SLLA Review

Regarding a school’s vision, mission, and related goals, the school leader's responsibility is to ensure these are congruent with which level(s) of education policy?

• With only the school and district policies

• With the school, district, and state policies

• With only federal and state-level policies

• With school, local state, and federal policies

To gather feedback from key stakeholders about the relationship between their opinions about the significance of education and the school’s vision and goals, which of these should a school leader do?

• Develop a series of critical questions appropriate to the topic

• Develop a few open-ended questions to stimulate discussions

• Develop a school task force to interview all of the stakeholders.

• Develop a series of meetings wherein stakeholders discuss this.

Mr. Thompson has just been hired as the new Principal at South Hill Middle School. Last year, the division released updated mission and vision statements along with each school having updated theirs. Upon arrival he found that although the statements were posted and promoted, many of the stakeholders did not display thorough representation in their work of the vision. What should Principal Thompson do to achieve fidelitous implementation and representation of the vision for the school?

• Create examples of teacher and student actions that assist in achieving the vision of the school and enforce the examples.

• Ask the Superintendent to develop a guide to share with the staff and students.

• Send a letter to teachers, students, and parents for ideas for actions that display the vision of the school that could be presented in the beginning of the school year to explicitly share.

• Send a letter explaining a plan for the actions of students and teachers that will achieve the visions.

During the school year the math teachers decided to move their lower students into one class and the more advanced into another. It went against the school’s vision and the district's stress to have high expectations for all students and to maintain equity and inclusion for all. After noticing lots of class schedules being changed, the principal went to the counselor and asked why this was happening. She told him the math teachers had requested the moves. Which of the following responses by the principal conforms to the most acceptable leadership practice?

• Tell the counselor in no way she was to permit any more schedule changes without her approval.

• Call in the math teachers together and question their actions.

• At the next staff meeting, remind all teachers of the school’s vision and that research supports the district’s vision to maintain class diversity in all ways.

• Call each math teacher into her office and discuss the situation, reminding teachers of the school’s mission and help each teacher write an effective plan to improve teaching strategies to include all students and then monitor that plan.

At Ben Franklin Elementary, the grade-level teams were finding it difficult to plan together. Professional collaboration was one of the goals for the school. The teachers have come to you to ask for help with the scheduling to make this happen. What will be the key to leading them in reaching this goal?

• Requesting more money to hire subs for them a half day a week.

• Ask if they’d be willing to stay after school an hour once a week so this important opportunity would take place

• Sit down with the specials teachers, art, music, and physical education, to see if the schedule could be changed so all grade levels went to specials at the same time.

• Get parent volunteers to come in and stay with classes once a week.

Ms. Thompson is the new principal at Hayfield Middle School. She quickly learns that the school has a reputation for and supports a culture of low expectations for student performance. Which of the following would be the most effective way for Ms. Thompson to address this situation?

• Identify the teachers who do not support a vision of high expectations and plan on transferring them to another school.

• Implement professional development on creating a shared vision for student success.

• Send an email to the faculty to inform them that they can expect frequent observations until student performance improves.

• Base teacher evaluations solely on student success and failure rate and standardized test results

Mr. Crane is a new principal at Sunshine Elementary School and wants to show his teachers that he is sensitive to their needs. His faculty is most likely to believe he is understanding and willing to address their needs by __________.

• Summarizing the results of all meetings in an email to those affected by decisions made.

• Delegating responsibilities of facilitating discussions on subjects likely to cause conflict to grade-level leaders.

• Being friendly and social with staff.

• Maintaining two-way communication and responding to needs expressed.

As a new school leader, you want to review your division’s mission and vision statement. Which of the following would be appropriate steps to take in beginning the process of revising a school’s vision and mission?

• Create a committee with a variety of participants from the schools and community.

• Send out a survey to stakeholders in order to obtain their input (parents, teachers, community members, etc.).

• Analyze current school data and needs assessments

• All of the above.

A school leader works with a committee of stakeholders to craft a new school vision statement. The most effective first step the school leader can take to support the committee’s work is to

• indicate the inadequacies of the existing school vision statement

• draft a vision statement that shows the school’s new direction

• survey staff members regarding their core beliefs about instructional practices

• facilitate dialogue to eliminate obstacles and validate committee members’ thoughts