Educational Leadership Practicum JournalAmber Eliason

Week 1: Reflection Jan 5-9

I began my internship this week. In early December I met with Dr. Valesky and my mentor and we had a lengthy discussion about the educational leadership, my own strengths and weaknesses, leadership style of schools and districts, and much more.

I began logging hours soon after this meeting. I participated in activities including Professional Learning Community chair, Student Services Committee meeting, creating grade reporting timelines, cataloging inventory, supervising a school musical, preparing for a new Walking Track group, participating in the PTA Board Meeting, and writing procedures for updating technology throughout several classrooms.

After the winter holiday, I re-connected with my mentor and we have set up a weekly meeting time for Tuesdays at 2:20. At these meetings we will discuss the previous day’s leadership team meeting as well as any information that will be pertinent to the week or the upcoming duties as a principal.

During the initial meeting with Dr. Valesky and my mentor we decided that the focus of my internship should be on administrative duties relative to the behind the scenes work of running a school (budget, staffing, scheduling, etc). Being a former primary and intermediate teacher, and seeing that I am currently a related arts teacher my mentor believes that I am fully prepared and knowledgeable in the area of instruction.

As I look forward to next week and my first official meeting with my mentor I am feeling confident and nervous at the same time. I think I will do an excellent job. I feel qualified in experience, intellect, and character to be able to lead a school in the near future. However, there is a world of things to learn and a mountain of responsibility that is put on the shoulders of administrators. Do I want that? Well…I want my masters so I guess I’ll have to decide the rest in the future.

Week 2: Reflection Jan 12- 16

I had my first official meeting with my mentor this week. We discussed various projects and activities that I could involve myself in this semester. Some of the things that she mentioned that I could begin working on were inventory, PTA, SAC meetings (give a presentation), work with Students Services committee organizing Fitness Fun Day and Read Across America, organizing Walking Track competition , update the online OES handbook, shadow/run Fire Drills and a Stay Safe Indoors drill, help with organizing FCAT Testing creating various schedules for related arts/accommodations, helping with End of year organization such as use of facility/staffing/FTE.

My hand was moving right along as I quickly took notes. Much of what was suggested to me I am knowledgeable of but there are many things that I have only learned about in my college courses. One thing that I was not aware of was how buzz words like “fte” and “staffing” among others are prevalent in

the minds of administrators at this time of the year. While as a teacher I am thinking FCAT and student progress monitoring, administrators are already well into the planning for next year. While I’m not surprised, it wasn’t something that I had really thought of before. It certainly makes sense, but it just reinforces that perspective that people take when they have one particular job. It’s always a good thing to have an experience where you are really able to get an idea of what other people do outside of your own bubble.

An additional task that I have begun this week was to begin the planning of a PTA sponsored spring spaghetti dinner/business expo event. I am currently the secretary of the PTA board, I signed up for this position at the beginning of the school year. I knew that with my internship coming up working with the PTA would be a good opportunity to have experience working with the parents and community. The dinner event which is planned will be interesting. It’s something new that has never been done at OES before. At the beginning of the year the PTA typically will gather sponsors who are willing to donate to the OES PTA. Some of the perks include having the business logo on the back of the t-shirts. In addition, this year the idea was to have the spring dinner which would also be an expo event where businesses can set up a table to share there business with the families of OES. Some good advertising which also goes toward supporting a great cause.

My initial meeting with my principal mentor gave me a new perspective on the decision making strategies (FPLS Standard 5) that are utilized by administrators to ultimately obtain the school vision (FPLS 1). I am looking forward to learning more about this as I continue on with my internship.

The PTA business expo event will give me a strong foundation in FPLS 4, Community and Stakeholder Partnerships. I have the opportunity to sit on the board with approximately 20 strongly involved parents who are invested in the community with their own businesses as well as those of their neighborhood. I am making some great connections here and learning more about my school’s community.

FPLS: Vision/Decision Making Strategies/Community and Stakeholder Partnerships

Week 3: Reflection Jan 19-23

Inventory, inventory, inventory were the words of this week. In the fall I attended a bar code training (sounds riveting doesn’t it?) which taught about the software used as well as procedures for cataloging school inventory that is valued at $1000 or greater. Each school is equipped with a laptop which holds the DI Asset software. Inside the software is a list of the items checked out to your school and their location. Each year someone has to go around and scan each item to ensure that it is still at the school and in the place where it is listed. The office manager and I tackled this task together. It was interesting as I again was able to see outside of my own little classroom box.

Actual classrooms have very little equipment that is valued at over $1000. Most classrooms only had a sound system and some grade levels had laptop and/or writer carts. The majority of the items on the inventory list were more whole school items such as copiers, maintenance equipment, food service

equipment, art/music equipment. Things that I had never really thought of or realized were even there before. Was I surprised these items were there? No. But, what I continue to be enlightened to is the grand task of running a school. How much more there is to running a school than instruction.

Working on this task granted me experience working with FPLS 3, Managing the Environment, as well as FPLS 10, Ethical School Leadership. Maintaining and organizing equipment to run a facility as large as a school is a big job. You must rely on your staff, especially your plant manager, office manager, department chair, assistant principal, and various assistants to ensure that equipment is properly cared for and used. Ethical leadership also come into play as you have at your disposal very costly equipment that you are entrusted with.

An additional project that I have begun working on is creating an online school notices page. Our school sends home weekly folders which hold various notices, flyers, letters, and schedules. A parent suggested to me that it would be nice to access the school webpage and find electronic copies of these notices such as the related arts schedule. I have begun creating this webpage and collecting documents from office personnel and teachers. This will help to further strengthen our school vision, FPLS 1, as greater access to OES materials and information is made more readily available (FPLS 7 Technology) to the larger organization as well as the school community (FPLS 4).

A few smaller management items that I took on as requested by my mentor administrator involved creating Book Donation labels for a book drive to collect gently used books as a part of the Chief Morning Minds (CMM) project that my college Jeff Rexford is working on for his Ed Leadership Internship. The principle behind the project is to offer students time to read or practice their math facts in the morning before school when they wait in their holding areas. Often times we experience a spike in the referral data for this before school time, so the CMM initiative is designed to give students something productive to do while they wait for the school day to begin. (FPLS: 1 Vision, 2 Instructional Leadership, 5 Decision Making Strategies, 8 Learning).

Osceola is also about to reach the testing window for Dibels (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) and SRI (Scholastic Reading Achievement) assessments. The SRI exam is a computerized test. In preparation for the assessment window I developed a testing schedule template to use to ensure access to the computer lab for all grade levels needing to take the test during the specific window. The sign up sheet was online which made it easier for teachers to get to and manage. (FPLS 3 Managing Learning Environment, 7 Technology).

Finally, I also spent time working with the PTA Yearbook coordinator, being the liason between the her and the teachers. I helped her scan advertisements for the yearbook and collect pictures from teams.

FPLS: Instructional Leadership/Decision Making Strategies/Learning/Managing the Learning Environment/Vision/Community and Stakeholder Partnerships

Week 4: Jan 26-30

This week was a slower week for me. I have plenty on my to do list but I found that my daily classroom responsibilities were taking up more of my after work hours time. I also had an ESOL class beginning that I had to attend on Monday evening. I am feeling a bit frustrated because my goal is to complete my hours by the end of the school year. I would really like to be done before the summer. While this may be a goal that is out of my reach I am really going to try for it. However, we all know teaching is more than full time.

A few things I was able to get to this week include writing the grade reporting timeline for interims. I coordinated with the Data Entry clerk in the front office to develop a timeline that would give both teachers adequate time to work on and input their grades, as well as the data entry clerk time to export grades, print interims, and still have time for teachers to review and edit their grades if necessary. This timeline is sent out to teachers via e-mail and I always try to get it out at least a week or two before the initial end of interim/quarter.

I have also been plugging away at a fundraising project for the spring PTA Business Expo we will be hosting in the spring. I am working with the PTA Art department to organize a student art project involving the students own individual photograph paired with their own self-portrait. This is proving to be quite challenging though as the Art chair of the PTA and the actual Art teacher of Osceola do not seem to be getting along well. I am sort of in the middle and I hear the frustrations from both sides. I also understand the frustrations on both sides, so I am just doing my best to keep people happy and working towards our fundraising goal. I think all is well. It goes to show how communication often needs to be sensitively considered when dealing with various parties in a school community.

FPLS: 3 Managing the Learning Environment/ 4 Community and Stakeholder Partnerships/6 Diversity

Week 5: Feb 2-6

A lot of leadership responsibilities this week. Last week when I met with my mentor she assigned me a few tasks. She asked that I coordinated with our guidance counselor to see what I could do to help with FCAT Preparations as well as scheduling a speaker for an upcoming staff meeting from the Children’s Museum of Naples. I was also given a length PowerPoint presentation from the state that had been given out to principal’s at the recent principals meeting. The PowerPoint was an overview on the new FAIR (Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading) assessments which are to take the place of DIBELS and SRI testing.

After reviewing the information on FAIR, I am overwhelmed by the amount of change that occurs at this school, county, and state level in regards to testing. It seems like there is always a “new” assessment which is replacing the last “new” assessment. I wonder how much of the change is a result of direct research, and how much relates to cost, politics, and legislation. According their Florida Center for Reading Research, who co-developed the assessments with Just Read, Florida!, the new assessment

system will provide teachers screening, diagnostic, and progress monitoring information that is essential to guiding instruction. This information will be of use to all Florida Administrators next year as the Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading will be available free of charge to all K-12 public schools. In Collier County, they will for sure be used. (FPLS: 2 Instructional Leadership, 8 Learning).

I spent Tuesday morning of this week as an acting administrator. The principal and assistant principal were out of the building and asked for Jeff Rexford and I to cover administrative duties. Jeff took over the office area and I patrolled the campus with a radio as student arrival was occurring. It was fairly uneventful until a group of first and second graders got off the bus crying. Apparently there had been a scuffle at the bus stop involving a brother and sister, other students became involved. I brought the children up from the busses to the office and proceeded to “investigate”. After some discussion we called parents, wrote up a few students and I also informed the YRD as the original problem occurred off campus. (FPLS: 5 Decision Making Strategies).

I spent several combined hours over this week also preparing for FCAT administration. I was asked to develop the related arts/lunch schedules for FCAT testing days as the testing block in the morning must be uninterrupted but interferes with the normal daily schedule which utilized skills pertaining to FPLS 3 Managing the Learning Environment as well as 7 Technology as the scheduling was done using Excel. I received additional inventory labels for items that turned up as “no label” and spent time going through campus to find those items.

Additionally I continued to work on preparations for the “Neighborhood Block Party” which is now the official term for out PTA Business Expo event. Finally I prepared the Walking Track data for the school news on Monday morning.

FPLS: 2 Instructional Leadership/3 Managing the Learning Environment/5 Decision Making Strategies/7 Technology

Week 6: Feb 9-13

The beginning of this week was spent working on ongoing projects such as the Business Expo and FCAT Testing. Tuesday was FCAT Writing testing and I spent time preparing some additional room locations that are not regular classrooms but would be used as a testing site for students with accommodations. I organized the locations so that they would be comfortable and aesthetically pleasing to a student who may be easily distracted or who at least needs to feel as though they are in a familiar location i.e. OES. During the actual FCAT testing time, my classroom was a holding tank for individuals waiting for one-on-one testing proctors so I had quite a bit of time to work in preparations for the Business Expo event such as creating the flyers. (FPLS: 3 Managing the Learning Environment)

Wednesday morning there was a PTA board meeting in which I was the secretary taking notes and writing up the minutes to pass onto the board. I am also the only teacher on the board so I am often asked (and sometimes I just give) to share my thoughts on different situations and events. I also am able

to speak on behalf of administration at these meetings which give me a distinct feeling of leadership in my intern role. (FPLS: Community and Stakeholder Partnerships).

Something new this week that I learned about and completed was a project using a system called GradeReports. The system is connected to the on-line gradebook and is designed to be used by administrators and counselors to track grade progress of certain groups of children. For example in the high schools this may be used by the football coach to group together the team and see who is keeping their grades at the acceptable standards. In the case at my school, my task was to group together all of the students receiving “triple I” interventions, so that they can be tracked throughout the year to look for changes in their grades. This is certainly use of the FPLS 8 Learning as well as 7 Technology.

An additional responsibility that I took on this year, knowing that I was going to be needing leadership roles to complete my practicum was to be chair of the Student Services Professional Learning Community. Osceola has been a “PLC” school for quite some time as soon as the initiative was brought to Collier County by former superintendent Ray Baker. The current superintendent, Dennis Thompson, has continued that initiative and has increased the expectations to develop more consistency throughout the county. At Osceola this year all grade level faculty members were on their own grade level PLC. Additionally all faculty members had to be a member of a Vertical PLC in which there were representatives from all grade levels, related arts, and administration. The various Vertical PLC’s included Reading/Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, PBS (Positive Behavior Support), and Student Services. The Student Services PLC was responsible for all school wide student events such as Red Ribbon Week, Read-A-Thon, Read Across America, and Fitness Fun Day among others. This committee was designed to meet our School Improvement goal of increasing parent and community participation at our school. As the chair of this committee I lead the meetings and worked with the committee to complete projects. We all took on various tasks that were necessary to complete the projects and I oversaw the development of such and took responsibility of seeing through the completion. Through this experience I certainly found myself in a position to work to strengthen the Vision of our school (FPLS 1) as well as FPLS 4 Community and Stakeholder Partnerships, 5 Decision Making Strategies, and FPLS 6 Diversity.

FPLS: 1 Vision/ 3 Managing the Learning Environment/4 Community and Stakeholder Partnerships/5 Decision Making Strategies/6 Diversity/ 7 Technology/ 8 Learning

Week 7: Feb 16-20

This week I had the unique experience of conducting interviews with a team of administrators and personnel from Osceola at the Collier County Public Schools Transfer Fair. It was very eye-opening and a great opportunity to obtain experience in the Standard 9 of the FPLS, Human Resource Development. I haven’t had much experience working in this part of leadership yet, so this was an excellent experience for me.

The transfer fair was held in the gymnasium of Golden Gate High School. This fair is for current CCPS employees who are looking to be employed at a different site. In the weeks leading up to the transfer fair, employees who are interested in attending must register for the fair through the Human Resources Department. They must also schedule interviews with a number of schools. Then before the event, the OES principal was given a schedule interviews to be conducted. Each interview was to be ½ hour long (or at least that was the time allotted) and there were about five people signed up at a time. Thus, the need for a panel of interviewers.

The directions of the CCPS Human Resources department to principals, was that this was not a time to offer a position to a perspective employee. This was simply a time where all current employees are given their contractual right to have an interview with schools that they may wish to seek employment. Principals were to use this time to gather information and conduct interviews so that as spring moves on and more information is given regarding staffing for the fall, principal’s will have a bank of candidate in which they have already interviewed that they may choose from if they so wish.

My experience was very interesting. At first I was quite nervous but that went away soon enough. You were given a sheet of questions that was developed by HR that I was told to use as a “guide” but I didn’t have to stick with it exactly. Throughout the evening I conducted several interviews on my own and co-interviewed others when we would have an open spot due to a no-show. I was not “wow-ed” by anyone and was actually quite turned off by several of the candidates. On particular candidate I was interviewing, when asked what type of classroom management strategies she used in her classroom, responded…”Threaten mostly, write their name on the board with a check sometimes”. I was shocked. Osceola is a Positive Behavior Support School, if this lady had done her homework she would have known that a comment like that would certainly not fly with us! That completely goes against our school vision, norms, and core values. Needless to say I did not pass her name on to the administrators with positive feedback.

Overall I was quite pleased to have had this experience. The interview process certainly has helped me to develop skills necessary for FPLS 9 Human Resource Development, as well as FPLS 6 Diversity, and 1 Vision.

In addition to the transfer fair this week I spent time sitting in on a SAC (School Advisory Council) meeting, I met with my mentor to discuss the upcoming transfer fair, and I continued preparations for the Neighborhood Block Party/Business Expo event.

FPLS: 1 Vision, 5 Decision Making Strategies/6 Diversity/9 Human Resource Development/10 Ethical Leadership

Week 8: Feb 23-27.

This week I began work on one of my Internship Projects. In my initial mentor meeting with my Internship Mentor as well as my FGCU mentor we discussed to option of having several smaller projects

going on rather than one big internship project. This was much more appealing to me as I am more interested in gaining a wealth of experiences. Some of the major projects that I have taken on this year throughout my internship have been the OES Walking Track (which I will discuss in depth futher later, this began in August and has continued throughout the year), the PTA Buisness Expo Event, Inventory, and Student Services PLC Chairperson. An additional project that I have been asked to coordinate with administration as well as grade 3-5 on is the Pre-Baccalaureate research project that all 4th and 5th graders are required to participate in. As the Instructional Resource (Technology) teacher I have the unique opportunity to work with the grade level students on this project as I see them all in my own classes.

The Pre- Baccalaureate project is new for elementary schools. Middle and High schools have been participating in this spring curriculum piece for some time, and it is now being introduced into the elementary schools. The spring writing curriculum for grades 2-5 has always called for a research project, but the standards of the Pre-Baccalaureate project are much more structured and specific as the purpose is to build a strong foundation in research and cited writing. On Tuesday morning I sat in on the 4th grade team’s PLC meeting where two ladies from the CCPS Gifted Department came to present the expectation of the pre-laureate project for elementary schools. Everyone at the meeting, including Mrs. Jordan our principal, was a bit surprised by the expectations of the project. From here Mrs. Jordan, my mentor, suggested to myself and the group that I could use internship hours to familiarize myself with the pre-laureate project as well as the resources that were presented to us as tools to use for the research process. I have since taken on this challenge and have begun work on creating a webpage that will bring students directly to our CCPS on-line subscriptions. The on-line subscriptions were given to us in a complicated list with many strange user codes, much too complicated to be used effectively by an elementary student. I am currently working on developing this for our school. This project will give me insight to the FPLS 2 Instructional Leadership, as well as 7 Technology and 8 Learning.

Additionally this week I have continued progress on some on-going projects such as preparation for our Fitness Fun Day in March which is the responsibility of the Student Services PLC which I chair. Planning for the Business Expo event continues which is scheduled for March 13th, finally! I have been working with administration to create a FCAT Motivational video to show on the morning news the week leading up to the FCAT. I created the Grade Reporting time line with our data entry clerk for 3rd quarter report carts. I have also written procedures for the management of our school Shared Network Drives which are becoming overloaded which I’ve been asked to present at the Core Team meeting next week. Lots of little responsibilities.

FPLS: 2 Instructional Leadership/3 Decision Making Strategies/7 Technolog/ 8 Learning.

Week 9: March 2-6

I presented the following to my mentor principal at the beginning of this week:

Internship Update- Amber Eliason

What I’ve done so far:

I have 80 hours logged so far that have come primarily from: Inventory, PTA, Student Services, Webpage management, PLC meetings, FCAT preparation, Grade Reports, Transfer Fair, and various other mini-projects helping different school departments.

The standards included which I feel that I have met are:

Florida Principal Leadership Standards: 1 (vision), 2 (instructional leadership), 4 (community and stakeholder partnerships), 6 (diversity), 7 (technology), and 10 (ethical leadership).

ISLLC (Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards: 1 (vision), 2 (school culture/instructional program), 4 (collaborating w/families & community), and 5 (ethics).

What I have left to complete of my current assignments includes: coordinating Kiwanis Bug Awards, Surplus Inventory, Updating OES Handbook, reviewing CCPS On-line subscriptions, learning Visual Communicator software, and assisting with upcoming after school events including Neighborhood Block Party, Musicals, and the Talent Show.

Where I would like to focus:

The standards that I believe I still need more experience with are:

Florida Principal Leadership Standards: 3 (managing the learning environment, operations, and resources), 5 (decision making strategies, effective planning/problem solving techniques, collects and analyzes data for continuous school improvement), 8 (learning, accountability, and assessment), and 9 (human resource development, professional growth plans).

ISLLC (Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards): 3 (managing organization, operations, and resources), 6 (understands/responds to larger political, social, economic, legal, and cultural context.

I would like to brainstorm some activities that I can be involved in that help meet these standards. I have a rather lengthy portfolio that I have to put together with evidence of how I’ve met all these standards.

I also spoke with Mrs. Jordan about beginning the second phase of my internship at the administration center. In the original practicum meeting with Dr. Valesky, Mrs. Jordan had suggested introductions to Dr. Dee Whinnery, Executive Director of Student Services as well as Dr. Joe Abalos, Director of Staff Development. Mrs. Jordan contacted both of these directors through e-mail and we scheduled a conference call for Thursday at 2:30. During the conference call I was able to introduce myself to both directors and we discussed various opportunities that would be available. Dr. Whinnery was very direct in opportunities that were available and began scheduling meeting time with me right away. Dr. Abalos

was more open to whenever I had time send an e-mail to discuss possible times that I could come to his office.

I was very pleased with these introductions and am looking forward to gaining some new experiences. I have enjoyed my experiences working here at the school site but the limitations in scheduling due to my own work schedule leave me a bit short changed on some of the type of experiences that I want to be involved in. Particularly administrative operational activities which I believe I can obtain at the admin center.

Fitness Fun Day was on Friday March 6th which went off smoothly. The Student Services PLC was in charge of organizing the event. The P.E. teachers who are also on the SS PLC organized the various event. I was in charge of the opening ceremony and collaboration with the PTA and Maintenance to run water stations for students. The Opening Ceremony went quite nicely, although there was a glitch when the BCHS drum line had not yet arrived and was scheduled to perform in minutes! They showed up just in time…phew! There were a lot of parents there and too much time before the events.

FPLS: 3 Community and Stakeholder Partnerships/5 Decision Making Strategies

Week 10: March 9 - 13

This week I began working in the Student Services Department at the CCPS Administrative Center. I am working with two mentors, Dr. Dee Whinnery, Executive Director of Student Services; and Dr. Diedra Landrum, Coordinator of School Counseling. I went in on Tuesday to meet with both. They described the Student Services department as somewhat chaotic. There are always new issues coming in the door. Anything related to students in Collier County from counseling, attendance, discipline, enrollment, psychological services, health, drug testing, drivers’s ed…pretty much anything that’s non-academic, runs through this department. If there is a case of abuse they hear about it, harassment complaints, equity issues, and so on run though this office. On this particular day there was a case of harassment going on between a few students at the Marco Island Elementary and Middle Schools. Apparently the schools are close together and a middle school boy was harassing and elementary girl as she waited for her younger brother out on the playground. This issue took a while to come to light because there were two different school and two different sets of administrators involved. When I came in Dr. Landrum was already busy filling out a school board investigative report that becomes part of an investigative record that is put together and saved in a binder to make sure the problem is solved legally and ethically. Dr. Whinnery also went over several other cases that had come across her desk in the past week.

On Wednesday I attended Truancy Court with Dr. Whinnery. This was a very worthwhile experience and one of the most interesting yet of my internship. We arrived at approximately 3:00 to the court house. As we passed through the halls oodles of students and parents were waiting outside. We went into the court room and about 10 people were sitting around a main table discussing students on the list to appear in court that day. Dr. Whinnery and I took our seats in the juror’s box as spectators. It was explained to me that these were representatives from the various agencies representing children

around the county. A representative was there from her office that was responsible for passing on the attendance data as well as any information regarding referrals or behavior issues. There was representatives from Department of Children and Families, the Collier Sherrif’s Office, amongst others. The discussion was led by a member of the Sherrif’s department whose main responsibility is to oversee the truancy program. The judge was there as well. They were going through each child’s case to discuss their status, improvements or declines, and what the recommended next steps would be.

Through this experience I learned a lot about the Truancy program and I believe it to be a very strong program. When students are admitted to the program they must appear in court with their parents. They are tested for drugs and then are asked to speak on their behalf in front of the court. The attitude of the court was very forgiving. They truly want student to be successful and for new program inductees they are given the stance that everything before today is in the past and we don’t need to return there. It’s the decisions from today until your next appearance that are important. Decisions to attend school, refrain from discipline issues, and refrain from drug and alcohol abuse. Throughout the hours that we were observing the court appearances we saw students sent to Juvenile Detention for poor decision making including drug use, students were exited from the program, students were entered into the program, students were assigned “civil citation” for missed school days and behavior problems. I left feeling proud that the system was not just letting these students slip by, they truly are cared about. This experience has given my great insight into the Vision of the School District (FPLS 1), as well as FPLS 4 Community and Stakeholder Partnerships, 6 Diversity, and 10 Ethical Leadership.

The other big event of the week was the Neighborhood Block Party (or Business Expo) on Friday March 13th. I’ve been involved on the Business Expo planning committee since the idea was first presented by the Business Partners Rep of the PTA. The event involved a spaghetti dinner catered by a OES Families business as well as an “avenue” of attractions. OES business partners, as well as businesses of OES families, had the opportunity to rent a table and be a part of “main street” as they advertised for their own business. The event was a huge success. We had lots of families arrive. My principal and assistant principal shared some of the supervision but I was pretty much your go to girl. It was very buys, and hard to give up a Friday night but well worth it! It’s very interesting for me this year as well because I’m a Related Arts teacher and teach all the students. In the past I only was able to connect with a handful of parents, but now I’m know by the majority. Being involved with the organization and planning as well as the supervision and execution of the event has given me strong experience in the FPLS 4 Community and Stakeholder Partnerships, 5 Decision Making Strategies, and 6 Diversity.

FPLS: 1 Vision/4Community and Stakeholder Partnerships/Decision Making Strategies/6 Diversity/10 Ethical Leadership

Week 11: Feb 16-20

As far as internship experiences go this was a fairly slow week for me. I have completed the CCPS On-line Research Resources webpage and presented it to teachers. In my own technology classes I’m currently teaching kids about the research process and we are exploring the various on-line

subscriptions that are available to them as CCPS students including SIRS, Gale Kids InfoBits, Discover Education, World Book, and Grolier. On Tuesday I met with administration and team leaders of grades 3-5 to discuss the pre-laureate project and see of what other use I could be. The instruction in tech class was well received as well as the webpage so I believe I met my goal. My mentor was very impressed.

On Tuesday afternoons I am now going over to Student Services to check in and receive any assignments or projects that they would like me to work on. While there I was debriefed on the week and filled in on the crazy stories that have come through Student Services recently. Then I was asked to help work on some different sections of the Attendance Manual for the 2009-2010 school year. I have been asked to use the current and upcoming calendars to determine reporting dates for Learnfare and Driver’s License Attendance. Its interesting, in Florida there is state law that requires students to maintain a certain level of school attendance in order to maintain a driver’s license. The county sends a report to the state on an interval timeline which is then sent to the Department of Motor Vehicles. It’s a great attendance motivator if you ask me! I was also asked to call all of the middle schools in the county to see if they have scheduled their awards nights and to obtain the dates/times/locations of those. The Student Services department hands out PRIDE awards to top achieving students and needs to prepare to be at those events.

FPLS: 2 Instructional Leadership/3 Managing the Learning Environment/4 Community and Stakeholder Partnership/ 7 Technology/ 8 Learning.

Week 12: March 23-March 27th

On Monday I sat in on a budget meeting with the principal, assistant principal, and office manager at Osceola Elementary. At this meeting I was presented with the 2009-2010 budget for OES. The projected FTE for next school year was 732. This gave us a total budget of $57,096.00 with $3,660.00 of those monies to be allocated for school improvement. We ran through the budgets for the various grade levels, related arts departments, media, custodial, guidance, PBS, ESE, Ell, transportation and the various administration budgets. I found the Administration budget component interesting as it was unfamiliar to me. One thing I didn’t realize is that administrators in Collier County are encouraged to be a member in some sort of professional organization such as FASA (Florida Association of School Administrators) or ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development). There were also line items for the Postage Meter Rental (I never realized how much postage went out of OES, Postage for Meter, Production Expenses, Copier Maintenance (big one), Office Supplies, and Clinic Supplies. The office manager went on to explain how she must submit the budget using the proper function and object codes. Mrs. Jordan expressed her gratitude that the office manager completes this task as the coding is out of her realm of skill. The Office Manager gave me a coy of the Check List for Submitting the 2010 Budget Plan. Pretty confusion but all part of the process. This meeting gave me further insight into FPLS 3 Managing the Learning Environment, 5 Decision Making Strategies, and 10 Ethical Leadership. The schools are given some regulation in the use of their budget but much of the actual handing out comes from the principal. She was explaining some of the different ways that schools used money. For example she knew some schools liked to keep the student FTE money lumped together and create a “store” where teachers could just go and take materials that they would want to use in their

rooms. Mrs. Jordan felt like that encouraged hoarding and was not effective. She also discussed how she would rather put decisions such as supplies and materials in the hands of the teachers.

This week I also participated in a SAC meeting. A first grade teacher was proposing a purchase using School Improvement Allocations. The product was an on-line database of paired fiction/non-fiction texts through Scholastic. She presented the program to the SAC and it was voted on for purchase. This

We also held a Student Services PLC meeting where we debriefed on Fitness Fun Day. We discussed the positive outcomes of the day as well as areas of improvement. These were put into note format that was posted on the online Data Warehouse so we will be able to refer back to it when planning for next year.

I had my weekly meeting over at Student Services and also submitted the Learnfare and Driver’s Ed Reporting Dates.

I also had an initial meeting with the Human Resources Department. I made contact with them last week to see if I can obtain some internship experiences in their department. It took awhile to organize our schedules but I was able to get over there. We met on Friday afternoon. We did not discuss much as far as experience opportunities go, although we did discuss some of the upcoming projects that are necessary with the end of school for the Human Resources department. I also signed confidentiality agreement as I part of my responsibilities will include looking in personnel files. This will be a great opportunity to involve myself further with FPLS 9 Human Resource Development, which I have had limited experience with thus far.

FPLS: 3 Managing the Learning Environment/5 Decision Making Strategies/9 Human Resource Development/10 Ethical Leadership

Week 13: March 30-April 3

This was the week before Spring Break, I didn’t have too much as far as internship responsibilities as most people were preparing for the break.

On Tuesday I stopped in at Student Services to meet with Dr. Landrum regarding events of the past week. With spring break approaching there wasn’t too much for me to do. Tuesdays are the days that Dr. Whinnery and Dr. Landrum have asked for me to come for a weekly meeting. However, these days are tough because I work the after school program at Osceola and have to be back at 3:30. It’s a bit frustrating because if it was another day I could stay longer but what can I do? I just have to be a bit more proactive in grabbing projects that I can work on during my free time for them.

On Friday evening OES hosted its annual Talent Show for students. This was coordinated by a 5th grade teacher and I volunteered my time to help her organize the event. I worked with her on promoting the talent show through the school website and also designed and printed all of the participation certificates. On Friday evening I stayed to set up, supervise, and break down the Talent Show. There

was a large turn out of parents and community members so it was a good time to mingle with the community and students.

FPLS: 1 Vision/4 Community and Stakeholder Partnerships/7 Technology

Week 14: April 13-17

This was the first week back from spring vacation, so fairly uneventful as everyone got back into their routine. On Wednesday there was a PTA board meeting which I again participated in as a administrative/teacher liason and my specific duty as secretary.

This week I received a memo from the district technology department that they were going to begin converting schools from the GroupWise e-mail system to Outlook. Osceola, likely due to its close proximity to the administrative center was to be first. We are scheduled to migrate to Outlook on May 1st. Much of what I would need to do for this migration is part of my duties as the Building Technology Coordinator which is part of my regular work duties and not a part of my internship. However, after meeting with my mentor she asked me to take on some additional roles with this to prepare that staff for the change in an administrative role. I am to be the point of contact with the district technology department and work with the staff to prepare for the change over. On Friday I spent a few hours preparing documents to convey the information from district technology into a more user friendly format that could easily be understood by all staff members. One thing I have noticed as an administrator is how many outside departments are demanding of an administrator’s time and energy. Technology just being one piece of a large pie. Working with both the school administration and the district tech department to get across our own needs as a school but also follow through with the necessities of the technology department is going to be a challenge.

FPLS: 5 Decision Making Strategies/7 Technology

Week 15: April 20-24

This was a busy week for interning, I had work to complete for all three of my current sites; Osceola, Students Services, and Human Resources.

On Monday morning I presented my Outlook Conversion documents to the Core Team. While the Outlook conversion had people feeling nervous my prepared documents were very simplified and well received. I was thanked by several staff members for this help.

The Student Services department is responsible for approximately 12 different district manuals, one of those being the attendance manual. I had already completed several tasks for the attendance manual by putting together several pages of reporting dates. An additional tab of the attendance manual includes the Florida State Statues that related to school attendance. I was asked to review the current statutes available online and compare them with the wording in last year’s manual. This was fairly time consuming as I had to go through each section line by line. There were only a few changes, however I

did also find some numbering errors in the document that had been prepared for last year’s manual. I completed this and presented it to Dr. Landrum on my regular Tuesday meeting.

On Monday I also began work on a Human Resources project with one of my Educational Leadership classmates Holley. Collier County Public Schools has six schools which will be converted to Title I status next school year. A requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act is that all non-instructional personnel working in a Title I school must be categorized as A (Associate’s degree or higher), B (60 hours of coursework), or C (passing score on the Parapro exam). Our job was to review all of the non-instructional staff members on the computer program Terms to look up their certification status. From there, we were asked to access their personnel files and find proof of their certification. This may be college transcripts, a document showing the Parapro score, or often times a letter from International Education Consultants which verifies coursework and certification from other countries and gives a comparative certification for the United States. This was very interesting, however there are a large number of employees to check. The schools changing to Title I are the priority, but Human Resources would like to gather this information on all CCPS non-instructional employees. On Thursday I continued this project.

On Tuesday evening I also supervised the 3rd Grade Musical. Its doesn’t seem like much, but you have a lot of parents that all want the first row. Students and parents are not to be let in until 5:45 when the music teacher has indicated that coverage for students will begin but many families begin lining up almost an hour before. Some parents become quite upset as there is very little seating at the front of the school but do to supervisory issues it’s a non-negotiable.

FPLS: 1 Vision/3 Managing the Learning Environment/4Community and Stakeholder Partnerships/7 Technology/9 Human Resource Development/10 Ethical Leadership

Week16: April 27-May 1

I continued on with many of my ongoing projects this week. I completed the HR project for the schools that are moving to Title I status and submitted it to HR. I’ve been asked to continue on with the project which I will do as time allows. My time is currently completely enveloped in the Outlook e-mail conversion.

I met with the Student Services department on Tuesday and was given a new project which should be interesting. One of the duties of the Student Services department is to prepare an Employment Equity document which charts gender and ethnicity counts for students, teachers, counselors, administrators in the district, and new hires. I’ve been asked to do this by Student Services because of my connections with the Human Resources Department. My next step will be to inquire with Human Resources to gather the information necessary to prepare the report.

I also participated in a few PTA events which were designed to recruit new members to the PTA and also the PTA Board. The PTA organized coffee socials for parents of each grade level. This was meant to be

an informal chance for parents to come and meet some of the PTA members to find out what it was about. I was asked to come as the school representative and answer and questions parents may have in relation to the school. It was enjoyable and we have a few new recruits!

FPLS: 1 Community and Stakeholder Partnerships/6 Diversity/9 Human Resource Development

Week 17: May 11-15

I was not able to acquire internship hours last week. On Friday May 1st our school underwent the Outlook conversion and I spent every minute of available time trouble shooting and running point between the District Technology department and OES. I’m frustrated that I was not able to accomplish intern hours but I still have the summer to finish up.

This week I was able to coordinate with Human Resources to obtain the information necessary for the equity report. It took several e-mails to a few different departments in Human Resources but I finally made my way to compensation who was able to run the report.

As the year comes to a close there is much demand on my Technology positions. I’ve had to inform Human Resources and Student Services that I will be limited in my ability to work after school as there is much required of me to prepare for the end of the year.

FPLS: 6 Diversity/9 Human Resource Development

Week 18: May 18-22

I obtained the report from Human Resources on Monday and took it over to Dr. Landrum at Student Services. While there we were planning on pulling the data from the report but there were other items she was working on that she needed my assistance. While making the attendance manual she was trying to insert the new enrollment forms that re redesigned as a result of the ethnicity reporting changes from the state. There has been much commotion at Student Services as a result of the new ethnicity reporting language. The change is in relation to preparing for the upcoming census but it is very limiting, requiring people to choose options that may not reflect their origin properly.

I’ve also been asked by my OES mentor to help with the preparations for the 5th Grade Graduation ceremony. I met with the 5th grade team and I will be working on a graduate powerpoint that will display student’s current school photo paired with a Kindergarten school photo. I will also prepare a photo montage put to music/video that will be copied on cd for every student as a graduation gift.

FPLS: 6 Diversity/7 Technology

Week 19: May 25-29

I spent the majority of my free time this week hard at work on the 5th grade graduation projects that I had been assigned. The actual work was not demanding but very time consuming as all 130 student has pictures that needed to be scanned and put into the powerpoint. Collaborating with the 5th grade team has been interesting though.

I also spent several hours working on inventory surplus. Earlier in the year I worked with the Office Manager to conduct inventory. Many of the items still on our record are old and should have been sent to surplus in years past. I spent time cataloging the surplus equipment. Another time consuming task as there are several different serial numbers and bar codes that need to be completed correctly or the items are not taken.

A lot of busy work this week.

FPLS: 3 Managing the School Environment/7 Technology

Week 20: June 8-12

The week of June 1-3 was the last week of school. During this time I spent most of my hours conducting Building Technology Coordinator responsibilities and was not able to participate in Internship activities. I took a much need few days off on the 4th and 5th and then Monday morning the 8th jumped right back into Internship mode.

I am now beginning to piece together my Learning and Practicum Portfolios. I have about 38 more internship hours to complete so I put in some e-mails to my contacts at the administrative center in order to finish these up. On Monday June 22nd I will report for duty in Staff Development with Dr. Abalos to complete my hours.

I also inquired with Dr. Landrum to see if there was anything that I could do to help her prepare before vacation as Thursday June 11th was her last day. She asked that I come in to work with her on completing the Equity Report that I had gathered the data for earlier in the spring. I worked in the offices for a few hours to pull student information from the Data Warehouse site. Then together we pulled the data for counselors and principals. The report from Human Resources was not as easy to use to determine teachers and school district administers however as the report listed each teaching position separately. For example: “Art Teacher Elementary”, “Spanish Teacher Middle”, etc. It also separated all of the various district administrative positions. I took the report home and with my rule and Excel I pulled the data together and was able to deliver the report the next day.

FPLS: 6 Diversity/7 Technology/9 Human Resource Development

Week 21: June 22-25

I arrived as scheduled at the Planning, Accountability, & Staff Development office at 8 am on Monday morning. When I arrived it was like a ghost town but I managed to track down a secretary. Dr. Abalos was not going to be in until the afternoon but Synthia LaFontaine, Coordinator of School Improvement, was there and was happy to work with me. She has just returned from being away at a conference all

week. The school grade and AYP information had just been release from the state and you can imagine that for this office and her position this was pretty significant. We began by reviewing the data and she shared her idea for a project that she envisioned. This was a report for schools that would compare their student performance data and AYP information to the previous year as well as to the district in a simplified format that might actually be used by teachers for the purposes of school improvement. For more details on this project please refer to the artifacts in the three portfolios.