses how we first need to decide on an end goal, and then work backwards to design a meeting that will be relevant and effective. For example, if we want to create a school vision, then our ultimate goal is to walk away from the meetings with a vision statement.   The next step is to decide who should be included in these meetings. Jennings (2007) notes that you should ask yourself some questions before choosing committee members. One of these questions should be,  are the people you have chosen diverse enough to provide a mixture of complementary skills and styles or are they too diverse which could create conflict in the meetings?  As leaders we should not just randomly choose committee members because they have expressed an interest. We must consider the ending goal and how these committee members will work together efficiently to produce the goal.  Another item to take into consideration when creating a committee, according to Jennings (2007), is that “an educational administrator must carefully attend to the way in which authority is allocated between the group and the administration” (p. 101). Deciding early on how the information will be shared among the committee, school and other administration personnel should not be overlooked. There needs to be a direct chain of command to ensure the end goal will reflect the school demographics and goals.   Think about your own previous meeting experiences. What were some of the highlights of good meetings you attended and the low points in bad meetings? How as a leader will you ensure every meeting you have will be meaningful for each and every participant? References Epstein, J. & Salinas, K. C. (2007). Partnering with families and communities. Educational Leadership, 66(8). 12-18. Epstein, J., Sanders, M., Sheldon, S., Simon, B., Salinas, K., Jansorn, N., Voorhis, F., Martin, C., Thomas, B., Greenfield, M., Hutchins, D., & Williams, K.  (2009). School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc. Jennings, M. (2007) Leading effective meetings, teams and work groups in districts. Alexandria, VA. ASCD.

Required Resources Required Text

1. Gabriel, J., & Farmer, P. (2009). How to help your school thrive without breaking the bank. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.   

a. Chapter 5, pp. 65-75.

Recommended Resources

1. Marzano, R., Waters, T., & McNulty, B. (2005). School leadership that works: From research to results. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development