My Educational
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I believe that every child will learn when instruction taps into each child’s unique needs and unique interests. It is my goal as a teacher to implement lessons that are both engaging and appropriately challenging for all students. Therefore, it will be my desired responsibility to get to know the learning styles, the strengths, the weaknesses, the cultural background, and the personal interests of my students. When every student feels safe, motivated and supported by myself and their peers every child will have a chance to grow and succeed.
As an educational leader I am committed and enthusiastic about using my strengths to support, motivate and engage other educators to proactively work towards promoting high expectations, diversity and self-inquiry of all students to ensure their individual and life-long successes. I will use accountable, site-based and reflective leadership to encourage an active school community, in which its teachers, students and parents collaboratively work together to ensure high student achievement, social responsibility and equity. I am committed and passionate about ensuring that a school’s learning environment addresses the academic and social-emotional needs of its community with a trauma-informed lens that will foster physical, social-emotional and relational safety to increase student achievement and improve overall school culture.
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GOAL STATEMENT
Educational Leadership
University of New England
I believe that effective school leadership does everything for its students with all its teachers in mind. I believe that all children when held to high expectations and are motivated are capable of success and that all teachers when supported and led well are capable of having student success. My teaching experiences have ranged from Arusha, Tanzania to Thornton, Colorado and most recently to Albuquerque, New Mexico. In each location I have gained awareness of how leadership, both strong and weak, can affect the entire school and its community. I have an interest in pursuing graduate studies in Educational Leadership because I want to be a catalyst for educational reform through strongly developed leadership and problem solving skills to manage school-wide challenges proactively in order to create safe and engaged learning environments to optimize student success within a school system.
In each location I have stimulated changes by initiating leadership opportunities. During my teaching experience at an orphanage in Tanzania, with the help of other volunteers, I created the first set of assessments in English Writing, Reading, Math and Science to assess each student; then recorded it in a notebook to pass on to future volunteers to ensure appropriate instruction for the various ages of students. During my year of teaching Kindergarten in Thornton, Colorado, I joined the school’s mission statement committee. We worked together with the new principal to create the new mission and vision statement that would inspire and unite the staff, students and school community.
Currently, I am in my fourth year of teaching and third year of teaching 2nd grade in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I have been compelled and driven to stimulate change in, what could be best described as: a stagnate and underachieving school environment placed in a poverty-stricken neighborhood. During my second year there, I expressed interest in becoming the Chair of the school’s Instructional Council. I was voted in with a co-chair for the next two-year term. I was thrilled about this opportunity to lead, coach and motivate my fellow colleagues, as well as, facilitate school-wide improvement with the administration. My main goal was to first create a more professional community by requiring more useful teacher collaboration sessions. I really wanted to help develop a more consistent school-wide discipline plan, push for Behavior Intervention and ESL Professional Development, work on the cleanliness of our school and mentor teachers on differentiation and intervention programs. I experienced such resistance to follow through that it motivated me more in wanting to pursue Educational Leadership. I understand the effect of high expectations, accountability, organization of budget and overall strong administration leadership through experiencing the contrary.
What I was able to accomplish at my current school was increased parent involvement through my after school Jogging Club that I started. This year the Jogging Club helped with a school-wide event to raise money for our school to participate in the city’s Run for the Zoo 5K. This is the first year our school has participated in the event. I have numerous teachers, students, parents and other community members running in this 5K event. It is the most positive involvement that the school has experienced in a long time. I started to realize that if I was going to get such resistance to change in major school policies; I could at least start somewhere by being creative about getting more community involvement through this activity. My goal is to accomplish much needed school reform changes through different leadership approaches next year.
My purpose of applying to this online Educational Leadership program is to implement and apply what I will learn from my classes directly to the leadership position I currently have as Chair of the Instructional Council. The University of New England’s highly accredited online program will work best with my teaching schedule and I.C. position. Knowing that student achievement is linked to school leadership makes me want to ultimately become an administrator myself. I want the essential skills to be an agent for change and construct strong site-based leadership that improves teacher instruction, community involvement and overall long-term student success.
Educational Leadership
University of New England
I believe that effective school leadership does everything for its students with all its teachers in mind. I believe that all children when held to high expectations and are motivated are capable of success and that all teachers when supported and led well are capable of having student success. My teaching experiences have ranged from Arusha, Tanzania to Thornton, Colorado and most recently to Albuquerque, New Mexico. In each location I have gained awareness of how leadership, both strong and weak, can affect the entire school and its community. I have an interest in pursuing graduate studies in Educational Leadership because I want to be a catalyst for educational reform through strongly developed leadership and problem solving skills to manage school-wide challenges proactively in order to create safe and engaged learning environments to optimize student success within a school system.
In each location I have stimulated changes by initiating leadership opportunities. During my teaching experience at an orphanage in Tanzania, with the help of other volunteers, I created the first set of assessments in English Writing, Reading, Math and Science to assess each student; then recorded it in a notebook to pass on to future volunteers to ensure appropriate instruction for the various ages of students. During my year of teaching Kindergarten in Thornton, Colorado, I joined the school’s mission statement committee. We worked together with the new principal to create the new mission and vision statement that would inspire and unite the staff, students and school community.
Currently, I am in my fourth year of teaching and third year of teaching 2nd grade in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I have been compelled and driven to stimulate change in, what could be best described as: a stagnate and underachieving school environment placed in a poverty-stricken neighborhood. During my second year there, I expressed interest in becoming the Chair of the school’s Instructional Council. I was voted in with a co-chair for the next two-year term. I was thrilled about this opportunity to lead, coach and motivate my fellow colleagues, as well as, facilitate school-wide improvement with the administration. My main goal was to first create a more professional community by requiring more useful teacher collaboration sessions. I really wanted to help develop a more consistent school-wide discipline plan, push for Behavior Intervention and ESL Professional Development, work on the cleanliness of our school and mentor teachers on differentiation and intervention programs. I experienced such resistance to follow through that it motivated me more in wanting to pursue Educational Leadership. I understand the effect of high expectations, accountability, organization of budget and overall strong administration leadership through experiencing the contrary.
What I was able to accomplish at my current school was increased parent involvement through my after school Jogging Club that I started. This year the Jogging Club helped with a school-wide event to raise money for our school to participate in the city’s Run for the Zoo 5K. This is the first year our school has participated in the event. I have numerous teachers, students, parents and other community members running in this 5K event. It is the most positive involvement that the school has experienced in a long time. I started to realize that if I was going to get such resistance to change in major school policies; I could at least start somewhere by being creative about getting more community involvement through this activity. My goal is to accomplish much needed school reform changes through different leadership approaches next year.
My purpose of applying to this online Educational Leadership program is to implement and apply what I will learn from my classes directly to the leadership position I currently have as Chair of the Instructional Council. The University of New England’s highly accredited online program will work best with my teaching schedule and I.C. position. Knowing that student achievement is linked to school leadership makes me want to ultimately become an administrator myself. I want the essential skills to be an agent for change and construct strong site-based leadership that improves teacher instruction, community involvement and overall long-term student success.