Reflective Essay

Oakland University- EA 8940

Kristina Wiegand

June 15, 2020

A lot has changed for me, both personally and professionally, as a direct result of

enrolling in the Education Specialist program through Oakland University. Since this journey

began in September of 2018, I have changed roles within my district, Fraser Public Schools-

leaving my Coordinator of Student Services position at the middle school and returning to the

elementary level to become Principal of Edison Elementary. When I think back to September of

2018, at the very start of this program, I had just left the classroom to take on a brand new role-

in hopes that it would get me one step closer to my ultimate goal of becoming a building

administrator.

The Education Specialist program began simultaneously to a new professional journey

for me and the skills learned throughout the program could be directly applied to my job. As

Coordinator of Student Services, I gained perspective about the role of MTSS in the school

setting, as there are a lot of logistics in scheduling that go along with getting all students the

support, both academically and emotionally, that they need. This role was my first supervisory

role as well. Instead of supervising students, I was supervising adults for the first time.

After my first semester as the Coordinator for Student Services at Richards Middle

School, a new position unexpectedly opened up in our district- Principal of Edison Elementary. I

applied and was hired for this role, which is where I spent the last 1.5 years of my internship

experience. Thus, my internship consisted of experiences from two very different roles at two

different schools. All of these experiences, in conjunction with my experiences within the

Education Specialist program, have enriched my life as an educator.

While analyzing the ELCC Pre/Post Surveys, I noticed and reflected upon several areas in

which my self-evaluation improved. First, my experiences transitioning into a building

administrator role have allowed me to feel more comfortable developing and implementing a

shared vision for learning. Prior to this experience, I had never facilitated a discussion about

mission, vision, values, and goals. I was able to draw from our Education Specialist discussions

about the book, Failure is NOT an Option, to guide these conversations with my staff.

Next, throughout my internship and experiences in my current role, I have spent a great

deal of time working with our School Improvement Team and completing our Program

Evaluation Tool and our School Improvement Plans. These were also newer experiences for

me, but I was able to utilize skills that I learned from Dr. Feun while completing our Action

Research Project. The biggest skill that I learned is how to effectively collect and analyze data

while making decisions about academic programming.

In addition, I also grew in my comfort with building and sustaining a positive school

culture through collaboration and trust. Throughout many of the books that we’ve read during

this program, many leaders discussed the importance of establishing a sense of trust amongst

colleagues- that without it, you have nothing. I have taken that very seriously, as a principal,

and I understand that I need to be transparent and do what I say I’m going to do. I believe

these traits have allowed me to slowly earn the trust of my colleagues. Many of them have also

slowly earned my trust by following the same general behaviors.

I also grew more comfortable with monitoring and evaluating teacher instruction, school

management and operational systems. Somehow, at the beginning of the program, I did not
realize what I didn’t know with regards to these things. I gave myself a “developing”, but it

should have been a very solid “beginning” rating. I had a general knowledge about how teacher

evaluation worked, as I’d been evaluated for years. However, things are much different sitting

on the other side of that computer during the observation/evaluation process. I also had NO

sense of district leadership at the central level, before taking on this role as principal. I have

learned so much in this area throughout the program and during my work experiences.

Another area in which I made a lot of professional growth was in the area of

understanding and evaluating the potential moral/legal consequences of decision making in the

school. At the beginning of the program, I knew that this was an area that I really needed to

grow in. After taking the Educational Law class with Kevin Sutton, I began to view every

decision with a very different lens. Instead of focusing solely on whether something was “best

for kids,” I also began considering the moral and legal ramifications of each decision. I have

grown to the point in which this way of thinking has become deeply engrained in my day-to-day

interactions. I would like to continue getting better at documenting all aspects of investigating

student behavioral situations and parent communication.

Issues of Concern

In addition to the personal goal mentioned above, getting better at documenting all

aspects of investigations and communications, I also was surprised to see that my ranking on

the Post Survey dropped regarding my comfort levels in promoting the most effective

technologies to support learning. I think that can be attributed to the vast amount of

technology that was utilized during the Covid-19 crisis, as we were trying SO many new things

to reach our students. This opened my eyes to the amount of effective technology out there.
Career Goals

My current role, as principal of Edison Elementary, has helped me to grow as an

educator. I would like to continue with this role for the foreseeable future, as I realize that I still

have so much more to learn. In addition to this role, I have developed a new ambition, thanks

in part to Dr. Abbott and the other wonderful professors during the Education Specialist

program, to teach aspiring teachers and administrators at the university level (preferably

Oakland University). Thus, I am prepared to begin my coursework to obtain my PhD in

Educational Leadership in the fall- in hopes of making a positive impact on the future of

education.