Leadership+for+Accountability


 * Sunday, March 28, 2010**

Through my interviews with our principal and the campus Director of Instruction (DI), I learned that the Site-Based Decision Making Committee on our campus is called the Campus Planning Objective Council (CPOC). CPOC currently composes of the principal, the Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction,12 teachers, the lead counselor, the Director of Instruction, 2 parents, and 2 business representatives. Of the 12 teachers, only eight has voting rights, while others are consulted for inputs with no voting rights. The most surprising information I found was that the committee is volunteer-based. The first 8 teachers to volunteer in the beginning of the school year are placed on the council. During my interview with our DI, she states that this process has worked well in the past and the committee is usually well represented across content areas. Upon my review of the current CPOC members, I found that three of the 12 teachers are from Social Studies while no teacher represents Math or Science. Other information from my interview aligned with my understanding of a site-based decision making committee. There are five scheduled meetings for the 2009 – 2010 school year, with one of which is dedicated to conducting a public hearing in late fall to publicize the school’s newly-released AEIS statistics. The purpose of the committee is to discuss and develop the Campus Improvement Plan (CIP), review district and campus educational plans and performance objectives, and to establish instructional programs, such as Saturday tutorials.

Based on our scenario, we move forward in time to the end of the school year. Our staff implemented the action plan, which resulted in increased student performance on the latest Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) reports. Our campus has moved a step closer to becoming Exemplary, and we want to maintain the momentum. Our next step would be to continue building the professional learning communities. Teachers have been meeting in share sessions within their grade-level and content area, so we will begin cross-grade level teacher meetings. Grade 10 geometry teachers will meet with grade 11 algebra II teachers and exchange unit plans for critical friend feedback. Grade level groups will also continue to meet and analyze student work for strengths and weaknesses. In the span of two to three years, interdisciplinary team meetings will take place. Math teachers will meet with Science teachers to collaborate in creating cross content lessons in the Fall semester. Then, Math teachers will collaborate with English teachers in the Spring semester. Other teachers on campus will collaborate with teachers of a different content area in the same way as well. Six-week grading averages, district benchmark exams, and TAKS scores will measure our results.