I Interviewed An Assistant Principal, Ms. Katis Romig

My assignment is a combination of two interviews. I interviewed an Assistant Principal, Ms. Katis Romig, as well as, our Curriculum Director, Mrs. Maria Petkanas. They are both responsible for the curriculum development and instruction for the school where I work, P.S. 811Q. I also learned a fair amount from Ms. Romig and Mrs. Petkanas including that District 75 Citiwide Special Education’s Deputy Superintendent, Ms. Barbara Joseph, had given the school feedback and suggested writing curriculum and textbooks. This was the only feedback she gave our principal during her observation last week.
School leaders and faculty are responsible to ensure engaging, rigorous, and coherent curricula in all subjects, accessible for a variety of learners and aligned to Common Core Learning Standards and/or content standards. As a special education program for severely disabled students including all these requirements in curriculum that is differentiated for the array of needs in the school isn’t easy. In response to the suggestions made by Ms. Joseph the principal decided that the best way to address it while still attending to the needs of the school would be to created an inquiry team that will research the findings in order to help with the decision making.
When asked what curricula is being used in each subject area and grade level and how we arrive at those choices Ms. Romig explained how the school uses Unique Learning System® and Ablenet®. They are both aligned to CCLS. Unique Learning Systems® is adapted at three different levels and can be adapted further to meet students differentiated needs. Unique Learning System® has units of study, is theme based and follows a three year plan. This curriculum adapts Literacy, Writin...

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...aken ownership of. Many groups now choose to meet informally during their lunch periods. Per-session is also provided for the Inquiry teams to have additional time to meet. Her advice to me was to remember to always ask the teachers what they want to work on improving, if they are in an working environment where they feel they can express their creativity and concerns they will collaboratively be driven to refine their instruction.
Both ladies feel that there is a need for more modified curriculum and they are frustrated with the lack of special education textbooks available for the severely disabled, however, they are impressed by they skillfulness of the staff in coming up with adaptations to what they do have.
Overall, I was grateful for this experience. I was able to find out more about the behind the scenes responsibilities of our schools’ leadership.