Part E-Three Year Professional Development Plan

Name: Jennifer Collier

Goal	TExES Competency and Domain	Objective (What do you want to improve?)	Course Work/Book/ Workshops (How do you want to improve?)	Mentor Professional Support (Who will help you improve?)	Date of Completion	Evaluations (How will you know you have improved?)
1	All Domains and Competencies	I want to ensure that I grow in every domain.	I will continue my internship even after the coursework is over.	Jennifer Blaine	June 2014	I will know that I have improved when I am called on to serve even after my internship in the same capacity.
2	Domain II Instructional Leadership Competency 85	I will ensure that all of my staff members understand the accountability system.	I will continue to attend professional development on EVAAS, STAAR, TRIPOD,  and College Board.	Keith Haffey, Lance Stallworth	June 2014	I will be able to answer questions without hesitation regarding the components of the internal accountability system.
3	Domain II Instructional Leadership Competency 7	I will be come more familiar with the organizational health and climate by implementing necessary strategies to improve the performance of all staff members.	I will continue to read on climate and continue to work on my dissertation regarding this subject, consuming articles and books.	Sophia Petrou	January 2015	I will be able to predict what my staff survey and student survey will say before data is given to me and make adjustments.
4	Domain III Administrative Leadership Competency 9	I will understand staffing formulas and staff allocations more thoroughly.	I will continue to intern and work with Human Resources to better understand.	Marianne Cribbin.	November-March 2015	I will participate in the staffing formula process and the predicted enrollment for each campus.  I will understand the process in great detail and be able to teach others.
5	Domain III Administrative Leadership Competency 8	I will be more involved in the district financial audit and understand the process in greater detail.	I will serve on the district leadership team for finance.	Karen Wilson	June 2016	I will sit on the district leadership team for finance and understand conversation with minimal assistance and support and be able to ask questions that are relevant and purposeful.
6	Domain II Instructional Leadership Competency 4	I will access and analyze political, social, economic and cultural factors affecting education.	I will sit on the district committee that will make decisions and listen to appeal hearings that could be considered controversial and cause community uproar.	Jennifer Blaine	June 2016	I will become a resource to principals about how to handle various difficult situations as well as

RELFECTION:

            My first goal is to become even better at all domains and competencies within the superintendent.  I do not feel that you can ever stop learning and growing, and although this goals ends at the end of the summer, I plan on asking to be afforded opportunities throughout my time in SBISD because the lessons learned from on the job practice have been invaluable and I can't think of a better way to model lifelong learning.   My second goal talks about understanding the accountability system in greater detail.  I believe that you must understand the way in which your school and system are held to standards, and until you fully understand all of those standards, you can never surpass them and achieve great things.  I want to understand the accountability system in its entirety and be able to explain it anyone who asks. 

            My third goal deals with understanding staff climate and truly understanding where the staff or faculty stands in regards to health and culture.  I think understanding their concerns and making sure that I am in tune with their emotional and professional concerns and being able to predict the way that they will answer the staff survey will show that I have accomplished this goal in its entirety.  I am not a big fan of being surprised by staff survey's and am looking forward to the challenge of being able to do this one well.  I will ask other school leaders how they have attacked this issue and work with them to come up with a plan that is manageable and powerful.

            The next three goals are long term and deal with resources and understanding all of the managerial and social aspects of being a school leader.  I want to have a greater understanding of budget and the staffing formulas used in my district.  Having a clear understanding of how this work and how budget auditing, staff allocation and managing of resources all work together to build an excellent school system will just make me a better leader and future superintendent.  I enjoy more of the human side of leading, so stretching myself into what is managerial and less personable is something that I need to do and find great mentors to help to do stretch myself in this area.

            Finally, I want to have opportunities to learn more about the social and political encounters that school leaders have on a daily basis.  So many times central administration will shelter the schools from some of the outside pressures and interactions that may occur so that we are protected to be instructional leaders within our school.  I would love the opportunity and look for more opportunities to be exposed to these so that I can respond to them appropriately when the opportunity arises.   This three year plan is just the surface level of what all I want to learn more about in education at the central level in order to have a great impact on the system long term.  It was been wonderful to be an intern and I look forward to pushing myself to great lengths in the future to find my greatness, whatever that may be.

REFLECTION FINAL SUPERINTENDENT MEETING:

            Meeting with my site supervisor for my final meeting was insightful.  She was finishing up a meeting regarding school sizes and capping schools in the district which proved to be an insightful conversation on how you make the decisions necessary to ensure that class sizes were appropriate and that staffing would be available to those schools.  This conversation was a bonus in regards to my purpose for meeting with her.

            During the final meeting, we discussed my long-term and short-term goals and I also discussed what hers were.  We also discussed what drives these goals and the benefits of being central office versus being on a campus. There are definitely pros and cons to both positions and I mentioned that I felt that the hardest decision was if I truly wanted to be away from a campus.  When I talk about the work that I do, I find that my passion and drive comes from the work that I do directly with teachers and students on a daily basis.  I was contemplating whether or not I wanted to get further removed from the people that drive me to accomplish more and she agreed that it was the part of the principalship that she missed the most.   In conclusion of our meeting she reminded me that if teachers and students are a priority, then there are ways to stay connected with them even from the central location and that you had to make it a priority to visit campuses regularly and religiously hold true to that goal in order to meet it.  We also discussed continuing to engage in growth opportunities after the internship because there was no way that I could be exposed to everything that the job entailed in a few short months.

Part D- Reflection

Part D: Reflections on Reflective Leadership

            Reflection is a skill that although we begin at a young age, can often times disappear if not constantly fine-tuned and refined.  In addition, reflection is also something that some may not find valuable and not make time to do in the world that we live in.  I believe that people forget to reflect on their work because the job of being school leader is one that the job of being a school leader is one that is fast paced and often time moving from one thing to another leaving us very little time to critically think about the work that we have completed before jumping into the next item on our to do list.

            When reflecting back on my superintendent course work, there are several opportunities and activities in which I feel have helped to shape me to become a better leader and to change my future path due to deep thinking about the completed work.  The first course that I believe changed me was the hardest course of the program for me personally.  In EDLD 5342, I learned about the detailed inner workings of school finance and the complicated systems that must run fluidly in order to appropriately run a school district.  As mentioned in previous posts, I am a new building principal, so the world of school finance terrified me before entering this role.  I had limited encounters with school finance and my understanding about how it worked was minimal.  I had run several small budgets before, but the task of running a much larger budget was terrifying.  Through my internship and the coursework required by the professors, I took the task of learning about Weighted ADA, building a school budget, and staffing formulas seriously in that I knew that I must become much more familiar with how they are calculated and managed much more seriously and left the course feeling more confident and supported by those who could provide me with answers to lingering questions and situations which I might have been unfamiliar with.  School finance although still scary, is a part of the job that I am less fearful of and much more confident in my skills as a leader.  When I reflect on the courses, I am proud of the growth that I showed in this 5-week course and look forward to continuing to learn and grow in this area.

            The second part of the program that I felt changed me, as a leader was my internship, EDLD 5396.  When looking through my campus activity logs, I recognize that I was afforded many opportunities that have become invaluable and have helped me to build networks and relationships that will pay off dividends in the long run.  A few examples of the most meaningful internship experiences were the opportunity to testify in Austin with my superintendent regarding House Bill 5, working on several cross-functional teams to support the work of the district, and learning more about the leadership pipeline and how to support the work that they were doing to build capacity and future leaders within the system.   In typing this I realize how wonderful these opportunities were and that the conversations and relationships that I built throughout the process will forever guide the work that I do as a leader, whether it be as a building principal or central level administrator, from this point on.  I had several people show me that they believed in the work that I was doing and the work that I was capable of achieving and that confidence will help me in my efforts to achieve new levels as a leader.  I think about the conversations that I had with various people and advice I was given often when making decisions and I don't know that without my internship that I would have been given the same opportunities.

            Next, the assignments that I enjoyed the most were all of the interviews that we conducted throughout the program.  Although I have worked in the same district for my entire education career, the superintendents and senior staff seemed to be busy people who worked hard and were constantly going from one thing to another.  Conducting the interviews allowed for me to stop and see the people behind the job and reminded me that everyone needs that opportunity to see that side of a leader.  Since conducing the interviews, I have made more time to allow my staff to stop and get to know me as a person while still continuing to finish the work of principal, and the culture and climate of my school has changed dramatically.  I will continue to be mindful of this as I work through my program and continue on my leadership journey.

            The blogs and discussions that I had during this course were great opportunities to learn about others who are embarking on this journey of becoming a school leader and I know that several of them will become superintendents who I hope to be given the opportunity to work with over time.  As in my doctoral program, I feel that one of the greatest strength of the design of the program are the relationships that we build with others as we move through the process.  I have gained so much from the insightful comments that my peers have provided me and they have challenged my thinking on a variety of topics.  There are a couple of classmates that I pick up the phone and call to talk through situations and scenarios which in the past I might have just jumped right into the solution and I believe that is a real example of reflection.  For example, the entire state is trying to solve the issue of writing and why so many students are struggling, and with the Superintendent program, I was able to call some local principals to discuss the work that they are doing to ensure that I am not just spinning my wheels at my own campus.  In turn, I then called our central office to share my findings, which saved us hours of time in the long run.  In addition, even last weeks job entry plan assignment made me think about the first 365 days as a superintendent or campus leader and I have changed my mind hundreds of times about the work that I would do in the first 7, 14, 28, and 365 days. 

            The last six months were intense to say the least, but looking back on the insight and experience, I wouldn't change any of it for another one.  I honestly believe that the superintendent program has been a fantastic experience for me and there are skills and practices that I learned that will be with me throughout my career.  Being a superintendent is more than just passing a test, it is about learning to lead the people that you work with and having them in returning wanting to follow.  I know that I am not ready today, but I am confident in time, and with the support of my colleagues, that I will eventually get there.  Thank you