Brittni Kilpatrick

Reflective Paper
Introduction
Throughout this program, I have had the opportunity to be involved in
many areas throughout my school that have caused me to step out of my
comfort zone and expand my experience. Each of these opportunities has
allowed me to view more deeply into the role of school leaders. I have come
to realize that there are many characteristics needed of a good leader, such
as being understanding, knowledgeable, collaborative, and flexible. A strong
leader must be able to carry out the schools vision to promote high
achievement. Marzano, Waters and McNulty (2005) say, Whether a school
operates effectively or not increases or decreases a students chances of
academic success (p.3). Therefore, it is essential that school leaders reflect
frequently to ensure that they are leading a school in the right direction. If
not, as Marzano, Waters, and McNulty explain, student academics will be
what suffers. To me the skills most needed to promote high achievement in
a school is being able to use data based decision making, communicating
efficiently, empowering group leadership, and successfully implementing
change.
Data Based Decision Making
Gorton, Alston, and Snowden (2007) emphasize decision making by
saying, The ability to make effective decisions is vital to the successful
performance of a school administrator (p. 25). A school leader is faced with

numerous high-stakes decisions. These decisions should not be made in

vain. Using data is an effective strategy to drive instruction, curriculum, and
achievement. The right decision could be different in each school; therefore,
school data has to be used to determine the correct decisions are made.
Using the decision making process can be helpful to administrators to
thoroughly understand the problem and consider many options. The
decision making process is not a process that should be used alone. It works
well to have a team of individuals, such as a leadership team, to work
through the process. This is a seven step process that begins with
determining the true problem of the situation. Then, the team will list
alternatives to the problem. These alternatives will be assessed and
discussed by the team. Next, the best alternative will be chosen as a
consensus by the team. The final steps are to determine a plan to roll out
the decision to staff and to evaluate the new decision after its
implementation (Gorton, Altson, & Snowden, 2007, p. 34).
Throughout this program, I have worked as a co-facilitator of Response
to Intervention (RTI). Through this position, I have managed the literacy and
math data for kindergarten through fifth grade to organize and ensure that
our school is providing the appropriate interventions to struggling students.
What has stood out the most to me is the vast amount of data that a
principal uses. I am used to using and making classroom decisions based off
of student data, but it was more challenging to analyze the data for the

entire school. Through this process, I have realized the importance of

training and empowering teachers to be accountable to analyze and make
data-based decisions. If the principal is the only person analyzing the data,
then students will fall in the cracks. Everyone in the building needs to be
analyzing data, and the principals role is to ensure that this is being done.
As grade level chair, I have worked with my grade level team to make
many data based decisions. We work collaboratively to move students into
tiered intervention groups, and we work together to provide intervention for
each others students when needed. Sometimes another teacher has an
instructional group or teaching strategies that are more likely to target that
students particular deficit. For that reason, I have worked to encourage my
team to use data to make more fluid decisions. We should not be analyzing
data and moving students at the end of each semester; this should be an
ongoing collaborative process. As a result of this change and use of data,
our grade level has had the highest number of students remediated to grade
level the past two years.
In addition, I have worked with administration and our team of
kindergarten teachers to create a summer tutoring program that offers
intensive intervention to students entering first grade and struggling in
literacy. The principal and I decided to use Title One funds to create this
program because of evidence in our school data. We realized that our
students that fell behind in kindergarten were continuing to be struggling

readers year after year. We worked together and used the kindergarten
literacy data to identify students that would benefit the most from the
summer program and then invited parents to send their students. As a
result, each student in the program made progress, and several entered first
grade on grade level to help us begin to break the cycle that was evident in
our data.
As a future leader, I will use data based decisions to evaluate the
school vision statement to ensure the school is focusing on the correct areas
of growth. Data will be used to ensure that students are growing and to
identify areas of weakness. I will create a professional development plan to
offer additional focus and support to the areas in need of most attention in
the school.
Communication
Gorton, Alston, and Snowden (2012) emphasize the importance of
communication by saying, No one can manage a modern organization who
is not knowledgeable in communication principles and techniques and skilled
in their use (p.88). Communication is a vital part of leadership. A school
leader must keep teachers, parents, students, and the community informed
of what is occurring in the school. In addition, they must use communication
to maintain a sense of trust and a positive outlook of challenging times.
Principals must effectively communicate through conversations, public
speaking, e-mails, media, and listening.

As the grade level chair, I facilitated grade level planning meetings.

We met Monday through Thursday each week to develop lesson plans for the
following weeks. Each day we worked on a different subject area. This was a
large help to our quality of planning because we were all informed, and we
knew to prepare ideas and gather materials to share on those days. Before
these norms, people would come into planning time asking what they need
to bring, and we would waste time finding what we needed. In order to
maximize our efforts, we would delegate tasks that needed to be completed
to supplement our plans. We would create these additional materials and
email them to one another. By meeting face to face frequently and sharing
through email we were able to communicate effectively and collaboratively.
Another area that I assisted in through this program was providing
support to a new teacher to aid in classroom management. This teacher was
struggling with students that were disrupting instructional time. I observed
in the classroom several times and took notes on what I noticed. I met with
the teacher and explained what I observed, areas that seemed to be triggers
for students, and offered suggestions. I realized that I really needed to listen
to her frustrations and be supportive. When communicating with a new
teacher, they need to be able to feel comfortable sharing their struggles and
receiving constructive feedback.
Being a strong communicator involves being well rounded in numerous
different areas of communication. It is not an easy task because different

forms of communication are needed for a variety of situations and with

different people. A good school leader is able to balance communication
during good times and bad times, and they are able to communicate with
individuals, small groups, and large groups. Becoming competent in each of
these areas takes practice, self reflection, and feedback from others. Gorton,
Alston, and Snowden (2012) restate this, Clearly, if any individual aspires to
be successful as an administrator or leader, he or she must give high priority
to developing effective skills in communication. (p.87) I am at the
beginning stages of my path to becoming a school leader, but I must start
working towards becoming a strong communicator, so that I too can become
an effective communicator when it is my turn to lead a school.
Group Leadership
Gorton, Alston, and Snowden say To exercise leadership, an
administrator will need to try to influence the various groups that are
associated with the school or school district (p.16). A principal has many
tasks that have be dealt with each day; one strategy to handling the amount
of tasks is to empower other staff members to handle various areas. A
principal cannot run a school as if they are the only person capable of
managing challenges. They will burn out very quickly. A principal needs to
empower strong, willing team members to work on different groups or
committees to take some of the burden off of the school principal.

These groups need to be formed carefully by explicitly choosing

members that bring the appropriate abilities, experience, and tone to the
group. The principal should inform people why they have been asked to join
the group to give people a clear sense of purpose. In addition, the principal
has to work to maintain an understanding of trust to ensure that people feel
able to share their true opinions and ideas. Through these carefully chosen
and maintained groups, the principal is able to delegate some of the tasks
and challenges throughout the staff. Therefore, the principal will be
available to work on larger challenges and tasks that need more attention.
This year I have served on a few committees that were charged with
different tasks and implementations, such as, the leadership team, OLWEUS
anti-bullying committee, and school wide positive behavior support
committee. Through these committees, I have recognized the importance of
having a variety of stakeholders to better establish group leadership. Each
of these committees was composed of an administrator, member of each
grade level, and members of exceptional education teams and special
groups. This made the committees more successful because it established a
level of buy in from each grade level because they had someone
representing them on the committee and making decisions. These
committees could have been even stronger and more beneficial if parents
and community members were represented.

Another experience that taught me about group leadership was

through grade level planning. One goal that we have tried to meet is to
begin planning units that meet the Backwards by Designs standards. This
was a new challenge for each of us, and we all approached it with a fairly
novice level of understanding. In order to aid us through this process, we
chose in advance the unit topics that we wish to cover. Each unit, we met for
one planning time to discuss roughly what activities, assessments, and goals
we would like to include in the unit. We then worked as individuals gathering
ideas and researching strategies. We brought our ideas to our monthly
collaborative planning time. This is a time where we have three hours to
plan for upcoming instruction. Each month, we have been able to
successfully use this time to create a completed unit that meets the level
that we were hoping to achieve this year. If we had not branched off into
separate areas to gather our ideas, we would not have been able to
complete these units in such a timely manner.
As a future leader, I will remember to empower others to assist with
the school. This is a struggle for me because I typically tend to try to solve
problems on my own to ensure they are done correctly and quickly.
However, stronger decisions will be made when multiple people are
contributing to the decision and more members of the faculty are vested in
the decision to help promote buy in and enthusiasm.
Change

Gorton, Alston, and Snowden (2007) say, In order for change to occur,
one highly-motivated, goal-oriented individual must serve as the initial
change agent. However, lasting change requires the cooperation and
support of a variety of people (178). To raise student achievement,
administrators should be aiming for lasting change. Lasting change is built
on a solid vision, a vested staff, and a focused principal. A principal should
have a plan in place before bringing change to a staff. There needs to be an
implementation plan. Staff will need professional development to learn how
they are to adequately teach with the new system, curriculum, or strategy in
place. There needs to be a support system in place to offer continuous
support as teachers attempt the new ideas in the classroom. An effective
principal will offer deep, continuous support to see the change through. As
cited in Marzano, Waters, and McNulty (2005), A vision without a plan is just
a dream. A plan without a vision is just drudgery. But a vision with a plan
can change the world (p. 98).
Throughout my field experience, I have learned that this is one of the
most challenging parts of school leadership. What I have witnessed is that
too frequently change is temporary. There is one area that we focus our
attention on, but when something else comes up, we move on and forget
about the previous change. I have noticed that the changes I have seen in
school are not lasting change. This shows that the change is not true change
that has inspired buy in by the faculty.

I served as the literacy network representative last year. My task was

to work with our literacy coach and lead professional development about the
new writing curriculum. The writing curriculum was based off of Common
Core state standards, and it was much more rigorous than previous writing
curriculums. Our students were very far behind compared to the
expectations of the new standards and curriculum. The literacy coach and I
attended several professional developments about the new implementation,
and we presented to the faculty at a few faculty meetings about pacing,
teaching strategies, and how to help struggling writers. At first there was a
lot of push back; many teachers were not interested in implementing it and
felt it was too challenging for their standards. At the end of the year, the
principal set the requirement that everyone must teach a full unit the last
quarter of the year. This was a great start, but once that school year ended
another focus was set for the next year. The writing curriculum was not the
focus anymore, and teachers focused their attention on something else. In
order for this change to have been a lasting change, it had to be the focus
for a longer period of time.
As a future leader, I understand that change does not come over night.
Worthwhile change many take years and it has to be built upon each year.
The leader has to have the focus to continue driving the change forward and
frequently evaluating the process to see what is needed. In addition, as a
leader I will be contentious to check that the change being implemented is in
line with the schools vision.

Conclusion
Throughout this program, one of the most important points that I
learned was the importance of self-reflection. In order to improve ones self,
there has to be a continuous analysis of personal strength and weakness.
Analyzing these areas and setting goals to improve is a good way to ensure
that I am able to become an effective school leader. As Marzano, Waters,
and McNulty (2005) say, We believe that the knowledge needed to make
substantial, positive changes in the effectiveness of schools is available. The
only thing left is to act (p.123). By reflecting and goal setting to improve
my weaknesses, I am gathering that knowledge that is needed to help me be
able to act when I am a school leader.

Works Cited
Gorton, R.A. & Alston, J.A. (2007). School leadership and administration:
Important concepts, case studies, & simulations ( 7th ed.). Boston:
McGraw Hill
Marzano, R.J., Waters, T., & McNulty, B.A. (2005). School leadership that
works: From research to results. Alexandria, VA: ASCD Publications.