Standard 4: Human Resource Leadership
Principals will ensure that the school is a professional learning community. Principals will
ensure that process and systems are in place which results in recruitment, induction, support,
evaluation, development and retention of high performing staff. The principal must engage and
empower accomplished teachers in a distributive manner, including support of teachers in day-
to-day decisions such as discipline, communication with parents/guardians, and protecting
teachers from duties that interfere with teaching, and must practice fair and consistent
evaluations of teachers. The principal must engage teachers and other professional staff in
conversations to plan their career paths and support district succession planning.
Substandard Artifact Description of Artifact
4A. Professional This is a breakdown of River Bend
Development/Learning Human Resource Middle School’s current HR practices
Communities: The school Management Plan - RBMS (recruitment, selection,
executive ensures that the induction/orientation, staff
school is a professional development, evaluation, and
learning community. instructional time). This school year
WCPSS has embedded district wide
professional development days into
the calendar. The admin team,
including myself, has encouraged and
helped teachers find professional
development opportunities throughout
the district that is purposeful towards
their growth. RBMS has also offered
its building multiple time to house
district professional development.
When I shadowed Mrs. Smalls with
evaluations, she asks during every
post-observation conference what the
teacher has done this school year in
regard to professional development. I
plan to continue this practice when I
conduct my own future evaluations.
This is my ideal human resource plan
Ideal Human Resource Plan if I were to lead my own school based
on best practices. Although RBMS
and WCPSS provides many
opportunities for professional
development and RBMS values
professional growth, I would have a
stronger focus on feedback, reflection,
and sustained duration. Attending a
workshop or training may be helpful
in the present, but educators would
benefit even more with built in
opportunities to reflect on their
practices and the training, provide
feedback to the training and what
options are provided, in addition to
receiving feedback on implementation,
and having follow up trainings to
check-in to make sure implementation
is occurring. This would move a
school from being professional
development cognizant to a
professional learning community.
I collaborated with two others in
Opening Workday - Tiger organizing and facilitating the opening
Trivia workday at River Bend Middle
School. We created a team trivia game
about the faculty handbook. We
wanted to present the material in an
interactive and fun way as this was our
first day back as a whole school. The
staff valued the collaboration
atmosphere and enjoyed working with
each other rather than having to review
the handbook individually.
4B. Recruiting, Hiring, I collaborated with a small group of
Placing, and Mentoring of HR Recruitment Video fellows to create a teacher recruitment
Staff: The school executive video. We chose our audience to be
establishes processes and high school seniors applying to
systems in order to ensure a college. Given the teacher shortages
high-quality, high-performing throughout the nation, we thought high
staff. school seniors would be a great place
to recruit potential teachers. I practiced
my digital storytelling and iMovie
skills to create and edit this video.
Although most districts recruit for the
schools, I believe it is important for a
school leader to also know how to
recruit high-performing teachers and
how to brand their school that is
inviting to the community.
I also collaborated with another group
Branding Video of fellows to create a branding video
to encourage more teacher leaders to
pursue leadership at NC State. This
video focused on how to grow current
teacher leaders and provided me the
opportunity to learn how to brand the
NELA program. For a successful
education system, recruiting and hiring
is not only intended for incoming
teachers, but how to grow and mentor
staff in becoming future leaders of our
schools.
I worked with two others in organizing
New Tiger Orientation and facilitating the New Tiger
Picture Orientation at River Bend Middle
School. This orientation was not only
for new teachers but anyone new to
the school. We provided welcome
baskets, lunch, and fun activities to
introduce new staff to our culture and
traditions at the Bend. We heard
feedback from the teachers saying they
have never been welcomed quite like
that at previous schools and were very
thankful for the supplies, lunch, and
collaborative activities. In the future, I
strive to provide induction activities
for all new staff; however, one item
our admin team did not provide that I
think would make this experience
more meaningful is follow up new
staff activities throughout the year to
also be able to include new staff that
arrive throughout the school year.
RBMS does have a beginning teacher
support program, but I feel something
additional should come from admin,
and not all new staff are beginning
teachers.
I participated in the hiring process for
Phone Reference Template multiple teachers at River Bend
Middle School this year. I was a part
of an interview team for an ESL
position, sixth-grade ELA position,
and sixth-grade math position. I also
created a phone reference template
based off of WCPSS’s Applitrack
system, so I could gather the
information I needed in a document
before deciding which teacher we
would officially hire. Mrs. Smalls
allowed for me to call references of
the ELA teacher candidates. This was
a great experience in learning which
questions to ask and how to have the
reference share all the necessary
information with me even if I did not
directly ask for it.
4C. Teacher and Staff I completed an informal clinical
Evaluation: The school Clinical Supervision supervision for an eighth-grade
executive evaluates teachers Activities science teacher. I documented the pre-
and other staff in a fair and Evaluation Process conference, observations, and post-
conference. This was an informal
equitable manner with the Evaluation Rubric experience, but I made sure to capture
focus on improving Audio Recording of Post all parts of an evaluation to make it as
performance, and thus, student Conference authentic as possible. This was a great
achievement. experience to familiarize myself with
the process in a low-stakes situation. I
conducted these activities in October;
however, I wish I had time to go
through this experience again to see
how much I have grown in my
questioning skills. I have grown as a
leader and have become more
confident in my abilities and in
myself. I have shadowed Mrs. Smalls
throughout the school year on multiple
evaluations, which has helped me
better capture what the teachers are
doing in the classroom and how that
impacts students. I have also
witnessed Mrs. Smalls have tough
conversations with struggling teachers,
which has helped me learn ways of
providing feedback in an equitable and
stern manner.
I conducted approximately two
Instructional Walk- classroom walkthroughs per week
Throughs during my principal residency. I used
Walk-Through Template this walkthrough tool to capture what
Walk-Through Log was happening in sixth through eighth
Classroom Walkthrough grade classrooms. By visiting
Examples classrooms weekly and capturing my
Picture thoughts and observations in a
template, I was able to practice my
notetaking and observation skills.
Given that I was not able to conduct
evaluations on my own as an intern, I
used informal walkthroughs to gain
experience in observations, as well as
to become more comfortable being
visible in classrooms. In the beginning
of the year, I visited a variety of
classrooms, and as I developed my
Problem of Practice, I honed my focus
to mostly English Language Arts
classroom visits. I believe that
administrators would benefit from
conducting informal walkthroughs
weekly, not only to be more aware of
what is occurring in the classrooms,
but to desensitize teachers from admin
visits. This way, teachers are giving
the same effort every day and not only
bringing their “A-game” on evaluation
days. This will also allow students to
see administrators more often and
know that the leaders care about them,
too.
I attended the WCPSS AP Leadership
AP Leadership Training meeting and participated in a coaching
breakout session to help build my
coaching and feedback skills. This
session was very helpful and provided
me a safe space to practice pausing,
paraphrasing, and posing questions, as
well as honing my active listening
skills. This skill is crucial in the
evaluation process because in order to
help a teacher grow, providing
feedback in a manner that the teacher
will respond to is critical. Teachers
should feel safe and heard, and ideally
a post-conference should be a
conversation not a lecture. Teachers
respond better to feedback when they
feel they had input in the changes they
need to make in order to become a
better teacher.
