COMPETENCY: LEADERSHIP

Related Task: Job Shadowing

Narrative Description of Task:
I will spend the equivalent of one entire day (including after school and evening
responsibilities, if applicable) shadowing a cooperating administrator. I will assist the
administrator, when appropriate, in accomplishing responsibilities. I will maintain a log of
activities and prepare a thoughtful analysis of the number, nature and focus of activities,
and with whom the administrator interacted. I will analyze, in writing, my observed
requirements of the elementary principal and I will reflect upon the insights that the job
shadow experience provided into my own strengths and weaknesses as a future school
leader.
SMART Goal:
By April of 2015, I will job shadow New Groningen Principal, Laurie Poll, and will
participate, as appropriate, as she performs her required duties throughout the course of
the day. I will summarize how she spends her time during that day and will reflect, in
writing, on the lessons learned and the implications for me as a future school leader.
Description and Rationale:

I completed my first full day of job shadowing with the principal of New Groningen
Elementary, Mrs. Laurie Poll, on January 22. The activities summarized below are from this
day, which began when I arrived at New Groningen at 7:45 am and ended after our final
session of debriefing together at 4:45 pm.

Over the course of the day, I observed and participated in parent meetings, staff meetings,
assisting teachers, managing student behaviors, communicating with parents and the
community, observing teachers, and debriefing and reflecting with Mrs. Poll.

The job description of an elementary principal is so broad and it varies day by day. The day
that is summarized below may not necessarily be characteristic of Mrs. Polls normal
days, but it is reflective of my experience on the day of my first job shadow. After this first
full day, I went on to complete two additional half days of job shadowing with Mrs. Poll in
February.

My experience:
Job Shadow Summary New Groningen Elementary
Time

Event

Brief Description

8 am

Parent
Communication

Mrs. Poll and I met with the parents of a student with Dyslexia. After a
recent parent/teacher conference, the parents were concerned about
the students slow progress in reading and wanted to be sure that the
school was doing as much as possible to help. The classroom teacher
and reading specialist also participated in this meeting.

9 am

Staff Meeting

Mrs. Poll and I traveled to Roosevelt Elementary to meet with all of the
ZPS elementary principals, curriculum director, and special education
director. Kindergarten screening, the Young 5s program, M-STEP,
Progress Monitoring, and Technology were on the agenda.

11:30
am
12 pm

Debriefing
Interacting with
Students

12:35
pm

Assisting
Teachers

12:40
pm

Behavior
Management

12:50
pm

Behavior
Management

1 pm

Parent
Communication

1:05
pm

Community
Relations

1:10
pm

Interacting with
Students

Task
Oriented

Relationship
Oriented

X
Mrs. Poll and I connected with students and teachers as they entered
the lunchroom. This was a great time to check in with everyone,
manage minor behavior issues on the spot, and continue building
relationships throughout the building.
Mrs. Poll and I used LANschool to set up the computer lab for a 2 nd
grade class that would be coming to do Discovery Assessments later in
the afternoon.
Mrs. Poll and I met briefly with a student who had reported bullying
issues earlier in the week. After talking with the student, Mrs. Poll
called the students mother to update her on the issue/resolution.
Mrs. Poll and I met briefly with the student who was identified as the
bully in the situation above. Mrs. Poll made the student and his
teacher aware of the consequences that will be issued if this behavior
is reported again.
Mrs. Poll checked her voice messages and returned a phone call from a
parent regarding the upcoming enrollment for the Spanish Immersion
program.
Mrs. Poll returned a phone call from a state representative who
inquired about coming to read to students during March (for Reading
Month).
Mrs. Poll filled in for the school secretary who was on her lunch break
and took an ill students temperature. She did not have a fever, so Mrs.
Poll sent her back to class.

1:15
pm

Behavior
Management

1:30

Teacher
Observation

2:00

Debriefing

2:30

Staff Meeting

4:30

Debriefing

Mrs. Poll and I met briefly with the student who was identified as the
victim in the situation above. Mrs. Poll made the student and his
teacher aware of the consequences that will be issued if this behavior
is reported again.
Mrs. Poll and I went to a 5th grade classroom to observe a special
education teacher pushing into the class to provide small group
instruction.

X
Mrs. Poll and I traveled to Cityside Middle School to participate in the
Administrative Council meeting with all district administrators,
program directors, and central office staff.

Reflections:
The day that I spent shadowing Mrs. Poll was incredibly helpful in gaining a more thorough
understanding of the roles and responsibilities of an elementary principal. As a teacher in
the building, I have observed Mrs. Poll and her daily activities from afar for the past five
years. However, spending an entire day by her side was absolutely invaluable to my
preparation as a future school administrator.
The first thing that struck me about the number and nature of activities that we engaged in
over the course of this day was just how broad an elementary principals job description
really is. Mrs. Poll has to switch gears more times in a day than I had ever realized, and
she has to do it quickly and seamlessly. The versatility and flexibility required to transition
from leading a parent meeting, to presenting at a staff meeting, to assisting teachers, to
managing students, and more is incredible.
As we left the Elementary Principals Meeting together, I commented to Mrs. Poll that I
wished I had an hour to just sit in a quiet office and reflect on each of the topics that we
discussed and the next steps in each scenario that was brought up in the meeting. Every
topic felt like it deserved such attention, thought, and careful planning before moving
forward. Unfortunately, it seems that an administrator rarely has time to just sit and reflect
before proceeding in most situations, and we had to move on to the next meeting of the day
rather quickly. This reflection proved just how important time management will be for me,
as a future administrator. With so many important issues (hiring, testing, planning,

reporting, etc.) swirling around in my head after just one staff meeting, I realized that I will
need to set aside time each day preferably outside of school hours to just sort things
out. I want to be a thoughtful and reflective leader; in order to do that while still
maintaining my efficiency and productivity, I will need to manage my time carefully.
During my day with Mrs. Poll, I was especially struck by the fact that 73% of our day was
spent dealing with tasks and only 27% was spent dealing with relationships. This is not
to say that we werent involved with people and utilizing interpersonal skills the entire day,
but it does mean that most of our day was spent managing agenda items. Mrs. Poll is a
strong relational leader and she puts people (staff, students, and families) first in her
building. Since the beginning of my time as a teacher at New Groningen, Mrs. Poll has
always made herself available and approachable and its obvious that, in her mind, people
come before projects. Mrs. Poll assured me that not all days are like the one that I observed;
however, some obviously are. I thrive on close relationships but am naturally very taskoriented and I enjoyed the variety that his day of job shadowing provided.
As I look ahead to a future in administration, I can see that it will be important for me to
balance activities that require me to be a leader with activities that require me to be a
manager throughout my day. I tend to operate with more of a long-range, rather than
short-range, perspective and I prefer to challenge the status quo, cast new vision, and focus
on innovation. In a school setting, I would definitely identify more with the title of
instructional leader rather than building manager; however, I realize that a successful
administrator needs to be both. I have learned that some days will be filled with meetings,
mundane tasks, and items that just need to be checked off a to-do list. While these may
not be the parts of the profession that make me come alive, they are necessary and I will
commit to doing them well. I thrive in an environment that requires the successful and
efficient completion of tasks while also prioritizing the building and maintaining of
relationships; I believe that school administration is an excellent career path to combine
these tasks and my passions.
Related Documents:
ZPS Elementary Principals Meeting

Meeting Notes
Kindergarten Screening Process All ZPS Principals
Looking for ways to make sure it is done the best. Brandi had a
process that we could work through from the Adaptive Schools book.
Allyson described what she had seen done it is through a sign up process, they held 2 full
days but had representation from community programs. It was a big deal and we would
need to really plan ahead for an event like this.
Screener will remain consistent for this year, happens in April and May.
Brandi would like to see more play based screener to be done in future years.
In May we can send out a letter to every incoming kinder from our school to make sure all
students feel welcome, especially those who dont screen at our home school.
Can we talk to the parents during the 15 or 45 minutes that we have their kids? *Allyson
will draft a list of ideas of what to talk about.
We need to look to next year (spring 2016) for an Open House idea as a group. (Nancy, Judy
and Tom) We are looking for a community feel and staff to discuss. Want to make sure it is
family focused, family friendly, kinder, gentler event.
We also need to decide if we break up the Kinder presentation and do we have a break out
for Young 5s. Or, at least add some slides about Young 5s.
How do we release staff to help out with screeners?
Emergency Operations Plan for each building (intro) Tom DeGraaf, Lincoln
Elementary
There is a plan that is on its way coming from the state. We are trying to hold off until the
summer. We will have a summer date to fill in our own buildings plan. The district plan is
done and we will build it from there.
M-STEP Info to Staff Brandi-Lyn Mendham, ZPS Curriculum Director
All kids will be pre-ID already. Alice was asked to reach out to secretaries to make sure all
kids are set.
Performance tasks were sent out to staff by Brandi last week
~Look at the MEAP 2013 data and look at comprehensive data and give staff what may be
fitting for them (Allyson Apsey can assist)
~Constructive responses from Discovery
~last night Brandi sent an email (from Anne Thorp) a new resource
website - Aware.22itrig.org This site is done well as it is a bit more clear cut
Online Assessment Awareness 2 tabs For Students and For Educators (caution if we just
send out or not) We would need to guide staff before we just send it out.

Quick preview test is a good idea to let teachers go through. (Reminder that we are not
doing it on the technology)
Focus get ready for the type of question to come on this assessment. How does your
instruction have to look like to support this? How do we prepare our staff to teach and
how do the kids learn for this?
All orders will be done by Alice for all schools.
All special education orders will be done by Holly and office.
Please look at calendar to gather before the next staff meeting to be able to learn more
about the M-STEP so we can present this info.
31a spreadsheet - Brandi-Lyn Mendham, ZPS Curriculum Director
31a spreadsheet with comprehensive data state kept changing criteria for eligibility.
Now more options for children to be considered At Risk. We are basically identifying more
and more students as At-Risk. We can use state data or local data.
Will need to be identified on a worksheet and need to be inputted by June. We should be
able to serve more students with this new process.
Assessment technology support Brandi-Lyn Mendham, ZPS Curriculum Director
Can we look for ways to help support the staff on this issue? We need to have office staff be
trained to help set up Lanschool for staff.
Kinder Writing Judy Tuttle, Roosevelt Elementary
Next time
Incoming Kindergarten lists from Ellen Nancy Burke, Adams Elementary
Jean from transportation has lists that were forwarded by Nancy. She also has a list of
potential Young 5s that she will send to us.
Tier 2 Progress Monitoring Holly Boehle, ZPS Special Educator Director
Running records is a form of progress monitoring. Holly is hoping to expand to more
sensitive measures to show gains.
So, what do we use? RR, Sort test, DIBELS is being used at WDB.
LLI, RR
What are we using for a universal screen? What will we use to track growth? Delta/Quick
Checks
Should we be continuing the DIBELS for kinder? What about 1st grade? We need to be
looking for more data points to keep track of students.

Practices we use, data we collect and decision making? (Tier 1, 2, and 3) The RtI committee
is looking through these items and looking for consistency among all. Early intervention is
best! Making it standardized for all.
Holly and Brandi need to help guide from here. They hope to meet with the Reading
Specialists and maybe down the road meet with the Interventionists too.
Technology Meeting update Allyson Apsey, Quincy Elementary
General consensus was to continue with iPads for students.
We are hoping to consider the assessments when the final decision is being made.
Teacher device desktop and iPad OR high quality Apple laptop. Or, can we get an iPad
Mini for the staff too?
Future of computer labs, Technology specials will all need to be looked at down the road.
Discussion of the use in elementary of Lisa Shears and Mike Fenlon where are they
spending their time? How has elementary staff been impacted?

ZPS Administrative Council Meeting

Meeting Notes
Laurie Poll, Principal of New Groningen Elementary:
-update on Spanish immersion
-High school and lower el are rolling and successful
-50 kindergarteners enrolled for next year - full! No wait list yet
-Applications are in for teacher openings for next year
-Shared about NG March Impact; accepted suggestion of getting a student on the committee
for this year
Cal DeKuiper, Superintendent:
Re: Leadership
-Baseball analogy: need the right players in the right spots
-As the building leader, are you making the right moves?
-February is a difficult month. We are the steady ones!
-Leadership get together on March 12 @ NHBC
Re: Bond proposal
-Cal has given 50+ presentations; overall response is positive
-Are they motivated to go vote? Keep spreading the importance
-Governors budget released yesterday. Appreciative, but 1% increase is not enough for us
-This bond passing is critical!
Re: Student Suicide
-Over 4,500 people opened the Z for Me with info on the tragedy last week
-ZPS Called neighboring schools for advice on how to handle suicide and what information
to share
-Bullying may not have been an issue in this case, but it is always an issue for us
-Thank you to the crisis team
-We only share information that has been provided by the family, regardless of what's on
the Internet, news, coming from churches, etc.
Dave Meeuwsen, ZPS Transportation Director
Re:Stats
-7,017 students
-56 busses
-6,827 students with electronic bus tags
-1.1 million bus tag swipes/97 days
-11,325 bus tag swipes a day!
-We should be proud of these numbers!
Other Info:

-We are saving money on more propane and less diesel this year
- ZPS Contract with ISD for transportation brings in some revenue
-Bus information is available on Infinite Campus
-Elementary staff: encourage parents to use parent portal for transportation information
-May cut back on sending bus info post cards for HS next year since all info is on Parent
Portal
-Dave attended bus security/safety training - valuable information
Brandi-Lyn Mendham, ZPS Curriculum Director:
Re: M-STEP
-This is a moving target right now; constant updates!
Questions from Administrators:
-Can we exempt non English-speaking students? (Most likely, yes)
-Are we opting out of performance task for 11th grade? (District decision, yes)
-What happens if we have under 95% participation? (It will be watched!)
Brandi's PowerPoint:
-Generic, big picture report will come after the test (in the Spring) but the standard-setting
process hasn't happened yet, the hand-scored portion will take time, and student growth
information won't be available until the Fall
-The state has frozen school rankings (priority, reward, and focus school labels) for 2 years
because the tests are changing so much; accountability is on hold. MDE does not intend to
use M-STEP scores for high stakes measures for the next 2 years.
-Doing paper pencil gives us lots of advantages, but scheduling is still a nightmare.
Questions were raised about where to have kids test, how to arrange them, etc. Need to
balance efficiency and optimal testing conditions for students.
-80% of schools in the state are doing M-STEP online this year; we are in the minority
-Performance task is required for students in grades 3-8, not required for grade 11 so we
are opting out
- Continue to encourage teachers to embed the M-STEP bubble sheet practice in their daily
lessons; it looks markedly different than what they've seen in the past!
-Computer adaptive piece is no longer going to be available this year; the test will not
adjust like they had previously communicated. Implementation has been delayed (glad we
are doing paper-pencil!)
-Resources are in Brandi's PowerPoint - look specifically at vocabulary pages to pass on to
teachers
Re: M-STEP Next steps:
-Complete scheduling
-Communicate to staff
-Communicate to parents
-Classroom instruction aligned to standards (provide opportunities to infuse performance
task samples and practice with bubble sheet)

Holly Boehle, ZPS Special Education Director:

Re: M-STEP Accommodations:
-MSTEP divides supports for students into 3 categories: universal supports, designated
supports, and accommodations
-All Students (even without IEPS and 504s) can have universal tools
-Designated tools can be given to students if teacher thinks necessary
-Accommodations will only be for IEP/504 students
Re: Things that were once accommodations but now are standard, universal tools:
-Students can take the assessment in any setting (inside school)
-Test can be administered individually or in small group of up to 5
-Reading test questions can be done out loud for the students (no longer need this written
as an accommodation, but reading ELA passages requires a written accommodation for
grades 6-8 and 11
-Cannot read passages out loud for elementary students
-Lots of requirements for human readers the day before and day of testing
-Keep track of who receives accommodations (Brandi and Holly will create a document in
google docs for this)
-Scribing can be a designated support for all subjects except ELA/writing test questions - it
needs to be an IEP/504 accommodation to have a scribe for writing test questions (there
are also confidentiality and training requirements for scribes beforehand)
-Breaks during the test are not specified, but tests need to be finished on the same day they
are started -Test security is no longer as specified by the state - so recess is an acceptable
break if that's what's best for your kids
-M-STEP material orders are due Feb 26