Administrative Internship Journal 2011-2012

The following is a snapshot of my administrative internship during the 2011-2012 school year.

General Meetings:
I met with Mr. Medlin on a regular basis during the school year to discuss various topics such as day to day business, student discipline issues, parent conferences, budget decisions, and teacher evaluation. Mr. Medlin had me join him in many planning conversations around these topics. He would talk me through what his plan was and ask for my input. July: This month, I joined Mr. Medlin for the Leadership Team meeting at Panera Bread. This meeting focused on general planning for the upcoming school year. August: At this months meetings, Mr. Medlin and I focused on planning for all of my requirements as an administrative intern. I was also able to join him for two leadership team meetings. September: This month, Mr. Medlin and I spent some time discussing the Building Improvement Plan. We evaluated last years plan and then looked at the additional data. The current goals are set by AYP goals (we are the only building using AYP targets in the district). For communication arts, the goals included the English Language Arts Common Core CAP process, using Acuity as a benchmark assessment platform and providing Missouri Reading Initiative training support for new teachers. For math, the goals include revising the current lessons and pacing within the CAP process, Our technology goals include Acuity and fine tuning our use of the Smartboard for instruction. For climate/culture, we will focus on hosting student-led conferences during 4th quarter and providing lunch bunch for students who need time to finish homework. Mr. Medlin will also be gone two days next week for a training, so we also discussed a plan for any discipline issues that may arise while he is out. October: At this months meetings, Mr. Medlin and I discussed budget issues (the budget is being cut, so Mr. Medlin discussed withholding part of the budget for this year. We also discussed student discipline issues. November: This month, Mr. Medlin and I met to plan for a bus assembly. Based on the increasing number of bus referrals, our building will be participating in a district offered bus assembly about bus behavior and safety. We also discussed our need for an assessment platform and Mr. Medlin has decided that we will pilot the Acuity program in our building. In addition, we worked together to set up a Skype session with the author of our all-school book club selection The Lemonade War. December: Mr. Medlin was out two days this month for training, so when we met we discussed our plan for the two days I would be on call as the acting principal for the building. This discussion included specific plans for one challenging student in our building. I also met with Mr. Medlin and our teaching specialist, Rachel Tennison, this month to discuss general planning for the second semester and a plan for our Monday Early Out professional days.

January: Mr. Medlin had to be out three days this month, so when we met we discussed a plan for these three days. One of these days was a district professional development day, which I ended up helping to lead. I helped to facilitate the third grade meeting on Common Core for English Language Arts. Mr. Medlin also met with me to discuss the new web-based evaluation tool that the district has adopted (TalentEd). February: When Mr. Medlin and I met this month we discussed professional development for our building. We focused on a plan for the 17th and also discussed bringing in Adaptive Schools training for the staff at the end of May. In addition, Mr. Medlin also discussed the possibility of an instructional coach position opening up in our district for next year. We talked about whether or not I might apply for this position if it becomes available. I also met briefly with Mr. Medlin to make a plan for the two days he was out for training this month. March: I met with Mr. Medlin this month to make a plan for the two days he will be out for training. April: This month, Mr. Medlin, Rachel Tennison and I met to discuss and plan for the Adaptive Schools training that our staff will receive in May. This included evaluating our staff needs and communicating those needs with the trainer. In addition, we also discussed a plan for Mr. Medlins paternity leave later this month through the beginning of May. Rachel Tennison and I will be covering his leave. May: This months meetings included daily brief check-ins while Mr. Medlin was out on paternity leave. During his absence, I met with grade level teams, led Community Time, handled bus and discipline referrals (which included contacting parents), and facilitated an Early Out professional development meeting on the Common Core Language Standards.

Conferences:
During my internship experience, I had the pleasure of attending two conferences with Mr. Medlin. The first was The New Frontier Conference held in Springfield on June 9th and 10th, 2011. This conference featured speakers and breakouts by Dr. Michael Fullan, Dr. Andrew Hargreaves, Dr. Douglas Reeves , Dr. Robert Garmston, Dr. Bruce Joyce, and several more. I was able to attend sessions on Teacher Talk and Student Learning, a private question and answer session with Dr. Reeves held for administrators, and School Reform that Works. Then on June 12-17th, I attended a conference with Eric Jensen in San Antonio, Texas on Teaching with the Brain in Mind. This was a week-long conference focusing on how the brain learns and the best teaching strategies for student engagement and learning. I later helped present this information to the staff at a professional development day and will be presenting to the district at next years Tiger Conference held in the fall.

Job Shadow:
On October 19, 2011 I attended the school board meeting with Mr. Medlin. The following are my notes from that meeting: Administrators Report--board commented on SPED numbers seeming to plateau--SPED director commented on RtI strategies and implementation

WOHE and South enrollment numbers--increased. South administrator commented that the 13 new students were from out of district and that 5 or the 13 were living in hotels or with someone in the south district lines Auditor--gave fund balance report HS FACS department--adding an additional FACS kitchen to enable a career path for food service and offer Serv Safe Certification On February 24, 2012 I had the pleasure of joining Mr. Medlin in a walk-through of a kindergarten classroom. Mr. Medlin was using the districts new web-based observational tool, TalentEd, to perform the walk-through. He showed me the program as he used it. When we walked in, Mr. Medlin immediately noted what the teacher was doing and advised me to look for this first as the teacher will often change his/her behavior when an observer enters the room. After that he counted the number of students in the classroom and then noted periodically throughout the observation how many students were actively engaged. He told me that later he would turn those into percentages in his notes for the teacher. He challenged me to focus on factual data and observations such as this rather than opinion/feeling based observations as a future principal. On February 29, 2012 I attended the Administrative Team (A-Team) meeting with Mr. Medlin. We ended up being quite late to the meeting due to a severe student discipline issue in which Mr. Medlin asked me to stay and help. In this situation, the student had to be restrained and the school resource officer was called in to help as well. The parent ended up being called to pick-up the child and a follow-up parent meeting was scheduled due to ongoing discipline issues surrounding this student. When we arrived to the meeting, we joined the administrative team in planning for the district-wide MSTA meeting and in their book study discussion. The team has read the book Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning by Beatrice McGarvey this year and this was the wrap-up discussion for the book. I was able to join a small group for this discussion in which we talked about several different leadership styles. On March 30th, had the pleasure of serving on the interview committee looking for a kindergarten, second, third and fourth grade teacher for this building.

Supervision:
My supervisory duties included football games, community time, bus duty, Family Movie Night, Communication Arts Family Night, district Common Core training, music assemblies, staff professional development day, grade-level meetings, hosting guest teachers from another district, and Fine Arts Night. During all of these experiences, I had parent contact as the supervisor. While this was one of the more intimidating parts of the experience, I gained confidence throughout the internship program. During one of the football games that I hosted, there was also a patron accident in the stands for which I had to summon the paramedics. For this situation, I also immediately contacted the district Athletic Director and filled out an accident report.