As a new volunteer at St. Mary’s School in Canton, NY I was recently acquainted with the administration of Latchkey. Latchkey is an afterschool program for students at St. Mary’s that’s held in the school’s gymnasium. The program provides the kids with an opportunity to do schoolwork and play games if they are unable to go home directly after school. The program is run by a few adults and is facilitated by St. Lawrence students. Within the past few weeks I’ve witnessed the established style of leadership that drives Latchkey and the roles that the leaders and students have adopted. Although this style is sufficient for the program’s operation I believe the children would have a more fulfilling experience if this style was changed. Several adults work together to guide Latchkey. They are responsible for supervising the children, setting up activities, creating an agenda, and enforcing the rules. Mr. Alzo, the head of the program, set the main precedent for the …show more content…
Mary’s is effective, but it can definitely be improved. Latchkey’s main goal is to provide a safe place for children to stay after school, and that has been met with the present establishment. However, I think the program should reaffirm its values and aim for higher goals. The relationship between the kids and the program leaders is distant which hinders the overall capability of the program. Instead of having a hands-off leadership approach everyone involved in Latchkey should be active participants. This would clarify what is expected of the children as well as the adults. I also think those responsible for running Latchkey should communicate and determine what kind of experience they want the kids to have. Then, the program leaders would be more confident in their own leadership style and their individual spin on the after school program. These aforementioned changes would help the Latchkey organization develop a greater sense of identity and
Ms. Hall has had many years of public education experience and higher education training in which to hone her leadership style and framework. She started her career as a teacher in the Kirkwood School District. She then served as an assistant elementary principal at both Ritenour and Pattonville School Districts before being selected to serve as the assistant superintendent of the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District in 2008. Throughout her career she continued to pursue her education as a means o...
Throughout the years of being a student at Council Rock, I have come to the realization of what a true leader is. A leader is not someone that just plans events, collects money, or shows up to meetings. Rather, this is someone that has a true connection with their peers, and has unmatched passion for what they do. With this, I can confidently say that since seventh grade, as a young adult, I have been shaped into an individual that fits these traits. Since that time, I have been involved in student government,
Slavitch and Zimbardo (2012) assert that adult learners desire to improve their understandings by adjusting their “frames of reference,” including their points of view and habits of mind. In the case of the grade change initiative, the frames of reference were shaped by the parents, students, and administration. The committee entered the situation already having used instrumental learning to arrive at a solution. Their jobs to “reframe” the teachers’ beliefs and practices was able to work through the committee’s use of modified andragogy, allowing the teachers to discover their own truths as educators (Mezirow, 1997). Although entering the situation with an already-decided, seemingly autocratic decision in place, the committee was able to use their passionate transformative skills to win the teachers over to their side. The teachers’ self-discovery then enabled them to believe their decision was a wholly democratic one, which was not quite the case. As cited in Slavitch and Zimbardo (2012), Bass and Riggio’s (2010) explanation of transformational leadership perfectly embdodies DKJA’s grade change initiative: the follows were inspired to be a part of a shared vision, they had to challenge themselves to be problem solvers, and their leaders both challenged and supported them at all times. The teachers’ decision to “put themselves on the line” and “take one for the team” showed their allegiance to the group and their desire to be a part of something authentic, fulfilling, and true to themselves as both humans and
The strategic plan for improving chronically low performing schools will utilize a leadership component, and four phases. The four phases are equivalent to the frames of Bolman and Deal. Bolman and Deal (2003) discuss four frames: Structural, Human Resource, Political, and Symbolic. They define the frames as follows: Structural- reflects a belief in rationality and a faith that th...
Marzano, R. J., Waters, T. & McNulty, B. A. (2005). School Leadership that Works: From Research to Results. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
A school’s lifeblood is its students however, a school’s lifeline stems from the community partnerships that it forms and retains over the years of its existence in the community. Just as times change, so does the list of potential partners within the community. One of the most valuable resources a school can use in its quest to form community partnerships is the faces, voices, and support of its leadership staff. Schools typically have an internal chain of command; however, the quest for partnerships requires that the chain of command, littered with bureaucratic red tape, be abandoned in exchange for one where those in decision-making positions are more easily accessible to members of the community. The following is a
Mork taking the time to share his views of administration leadership styles and strategies allowed me to gain knowledge of the reasons why certain decisions were made at Crescent School and why information was presented in the manner it was. This discussion also helped me to develop some of my own thoughts about how I would like to have things run when I am an administrator.
School administrators are important in setting the path for a successful school (Glickman, et al., 2014). The principals could play a dynamic leadership depending on how they exercise their beliefs of the organizational and social environment (McNair, 2011). The principals are the primary facilitators for developing the foundations in learning that will last, to manage the student’s performance at schools, and seeking the improvement at school that will cause great impacts in school‘s education (Gordon,1989). In the recent years in the U.S., education has change in a more cultural diversity population, it is imperative that school supervisors, are trained to encounter this cultural issues, but also assisting others with the opportunities to develop appropriate abilities to deal with different cultures (Glickman, et al., 2014).
With the passage of NCLB, many school reform efforts have been initiated using top-down model in which each school leaders have been charged with initiating bold administrative changes to address the legislation. With the number of leadership theories and models, researchers have become interested in studying those to determine which might bring forth the most significant results for leading such change. Due to the lack of highly qualified administrators and the increasing demands for administrators, Bush, O’Brien & Spangler (2005) studied a program, the Southern Tier Leadership Academy, a collaborative of the New York Education Department. The study included three separate cohorts who completed an eight month program. Whereas, Somech (2005) chose to investigate directive and participative leadership approaches, and which would more significantly impact school effectiveness. Perhaps Somech’s reflect Scherer’s (2009, p.7) understandings as described in Educational Leadership, ‘broom-wielding leadership can indeed be beneficial’ as is putting advocates into positions of power and influence and building teams, both of which are seemingly contrasting opposites.
Latchkey children grow up in a variety of settings that lead to self-care, which depends on multiple factors including family relationships, trust, poverty and the parent’s methods of childcare (Muller, 1991). Many latchkey children spent their time watching TV, playing video games, and visiting staying at friends houses, while others were left
Marzano, R.J., Waters, T., & McNulty, B.A. (2005). School Leadership that Works: From Research to Results. Alexandria, VA. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
There is a connection between school culture and leadership styles. The literature review will also address the two basic categories of leadership. According to Cox (2001), there are two basic categories of leadership which are transactional and transformational. The following scholars (Barnett, McCormick & Conners, 2001) made the distinction between transactional and transformational leadership. James McGregor Burns’ (1998) introduces Burns the difference between ordinary (transactional) and extraordinary (transformational) leaders. According to James McGregor Burns’ (1998) transactional leaders exchanged tangible rewards for the work and loyalty of followers, and (transformational) leaders are the ones who engaged with followers. Additionally, the focused on higher order intrinsic needs, and raised consciousness about the significance of specific outcomes.
Thomas Sergiovanni (2015) describes three essential dimensions of leadership as “the heart, head, and hand of leadership.” The heart describes those characteristics within the school leader that reflect personal “beliefs, values, and dreams.” The head of leadership refers to the practice of teaching and educating. The hand of leadership reflects actions taken by school leaders with respect to management behaviors. (p. 5) Within these elements, there is room for personal choice in how leadership is practiced and it is incumbent on new principals to find an individual leadership style that responds to the uniqueness of each school.
laid out on appropriate behaviors, with that comes discipline. Discipline is the number one thing
Having Steven Covey’s Habit 5, “seek first to understand, then to be understood”, as one of my guiding principles, a first step in the change process at XYZ Middle School would be to hold several roundtable discussions with stakeholders from staff and students to parents and community as a means of comprehending how the complexities of the changing demographics are impacting the school. The school has made some organizational changes to adapt (which may account for the higher test scores at some grade levels), but suspensions and insubordination have risen while teacher retention remains low. This seems to indicate that change efforts need to be focused on the culture of the school through building relationships and capacity to effectively educate the students. Therefore, I would concentrate my change efforts on issues such as staff development that bridge understanding of the intricacies of educating a student population that is 99% free/reduced lunch such as Ruby Paynes A Framework for Understanding Poverty. As a staff, we would, also, evaluate the school’s mission and develop academic and discipline school norms that embody it and a “we do” spirit of efficacy. I believe school