Principals Competencies

Competency 001: The principal knows how to shape campus culture by facilitating the
development, articulation, implementation and stewardship of a vision of learning that is
shared and supported by the school community.
During my internship I was able to maintain our campus culture. I work on a campus that
has a culture of valuing our students and meeting their needs. Serving as ARD/IEP chairperson
our school has given me the opportunity to convey this vision to the parents and students. I help
keep a culture of high expectations. We are a magnet school that requires students to apply and
maintain grades as well as conduct. I have helped maintain this culture by providing a listening
ear to students who are sometimes troubled. I recently had a very successful experience with a
senior who had asked to be excused from her English class to see me. The student came to my
office and told me that she was very angry with her teacher, but knew that she could not lash out.
She remembered some coping strategies I had taught her (counting to ten) and she knew she
could come see me for additional support. We talked about her long-term goals (wanting to
become a social worker) and within a few minutes she had regained her composure. She was
able to return to class and continues to make progress towards reaching her goals. I support the
campus culture through activities such as this and through my daily contact with teachers,
administrators, students and parents. I facilitate the development of teacher culture by leading
GLC meetings. I bring new information to parents during ARD/IEP meetings and bring concerns
to LPAC and SDMC meetings. I have implemented a system to have ARD/IEP case managers
monitor student progress. I support the community by reaching out to parents in ARD/IEP
meetings by reinforcing the idea that the school is a community dedicated to the students
education.
The next step towards growth in this category is to apply the skills learned during this
internship to help maintain and improve culture at the campus or district level. I will use the

Principals Competencies
skills of empathy and my willingness to learn to enhance this strength of mine. Becoming a
program specialist or an assistant principal will give me opportunities to continue to be a leader
in my school for this competency.

Competency 002: The principal knows how to communicate and collaborate with all
members of the school community, respond to diverse interests and need and mobilize
resources to promote students success.
I know how important communication and collaboration is in education. I communicate
and collaborate with all members in my school to meet the educational needs of my students with
disabilities. I collect input from all teachers, general education teachers and special education
teachers. Then I use this information to best meet the needs of my students. I deal with diverse
students daily and am able to mobilize resource to meet their educational needs. I do not do this
in isolation. I have a great team of teachers, outside providers, and administrators that ensure our
success. Our team works hard to solve problems. I have been very fortunate to have patient and
kind team members who go out of their way to make sure that I and everyone else understands
all aspects of a problem and how best to solve it. I have also involved the community of the
University of St. Thomas/Houston to help with Houston ISDs Special Olympics Field Day.
I am able to promote student success because I can communicate with Spanish speaking
parents. I speak Spanish fluently, and this helps me communicate and collaborate with our
school community, where the majority of the population is Hispanic. There are many occasions
where these parents only speak Spanish and this ability helps me be proficient in this
competency.
During my internship I have had the opportunity to collaborate with people across the
district. My mentor has shown me how to collaborate with other professionals across the district

Principals Competencies
to meet the diverse needs of students. My mentor created a team that I was on that worked to
revise the translation process for parents of students with disabilities. We were able to show best
practices for translation and provide translators with an enhanced skill set. During our in-service
presentations, we held a mock ARD/IEP meetings and gave the participants opportunities to
use their newly acquired skills. I have learned that committed people who share a vision, can
mobilize resources to help promote students success. I was able to make a difference on the
district level.
The next step towards growth in this area is to continue to collaborate and communicate
with all members of our school/district community. I will find other opportunities to share what
knowledge I have, and find opportunities to learn and grow from others.
Competency 003: The principal knows how to act with integrity, fairness and in an ethical
and legal manner.
Because I have spent most of my teaching career working with students who have
disabilities, I have had to act with integrity, fairness, and in an ethical and legal manner. I have
had to use these qualities to conduct successful ARD/IEP meetings. The ARD/IEP process
forces ARD/IEP committee members to identify solutions that are fair, ethical, and legal for
students. Having a good team around me and being intrinsically motivated to act in this manner,
helps ensure that I will continue to act this way in the future. As ARD/IEP chairpersons we are
constantly updated on how to act in a fair, legal, ethical manner and also how to act with
integrity. Part of acting with integrity is to admit when mistakes are made and take
responsibility for them I have the ability to do this. While it is never pleasant to make a mistake
it is important to recognize the mistake, address and fix it so that it does not happen again in the
future. Because I have the ability and humility to admit when I make mistake, this skill will help
me become more competent in this competency.
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Principals Competencies
During my internship I had the opportunity to see how to produce work that is ethical,
legal and fair. My cohort and I produced a document that had to be revised several times to
ensure that it fit all of the parameters of legality, ethics and fairness. We bounced ideas off one
another and continually refined our presentation. My mentor showed great patience and
encouragement with us in producing this document. We were able to produce a document that
helped improve our ARD/IEP meetings with our Spanish speaking parents.

To grow in this area I will continue to act with integrity, fairness and in an ethical manner
that complies with all legal parameters and rules. I will also learn from people, like my mentor,
to use these qualities to produce work that can be used across the district as a program specialist,
or at my campus, or as an assistant principal.

Competency 004: The principal knows how to facilitate the design and implementation of
curricula and strategic plans that enhance teaching and learning; ensure alignment of
curriculum, instruction, resources and assessment; and promote the use of varied
assessments to measure student performance.
This is an area that I have had some exposure to as we have implemented new curricula
in the Skills for Living and Learning (SLL) classes. All lessons in the SLL classes have an online component that is accessed and helps drive lessons. The program that assists our SLL
teachers is called Unique This system requires data collection at certain points during the
years. As part of my duties as ARD/IEP chairperson, I have had to keep track of this data and
check its implementation. Our school has consistently provided accurate and timely data from
Unique to meet the needs of our SLL students.

During my internship my mentor showed

how strategic plans can be implemented across the district. I do have some experience ensuring

Principals Competencies
that accommodations for state testing developed through the ARD/IEP process are appropriate
and used for our students with disabilities.
To grow in this area I would continue to review curricula, strategic plans and their
implementation with guidance from my mentor. Dr. Sharon Cole-Braxton,(my mentor) has a lot
of administrative experience and I have learned a lot from her.

I would also seek out assistance

from online and district sources (e-learn), professional development to assist my growth in this
area. I would continue to rely on more experienced professionals like my mentor as I continue
to grow in this area.
Competency 005: The principal knows how to advocate, nurture and sustain an
instructional program and a campus culture that are conducive to students learning and
staff professional growth.
I have experience advocating and nurturing instructional programs that work students
with disabilities. I have experience with both Unique an on-line program for our SLL teachers
and also for our reading improvement teachers who use the LANGUAGE! program.

Both of

these programs have tracking components and measures of progress. I have had experience
monitoring and assisting my teachers properly implement these programs. I am happy to say that
my teachers have successfully implemented both of these programs and this is reflected in our
schools progress (top 25% closing gap) as recognized by TEA. I also recommend in-services to
my case managers that I feel will help our staff do an even better job.
To grow in this competency I would seek information from key members of my school or
district to ensure that all points of view were honored. I would also review the most current
literature on instructional programs and curricula. I would then review this information and
implement it at the campus or district level, as either an assistant principal or as a program
specialist.

Principals Competencies
Competency 006: The principal knows how to implement a staff evaluation and
development system to improve the performances of all staff members, select and
implement appropriate models for supervision and staff development, and apply the legal
requirements for personnel management.
Two teachers in my department left after the winter holiday break.

I have had to train

and work on the development of their replacements on how to use easy EP and conduct
ARDS/IEPS appropriately. This was an arduous process at first, to teach everything about
special education in just a short time. I had to go very slowly and carefully with my new
teachers. As we conducted ARD/IEP meetings throughout the year, I was able to evaluate their
growth. They are now competent and efficient enough to conduct their own ARD/IEP meetings
without assistance and understand what areas they still need to improve in.
I have also had the opportunity to conduct several in-services on best practices for
translating ARDS /IEPS for Spanish speaking parents. These in-services were part of my
internship with my mentor. At the end of each presentation my cohort and I had to survey the
participants to determine how effective we were and how to improve our performance in the
future. I am happy to say that the feedback my cohort and received was overwhelmingly
positive. The most common comment was that they (the attendees) had come to this training
with very little and understanding of the ARD/IEP process, but that now they had a much greater
understanding and could conduct translations with confidence.

To grow in the future in this competency I would continue to conduct trainings as either
an assistant principal or a program specialist. I will continue to seek advice from experts and
combine this with my own skills as a presenter to improve presentations I make.

I will continue

to get feedback from my participants and I will continue to ask for advice from people like my
mentor to help me sustain and continue my growth in this competency.
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Principals Competencies
Competency 007: The principal knows how to apply organizational decision-making and
problem-solving skills to ensure an effective learning environment.
I view my students and school as part of a family. I seek to be there for these students
because I have seen how much growth they can make when provided with an effective learning
environment. I once taught a 6th grade reading improvement class where I had a students who
came to me reading at the 2.0 level according to her latest Stanford 10 scores. I worked with this
student before and after school. I provided her with books that interested her. She was also
taking karate at that time and I think the karate and I helped improve her performance. When
she took the Stanford 10 again at the end of 6th grade she scored PHS (Post High School). I
believe this shows how powerful providing an effective learning environment can be in helping
our students. I have also learned from my mentor how to be more effective in decision-making.
She has told me to find people who are very good at what they do and let them do it. For
example, some people are very good at computer skills, while others are great at writing. When
people with talent are allowed to work at what they do best, great work can result. I agree with
my mentors sentiment and would make sure that everyone works at what they do best and then
we would get together and collaborate, share our data and arrive at the best possible solution.
To grow in this area in the future. I would continue to refine my skills and seek out
professionals like my mentor. I will also stay current on literature that relates to this
competency. I will then share this knowledge with professionals like my mentor to ensure that
my skills in this competency continue to grow.
Competency 008: The principal knows how to apply principles of effective leadership and
management in relation to campus budgeting, personnel, resource utilization, financial
management and technology uses.
I have had some experience with this competency by being the chairperson for students
with disabilities at my school. I have to ensure that they have supplemental supplies and
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Principals Competencies
resources. I was also able to be exposed to effective leadership management as it relates to
budgets, personnel, resource utilization, financial management and technology uses by seeing by
interviewing my sons principal. She explained funding codes and the entire process during our
hour long interview. My mentor has also shown me what places to go within HISD to improve
this skill. There are a wealth of websites and trained people, like my mentor to assist me and
help me grow in this competency.
In the future to grow in this area I will take advantage of the opportunities HISD provides
to grow in this area.

I will also keep current on all literature that relates to this competency. I

will also continue to rely on people like my mentor to help me master this competency.
Competency 009: The principal knows how to apply principles of leadership and
management to the campus, physical plant and support systems to ensure a safe and
effective learning environment.
As ARD/IEP chairperson for my campus I have taken responsibility for ensuring that our
students who are non-ambulatory (wheel-chairs) or visually impaired have contingency plans for
evacuation in case of an emergency. This was not done in isolation. I consulted with visually
impaired teachers and mobility specialists to come up with a plan that works. We have given
elevator keys to our students who have non-ambulatory or visually impaired. We also have
teachers assigned to physically carry our one non-ambulatory student downstairs if need be. I
have also participated in a disaster preparation for our school as part of my administrative
internship.
To grow in this competency I would rely on people who are already competent in this
area. I will attend campus disaster preparation drills and meetings. I will keep current on
literature that relates to this competency. I will also seek out people who have more experience

Principals Competencies
with this competency and learn from them. I will then combine all of these things to become
more competent in this competency.