Grayson

McKinney, Ed. S.
Dr. Caryn Wells, Ph. D.
EA 701 & 702
June 2016

ELCC Support File

Support File for ELCC Standard 1
A building-level education leader applies knowledge that promotes the success of every student by collaboratively facilitating the development,
articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a shared school vision of learning through the collection and use of data to identify school goals,
assess organizational effectiveness, and implement school plans to achieve school goals; promotion of continual and sustainable school
improvement; and evaluation of school progress, revision of school plans supported by school-based stakeholders and local agencies. In so doing,
the building level leader ensures effective and ample use of technology in establishing, implementing, evaluating, and improving a vision of
learning.

Artifact/Activity

Reflection

Source

Reframing Analysis
and Leadership
Action Plan Paper
Failure is not an
Option Paper

This assignment gave me an understanding of the numerous perspectives on leadership there are,
including Bolman and Deals Four Frames. These involve analyzing various strategies and initiatives
through the political, human resources, structural, and symbolic frames.
This assignment helped me to understand how Alan Blanksteins six principles are used to enhance
student achievement. These include the idea of how to attain the goal of every child meeting the
standards, how to work and develop teams, identifies common hurdles and offers strategies to deal
with them, and addressing and involving all stakeholders, and more.
This assignment fostered the idea that when a school building has a vision, it provides hope for the
learning community. When stakeholders share in creating this vision it will be more successful,
especially struggling teachers. You need the 80% buy-in to sway the balance against the 20% of
squeaky wheels.
Through these activities, I was able to know and understand the vision of the school and district through
improvements that were identified. Specifically, I joined the 4th grade math CAT team, and presented to
the 4th grade teachers on creating meaningful assessments and holding ambitious outcomes as our goal.

EA 740

Webster Case Study

District & School

Improvement
Committees

EA 740

EA 754

Years 1 & 2

NCA CORE team and

PLC Meetings

As part of these teams, all stakeholders of the school were a part of creating a renewed the vision for
the district. It was beneficial to understanding the direction of the district, and how our team work is
related to what other people across the district were doing.

Years 1 & 2

Support File for ELCC Standard 2
A building-level education leader applies knowledge that promotes the success of every student by sustaining a school culture and instructional
program conducive to student learning through collaboration, trust, and a personalized learning environment with high expectations for
students; creating and evaluating a comprehensive, rigorous and coherent curricular and instructional school program; developing and
supervising the instructional and leadership capacity of school staff; and promoting the most effective and appropriate technologies to support
teaching and learning within a school environment.

Artifact/Activity

Reflection

Article Review

EA 748

Induction of
Probationary Staff

In this paper, I reviewed an article titled, Parents and Teachers Perceptions on Standards-Based and
Traditional Report Cards. The article reviewed the authors 2012 study whose purpose was to gauge
parents and teachers impressions and appreciation of a newly implemented standards-based
reporting system in a mid-sized school district in Kentucky. It is important to have a reporting device
that matches your curriculum.
This assignment gave insight to how mentoring, evaluations and professional development are tied
together and how these pieces can help determine the vision of a district or school. Most districts are
lacking in a unified vision for these important components, and I found one of my strongest fortes in
completing this assignment.
Professional Learning Communities can help to determine what professional development a building is
in need of and this can provide vision for the building and even the district. By presenting on this topic,
I learned how building PD and district wide PD should go hand in hand, and became familiar with the
work of Rick DuFour.
In this assignment, I created a 3-year plan for newly inducted teachers, including goal setting meetings,
personalized professional development, and job-embedded training opportunities.

Wellness & Stress

Reduction Paper

This job is too big for one person. Therefore, understanding how to react and respond to situations
mindfully helps a leader to approach situations in a better way.

EA 754

Presentation on
Mentoring,
Evaluation, and PD
Presentation on PLCs
and Building PD

Source

EA 746

EA 746

EA 754

Development of an
Individual
Development Plan

Creating goals in this format will create better instructional opportunities for all staff, especially staff
that struggle in areas of instruction or classroom management. A worthwhile exercise that all
administrators must one day face.

EA 754

Professional Learning
Communities

Being part of the professional learning community of my elementary school created a culture of a
learning. Even a staff member with 47 years of experience admitted that she should be treated like a
first year teacher, because we all can learn and continue to grow.

Year 1 & 2

Test Evaluation Paper

This assignment was helpful in the understanding of the collection of data to determine the success of
student achievement. Specifically, I looked at the validity of the Fountas and Pinnell BAS II. It is
important to the vision of schools and districts that data is collected, but more importantly to insure
that the testing used to determine success of achievement is valid. Beware the DRIP environment!

EA 749

Support File for ELLC Standard 3

A building-level education leader applies knowledge that promotes the success of every student by ensuring the management of the school
organization, operation, and resources through monitoring and evaluation of teachers, school management and operational systems; efficiently
using human, fiscal, and technological resources in a school environment; promoting and protecting the welfare and safety of school students
and staff; developing school capacity for distributed leadership; and ensuring that teacher and organizational time is focused to support highquality instruction and student learning.

Artifact/Activity Reflection

Source

Program Evaluation
Plan
Collective Bargaining
Paper

Having a Program Evaluation Plan in place will ensure good practices in the management of the
organization, operations and financial resources of any school building or district.
Agreeing or not agreeing on a contract effects the day-to-day management and operations of a district.
Bargaining collectively and agreeing on a contract that best serves a unit helps to insure that all
members of that unit are treated fairly and with integrity. Interest-based bargaining is a strategy with
which all districts should familiarize themselves.

EA 747

School Policy Review

A leader should understand the policy that governs the district and the staff so that when decisions
about day-to-day business need to be made there are guidelines to follow. Looking through the
student, school, and administrator handbooks was very enlightening!

EA 742

EA 742

HR Interview

This interview helped me to understand that human resources are invaluable to any organization.
Strategic planning and positioning of staff can help any organization run efficiently. Putting people first
should be the goal of every HR department, which is why ours is now called Employee Services.

EA 754

Interviews with
Auxiliary Staff

Interviewing three directors, including the technology, communications, and business gave me
perspective about the management of operations that I wouldnt normally give much thought as a
teacher. Although many of aspects of what I learned do not affect the student directly, they are
important to the organization as a whole, and can help shape the culture.

EA 741

Budget Meeting
Paper

Understanding the budget of an organization is important in using all resources to the maximum
capacity. Distributing funds where they will be most effective is important to any organizations
financial health. Creating creative solutions to shortfalls may be a job prerequisite soon in Michigan.

EA 741

Recommendations to
the Superintendent

This assignment prompted me to give thought to how the district could save funding. Even financially
healthy districts need to review and analyze where and how funding is being spent and how money
could be saved on a consistent and regular basis, thanks to Proposal A.

EA 741

Proposal A Paper

Understanding the source of funding and the requirements of funding allocated is crucial when
deciding how it will be spent. I realized this mechanism has outlived its usefulness to Michigan.

EA 741

District Board
Meetings

Attending regularly scheduled board meetings provided an awareness of the management of Troy
School District as a whole #OneTroy, and the operations and resources of the district.

Year 1 & 2

Support File for ELCC Standard 4
A building-level education leader applies knowledge that promotes the success of every student by collaborating with faculty and community
members, responding to diverse community interests and needs, and mobilizing community resources on behalf of the school by collecting and
analyzing information pertinent to improvement of the schools educational environment; promoting an understanding, appreciation, and use of
the diverse cultural, social, and intellectual resources within the school community; building and sustaining positive school relationships with
families and caregivers; and cultivating productive school relationships with community partners. In so doing, the building level leader ensures
effective and ample use of technology in collaborating with faculty and community members, responding to diverse community interests and
needs, and mobilizing community resources.

Artifact/Activity

Reflection

Source

Issue Analysis and

Management Plan
Marketing
Presentation
Action Research
Project

In a paper titled, "Helping English Learners Succeed, I outlined the important aspects of an English
Language development program. I also compared best practices to what TSD is currently doing, and
made recommendations on what could be improved.
Understanding how to market a school or a new concept of a school successfully can facilitate
collaboration with all stakeholders of the learning community, especially through the use of social
media and other web 2.0 applications.
Action research facilitates collaboration with staff of any organization. Reporting out the information
gained from action research and deciding what steps are needed from that takes collaboration. My
action research project was on combatting declining enrollment through school marketing. It was very
well-received.

EA 748

EA 748

EA 750 &
751

Article Review

In this paper, I responding to selected readings regarding student-led, teacher-supported conferences,

and how they were improving communication across an urban district. In her article, Goodman
outlines the five elements that should be in tact within a district, including having a vision, developing
the skills, providing incentives, consolidating resources, and implementing an action plan.

EA 748

Survey Evaluation
Paper

Surveys are an integral part of the vision of any school. A district should not move in any direction
without survey data in hand. It is imperative that the perceptions of all stakeholders are taken into
consideration. Just as imperative is knowing that the survey is serving the purpose by asking the right
questions in the right way.

EA 749

Support File for ELCC Standard 5
A building-level education leader applies knowledge that promotes the success of every student by acting with integrity, fairness, and in an
ethical manner to ensure a school system of accountability for every students academic and social success by modeling school principles of selfawareness, reflective practice, transparency, and ethical behavior as related to their roles within the school; safeguarding the values of
democracy, equity, and diversity within the school; evaluating the potential moral and legal consequences of decision making in the school; and
promoting social justice within the school to ensure that individual student needs inform all aspects of schooling.

Artifact/Activity

Reflection

Source

School Policy Review

Having the District Policy on the District website insures that the district is conducting day-to-day in a
fair, integral and ethical manner. Knowing that the public can access, review and question policy at
anytime.

EA 742

Supreme Court
Presentation

This presentation required the review of many supreme court cases, which allowed me to reflect on
the rights of students in a public institution. I believe it is common to think that students are not adults
and therefore wonder if rights apply to them. This assignment helped me to remember that students
do have rights that are protected by the constitution and upheld by the court of law, and that they
dont leave all rights at the door.

EA 742

Ethical Belief
Statement

By examining our own beliefs, and putting them to paper, we were able to recognize the importance of
looking at every decision you make, and every encounter you have, through the ethical lens of
integrity.

EA 740

Support File for ELCC Standard 6

A building-level education leader applies knowledge that promotes the success of every student by understanding, responding to, advocating for
student learning, and influencing the larger political, social, economic, legal, and cultural context through advocating for school students,
families, and caregivers; acting to influence local, district, state, and national decisions affecting student learning in a school environment; and
anticipating and assessing emerging trends and initiatives in order to adapt school-based leadership strategies.

Artifact/Activity

Reflection

Student-Based
Intervention Team
Meetings (SBIT)

When there is collaboration between leaders, teachers and interventionists or special education
teachers, many ideas are shared and brainstorming happens to improve the learning of not one
particular student although the meeting is centered on a particular student, but all students that
may need intervention.

Multi Tier System of

Supports (MTSS)

Being part of a team that is designed to put structures in place to help students academically,
emotionally and socially has been enlightening. There are many programs that can be implemented
to ensure student success. When the time and dedication are given and programs are implemented
with fidelity, it truly can make a difference for everyone involved.

Source
Year 1

Year 1 & 2

Building Effective School

Climate Paper

This Moodle post focused on building effective school climate, school culture, emotional
intelligence, and servant leadership.

EA 758

Support File for ELCC Standard 7

A building-level education leader applies knowledge that promotes the success of every student through a substantial and sustained educational
leadership internship experience that has school-based field experiences and clinical internship practice within a school setting and is monitored
by a qualified, on-site mentor.

Artifact/Activity Reflection
Mentoring
Agreement
Shadowing
Opportunity
Internship Log

Professional Growth
Plan

Lead Teacher for

Elementary School

The Mentoring agreement was helpful in understanding the expectations of the mentor and myself as
the student being mentored.
I took it upon myself to visit a neighboring Middle School, and shadow the Assistant Principal and
Principal for the day, in order to gain experience at a level other than my own familiar territory. It was
an eye-opening experience, and I am grateful to the admins who let me ride along.
The completion of Internship Log helped to determine in which of the Standards many activities were
completed and in which of the Standards few activities were completed which helped to determine the
Professional Growth Plan.
This activity promoted thoughts about what I have learned thus far and what I still need to learn by
examining the areas of strengths and the areas that need more focus and/or understanding. I realized I
had to get more involved in special education, board meetings, and PTO meetings in order to be more
well-versed in the goings-on behind the scenes.
Fulfilling the role as the co-lead teacher of our school under my mentor, the Principal, has prepared me
to effectively lead students, staff and parents in any building in any district. The experience and my
mentor have helped to develop leadership qualities that will help me to become a successful leader.

Source
EA 701
Year 2

EA 701

EA 701

Year 2