Leadership Platform

Jacob Dominguez
EDL 610
October 2015
Introduction
I believe all children need and deserve an education that requires critical thinking,
encourages creativity, is centered on collaboration and develops communication. Students also
deserve an education where their ideas and cultural backgrounds are valued and promoted. In
this new global setting students need to develop skills that go far beyond memorizing facts. They
need to find creative solutions to the issues that affect us today and in the future. Through
collaborations and education students will develop the skills that will make them competitive and
contributing members in a global society. Education is also the place that will create in them the
drive to become 21st century scholars.
The basis of these beliefs come from my personal stories. I came to this country in 4th
grade not knowing the language or anyone outside my immediate family. The neighborhood
where we first came to was not the best. After about six months I was able to pick up the
language due to an amazing teacher who not only promoted the learning of English but also the
development a students ability to be critical thinker. Along with that, this teacher included a
global view to education. I clearly remember our teacher bringing coffee table books to the
classroom and allowing us to pick any object in them to recreate. This allowed me to see the
world in a different way, to imagine beyond my situation. Through this teacher I recreated
African mask, Aztec sacrificial knives and many other things. Because of this teacher I was able
to explore the world beyond the fours walls that surrounded our classroom. I started my journey
to become a global citizen without leaving the classroom. That first teacher made me feel a
welcome member of my school community when I needed it and because of him and many other
teachers that came along I was able to dream about going to college, to travel further than anyone
else in my family, to live in foreign countries, in short I became a global citizen.
Years later, when I was beyond college I returned to my old neighborhood to discover
what had happened to friends who werent as lucky as me. I saw that without great teachers to
educate them, to open their eyes to the world, they had become what most kids in that
neighborhood, they end up incarcerated. Knowing that a great education allowed me to become
the global citizen I am today, has cemented the importance of education in the development of
innovating global citizens.

Professionally I have been teaching for 8 years. I am credentialed in BCLAD Multiple

Subject as well as Special Education Mild Moderate from San Diego State University. I have
taught grades 7th and 8th. I have had a number of different teaching assignments including
teaching English, World History and U.S. History. I have accepted teacher leadership
responsibilities in the school including becoming the IT Specialist, Social Studies Coach, and
Technology Coach as well as leading part of the WASC team. I currently hold a Bachelors of
Arts from the University of California Santa Cruz in Global Economics with an emphasis in the
European Union as well as studying abroad at the University of Exeter in England. I have been
education for 11 years, before becoming an educator I was a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch
where I was integral to the development of an automated Spanish system for our clients. As a
teacher I have worked with technology for 8 years. My first position was a technology specialist
at Juvenile Community Court Schools in National City California, where I was responsible for a
computer lab as well as providing support in subjects such as Government and Economics to
graduating seniors.
Since then, Ive have taught at a dual language school, both 7th grade and 8th grade
English and History, where I lead the pilot program of technology implementation in the
classroom by integrating chromebooks. Recently, I have been part of the WASC committee for
our middle school where I lead a group of teachers in the development of our WASC
accreditation along with other colleagues. Ive also been part of the WASC committee for the
Elementary school for our one year visit. For the last two years I have served both as a BTSA
mentor and IT Specialist for both the elementary school and middle school. As the IT Specialist
my responsibilities include developing the technology plan for our school as well as reviewing
the school's technology policy for both staff and students. I am also responsible for maintaining,
updating and creating policy for over 675 chromebooks, 189 iPads, 60 Macs, several PCs and
servers. As IT Specialist I also provide professional development for over 30 teachers on
software such as typing club, achieve 3000, Google classroom and classroom technology policy
as well as being a presenter at Google Apps for Education Conferences. Finally, as the IT
Specialist at our school I am part of the administrative team and have been responsible for the
development of school wide policies on testing, data collection, professional development
opportunities for our teachers outside of technology.
After analyzing my last two years as a leader at my school I have come to the conclusion
that my leadership style has developed to become a democratic leader. When working with
teachers I believe the teachers are the experts on their students and for that reason I believe that
they are the most equipped to make decisions on what is best for their students. For this reason, I
know the best way to achieve the common goal for our students is to have as much input as
possible from the people who know them the most. Along with this, I also believe as a
democratic leader I also have become a distributive leader because I seek my staff to work as a
team and that their collective power will provide the results we need for our students. I alone
cannot make impactful changes without the staff taking on some of the responsibility and

creating the change. Finally, I also believe that I have created a system at my school where
teachers are required to produce certain things in order to receive certain rewards such as,
completing a set of task in order for them to be able to attend a conference.
As an administrator I believe that all people that come through our door feel safe,
respected and that their cultural backgrounds are valued. Because I believe this, my first non
negotiable is teachers must be culturally aware and sensitive. My second nonnegotiable is to
offer a curriculum that challenges our students to be critical thinkers and encourage creativity,
and collaboration. My third non negotiable is that our curriculum is rigorous and that our
teaching strategies be research based. Each of these non negotiables have implications for the
professional development we need to invest in, the school improvement plans we write( such as
LCAP) and our formative and summative evaluation of our school and staff performance.
Instruction/Curriculum
I believe that a well-rounded, rigorous curriculum is the basis to all student growth and learning
in this 21st century. I believe this because as a child the one thing that made me develop into the
person I am today, a global citizen, was the well-rounded instruction my parents and teachers
gave me. When my teachers presented me with knowledge about the world my thirst for
knowledge expanded and the more they asked the more I wanted to learn.
The are many ways that we can create a well-rounded and rigorous curriculum to
students. For example having a world to school connection through career days, curriculum
grounded in real world applications and a global view of the world. And curriculum, where
different cultures are represented and championed, curriculum that challenges students to think
critically, creatively, and requires them to collaborate. Id like to talk about one of those aspects,
which is creating a curriculum that is well rounded in real world applications.
A few years ago I was working at a school that was project based. I remember one
meeting a had with a child and their parents and in this meeting I remember how the student was
explaining what he learned that semester and how he applied it to a real world problem facing
the community. What struck me about that meeting was that toward the end the parents turned to
me and said that since he had been coming to the school it had been a challenge to get him to go
home. That before coming to this school the child would cry because he had to go to school and
now he cried because he had to stop learning.
Parent and Community Involvement
I believe that the bond a teacher makes with a parent is a bond that is essential to the
success of a child. That when a parent trust a teacher the potential for achievement grows. I
believe this because when I was growing up my mother was always involved in the school
community. I remember knowing that my teacher knew my mother very well and that when an
issue arose I was not able to play the blame game since my mother had a close personal
relationship with my teachers. Still to this day, my mother is still connected to those teachers that
I have long forgotten. There are many ways the community and parents can get involved in our

schools. They can serve as PTA members, help in the workroom making copies, volunteer in
classrooms to help out teachers, be part committees, be presenters at career day or just come and
visit the campus. Id like to talk about being part of committees.
Last year when I was the 8th grade teacher I had to be the chaperon of 52 students to a
San Francisco trip. Because of some things that were going on in the school I had to be the
person in charge of the trip in the last minute. My saviors on this trip were two parents who had
been involved in our school since the students were in kindergarten. Because they had been
involved in many committees throughout the years the students knew who they were and better
yet the parents who were not going knew who they were also. Due to this the trip was a success,
and personally it was one of my best experiences ever.
Discipline and School Culture
I believe that that school is the place most students come to feel safe and that it needs to
be a place where they feel wanted and welcomed. I believe this because (relate to professional
experience) when I came to this country the neighborhood I lived in was a high crime area where
gangs, drugs, guns and violence were always present. But unlike the neighborhood I lived in the
school I went to always felt a very loving and safe place. There are lots of aspects on how to
create a positive school culture such as increasing parent involvement, looking at a child as a
whole, provide professional development for teachers on restorative practices and looking at
discipline action as a moment for growth for the child.
Id like to talk about one aspect, which is looking as an act of discipline as a moment for growth
for the child.
A few years ago I was working at a court school when a student of mine was who was
around 16 at the time kept continuously cursing throughout the day. I clearly remember having to
remind her to watch her language. This happened for several years and many people I believe
would had given up after a few months but for some reason I knew she could change this habit.
At one point I stopped noticing her language and then a few weeks later I heard her utter these
words to another student, hey watch your language and then turn to me and say these kids and
their cussing. If I had take a different approach with her the outcome could have been different
but I knew that change takes time and that discipline is not about the now but about what
happened and about where we want to go.
Technology
I believe that technology is the key to solving the issues that face this planet and that students are
the innovators who will make this change. I believe this because I have seen this change and
innovation in my lifetime. I remember as a child always wanting a computer and my
grandmother providing me one when I turned 12. This gift opened the world to me like nothing
else had ever done and provided me with the spark to make a positive change in the world. There
are lots of aspects on how to use technology to create innovators, research projects, pen pals,
kick-starter campaigns, 20 Time projects, and project-based learning. One aspect I would like to
discuss is 20 Time Projects.

Last year, after telling my students what to do for two years in terms of projects I decided
to provide my students a blank slate for their final project with me as their teacher. For this
project the only two stipulations were, follow your passion and teach us something (by us I also
meant me). With little to no directions from me, my students were able to create projects that
ranged from what happened after we die to how music can affect our learning and our moods.
What I discovered with those 20 Time projects was that even after spending two years with my
students I didn't know them that well and I also learned that their ability to innovate to change to
learn and to teach was greater than anything I could imagined.
I believe all children need and deserve an education that requires critical thinking,
encourages creativity, is centered on collaboration and develops communication. I also believe
that in order to accomplish this it is important to have teachers who are culturally sensitive to our
students to better reach our students and allow them to become the 21st century scholars that are
needed to solve the world's problems we face today. These beliefs are rooted in my own
experience as student who came to a country without knowing the language but had to succeed
and did thanks to my parents, the great teachers I encountered along the way and the
opportunities presented to me due to education.