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Final Year, Year 3 - Professional Growth Plan Barbara Peterson Self-Assessment
Final Year, Year 3 - Professional Growth Plan Barbara Peterson Self-Assessment
Peterson Self-Assessment
Standard
Sub-element
When leaders
demonstrate
leadership along
this standard
they are able to:
1. Equity
and
Excellen
ce
practices,
policies, and
systems, both
presently and
historically,
have created
disparities in
the quality of
learning
environments
and student
success,
particularly for
traditionally
marginalized
Ratin
g
How
you
rate
your
perfor
mance
:
1
2
3
4
Low
High
students.
language speakers.
Evidence: I have hired a new staff person tasked with developing
an elementary literacy program in Spanish and English, that will
incorporate many books for students in both languages to redress
the often subtractive educational practices to which students are
exposed that promote the loss of home language and a resulting
alienation of home culture. It is very powerful and highly
acclaimed in the districts with whom we work.
Evidence: I have hired a Spanish speaking evaluator who is to
engage with families and conduct surveys and focus groups to
help us understand how best to involve parents in our programs.
Evidence: To strengthen students spoken Spanish and prepare
them for rigorous AP Spanish, our newest grant promotes middle
school language classes and AP high school Spanish, a
requirement for every participating district.
Evidence: Thirteen of my 38 staff are Spanish-speaking staff; in
most districts, my hires are the highest paid Hispanic staff with
Bachelor of Arts certification, in the district. It is through these
hires that I hope to encourage districts to consider teacher
candidates of colors.
Evidence: My agency participates each year to help the Sisters of
The Sacred Name in Wapato bring a group of Mexican teachers to
Wapato to provide culturally responsive teaching, all in Spanish, to
more than 50 families and more than 100 students in Wapato. I
continue to advocate with the school district to be more accepting
of this initiative (mostly to no avail).
(b) Build policies
and systems that
support every
student in
1
2
3
4
success and
learning to high
standards.
Low
High
those who will succeed without us, and the middle hanging fruit
and build individual sets of strategies to move each student to
his/her highest capabilities.
Evidence: An ongoing focus is our 20% low performing students
for whom we design intervention each year targeted to the
increasingly specific knowledge we have of those students.
Evidence: We have now taken a new focus on those highly
capable learners who often are ignored in struggling school
districts. We are building systems for mapping their interests and
catering to their different learning needs to move them to reach
their highest standard.
Evidence: Site directors are for the first time investigating what it
takes to gain entry to a highly selective school, and to then
identify which of their students should be counseled to consider
this option.
Claim: I continue to seek out new opportunities to engage our
students with working STEM professionals to build confidence and
interest among any interested students in engineering, science or
other related fields.
Evidence: Our grant program partners us with LIGO Institute, the
MIT and NSF-funded RECON astronomy project that engages 6 of
our 11 districts with high powered telescopes to identify objects in
the Kuiper Belt; and with the AEEE, the American Engineering
Educators to build a middle school component in an existing
engineering recruitment tool called Attributes of a Global
Engineer which will help our students see themselves as future
engineers.
4
1
2
3
4
Low
High
1
2
3
4
Low
High
(e) Facilitate
explicit
discussions
about race, class,
language, ability,
and other groupbased disparities
in the service of
collective action
to decrease
them.
1
2
3
4
Low
High
2.
Inquiryfocused
Practice
When leaders
demonstrate
leadership along
this standard
they are able to:
1
2
3
4
Low
High
(a) Engage in
cycles-of-inquiry
processes in the
moment and
over time,
including:
(i) Using
evidence to
understand
problems of
practice, and
specifically
the student,
teaching/othe
r adult, and
leadership
dimensions of
those
problems.
(ii) Constructing
theories of
action that:
Acting in
ways that
reflect
engagement
with the
theory of
action or
strategic
deviations
from it.
(iii)Continuously
assessing
progress.
1
2
3
4
Low
High
(iv)
Com 1
muni-cate
2
from a
teaching
and
learning
stance-- in
ways that
help other
adults
deepen
the extent
to which
they are
engaged
with and
value
strengthen
ing their
practice.
3
4
Low
High
a single author. I invited three other L4L colleagues, Kim West, Cheryl
Lydon and Greta Borneman, to co-author an article for the Peabody
Journal I was invited to write; their shared passion and knowledge of
STEM efforts in the state strengthened our joint document which will be
published June 2015.
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When leaders
Improv
ement
of
Teachi
ng &
Learni
ng
demonstrate
leadership along
this standard
they are able to:
(a) Articulate a
theory-based
vision of
deeplyengaging,
culturallyresponsive,
and
intellectuallychallenging
instruction
and adult
professional
learning.
2
3
4
Low
High
13
(b) Construct/ada
pt/select and
use
instructional
frameworks
and other
leadership
tools to
optimize
student and
adult
professional
learning.
1
2
3
4
Low
High
1
2
3
4
Low
High
1
2
3
4
Low
High
(e) Craft/adapt
instructional
visions,
practices, and
other
supports
appropriately
for meeting
specialized
learning
needs (e.g.,
of ELLs,
students with
identified
disabilities).
1
2
3
4
(f) Analyze
assessment
practices and
use
assessment
data of
various kinds
to improve
instruction.
1
2
3
4
Low
High
agency.
Evidence: My NLA staff assume leadership roles in a variety of
areas in which they have specific passion or experience, including
overseeing the implementation of the Naviance and Career Cruiser
College outreach software, development of Spanish language
clubs, choosing a relational database for managing student
contact, etc.
Claim: Through my leadership, staff have adopted instruction
visions appropriate to meeting the needs of our students.
Evidence: Staff are reading about student agency, from
published research by J. Adair. Our intent is to make sure students
have instructional programs that are affirming and agencyenhancing: Numerous scholars argue that deficit assumptions facing
marginalized communities become a justification for offering children
from these communities bland, repetitive, task-oriented learning
experiences, while their privileged counterparts have dynamic, agencysupporting experiences.(Adair, 2014)
Low
High
4.
Strategic
,
Collaborative
Governance &
Decisionmaking
When leaders
demonstrate
leadership along
this standard
they are able to:
(a) Generate,
allocate, and
manage
resources in
alignment
with
improvement
and equity
goals.
1
2
3
4
Low
High
(b) Identify,
engage, and
influence the
broader
policy, legal,
and political
environment
to strengthen
supports that
matter the
most for
learning
improvement.
1
2
3
4
Low
High
19
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
(e) Model
transparent
1
2
Low
High
Low
High
20
and ethical
leadership
and address
sources of
conflict
productively
and equitably.
3
4
Low
High
B. Growth Supports
1. Based on your self-assessment, what overall (looking across the standards) would you say
are 2-3 of your main strengths as a learning-focused leader? Why those?
Equity and Access: By my funding in federal grants, the focus of my program efforts are always on lowperforming underrepresented groups. I am the right advocate and champion to bring about changes to
district policies and practices to support the learning of these groups. Of interest to me is that while I
started in these discussions about effectiveness (we need to include more Hispanics in rigorous
coursework to improve their test scores) I now see some of my sites able to say that we need to make
these improvements not only for effective practice but for equitable practice as well.
I continue also to work in community organizations that help bring outside resources to the schools in ways
that are unique to my background. This is a result of my work on nonprofit boards, which I sometimes
disregard, but in truth, we have brought new programming to areas and schools/students who would not
have been served without my attention.
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I also have built broad connections (HECB, OSPI, Rural Alliance, PSESD, Department of Education) that
allow me to inform my thinking from various broad-thinking perspectives that helps strengthen my
strategic thinking with regard to my work.
I believe I have strengths in building the capacity of educators to engage more authentically with
community members in building programs of enrichment for students and in reviewing and refining our
program offerings to improve the learning of students.
2. Based on your self-assessment, what overall would you say are 2-3 main areas for your
growth as a learning-focused leader? Why those?
Instructional Leadership: I want to become more grounded in this area, because I now feel a greater
clarity not only about the way a program should feel for the learner, but also in the skills a learner should
have to build agency the ability to make changes s/he wants to make in his life. This clarity about the
ultimate outcomes of education will help me engage in this work, and lead others in this work. I want to
lead from afterschool to build the kinds of programs that parents want their kids to have. I am captured
by the words of Adair on student agency:
Collectively, deficit assumptions can result in narrowed curriculum and a great reliance on scripted teaching
materials, direct instruction, and strict schedules with little room for interests and ideas.
And further she quotes Delpit:
Nowhere is the result more glaring than in .. classrooms serving low-income children of color where low test
scores meet programming, scripted teaching. The reductionism spawned has created settings in which
teaches and students are treated as nonthinking objects to be manipulated and managedit is still
imperative that we actually teach children the academic skills they need to be successful participants in
society but I now realize, with ever-increasing clarity, that we must do that and much more (2006. P. xv).
P231 Adair, J., Agency and Expanding Capabilities in Early Grade Classrooms, Harvard Ed Review, Vol 84, No. 2
Summer 2014.
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I believe that I engaged in this degree program specifically because I felt a deficiency in providing
instructional leadership in my programs. I behaved as a principal of the past, providing more focus on
managerial and supervisory responsibilities (budgeting, grant management, personnel management) and
could not/would not delve into the actual provision of instruction. Just as other principals need to be the
instructional leader, I too need to do that although that is not my background.
My organizations programs to date have relied on engaging schools to oversee our programming; we are
to align with the instructional approach taken by our schools. I do not feel I have the knowledge base to
build policies and systems that support every student in success and learning to high standards.
However, when we work with failing schools, they have limited time and perspective to help us engage in
meaningful ways. Waiting for guidance from a failing administration is frustrating and seems unlikely to
result in the highest positive outcomes. With the introduction of Common Core, I feel more able to adopt
an independent approach, but need to do more to learn the language of instruction and to be more
assertive about the things I have seen to be effective in afterschool and college outreach programming as
most schools do not have nearly the same experience that I have with these programs.
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