Support+Creating+Teacher+Leaders

Babett Koncz

Positive School Environment, Collaboration, and Building Teacher Leaders

Every child deserves a school that is inviting, academically challenging, and safe. The overall ambiance of the school and the quality of instruction are enhanced as the school develops a concordant relationship among the students, parents, teachers, administrators who make up the school setting along with those members of the community who support the school. A healthy school climate at Hickory Ridge High School will contribute to effective teaching and learning. An overall climate in which all feel comfortable leads to a productive learning environment that has a positive impact on the achievement of students. An important aspect of building a positive school environment is parent involvement. Hickory High has very supportive parent groups who are civic minded, young, and technically advanced (Cunningham & Cordeiro, 2009).  They should be encouraged to volunteer in the classrooms. Encouraging parent involvement in school programs contribute to a warm and welcoming environment. Forming community partnerships is also essential in a community outreach effort. Principal Jim O’Connor may reach out to businesses, institutions, and agencies in the community to support student projects and programs. This enables the community and parent groups to build a relationship with both the veteran and new teachers and staff members (Kelly, Brown, Butler & Gittens, 2008). The younger staff who are technologically competent and knowledgeable about needed reforms and the older staff who are knowledgeable about Wingfield children, programs, services, and families (Cunningham & Cordeiro, 2009) most cooperate to succeed. The veteran teachers need to act as teacher leaders, and support the younger peers but able to improve on the area of technology. They need to function as reflective professionals and able to move beyond existing teaching routines to transform prior beliefs and practice. There is strong consensus that the quality of the teacher matters more than any other single factor as a variable for improving student achievement. Improving teacher quality is a multifaceted problem requiring attention to recruitment, initial teacher preparation, mentoring of new teachers, teacher leadership, and professional development that increases the skills of all teachers. Because of the significance of teacher quality, both teacher education and school reform efforts stress improving teacher learning. Within the school reform movement, these efforts focus on professional development and on developing teacher leadership (Ross, 2011). According to Wilson (1993), teacher leaders are hard-working and highly involved with curricular and instructional innovation. Their creativity is demonstrated by their power to motivate students from a wide range of backgrounds and abilities. They are generous and make themselves available to other teachers as a resource or an advocate. Leadership is the process of bringing forth the best from oneself and others. Collaborative workshops and PLCs will enable the veteran teachers to lead colleagues at Hickory High. There is a need for peer-coaching in any organization. Peer-coaching give teachers the power to try new things, to seek out innovation, to find out about what was going on in other places. Teachers must work cooperatively in the school and community to become effective and be able to collaborate to change system constraints when they seem clearly less than ideal (Ross, 2011).   References Cunningham, W. G. & Codeiro, P. A. (2009). //Educational leadership: A problem-based approach// (4th ed.). Bostn: Allyn and Bacon. –Babett Koncz Kelly, P. A., Brown, S., Butler, A., Gittens, P. (2008). A place to hang our hats. //Educational Leadership, 56//(1), 62-64. –Babett Koncz

Ross, D., Adams, A., Bondy, E., Dana, N., Dodman, S., Swain, C. (2011). Preparing teacher leaders: Perceptions of the impact of a cohort-based, job embedded, blended teacher leadership program. University of Florida. –Babett Koncz

Wilson, M. (1993). The search for teacher leaders. //Educational Leadership//, 50(6), 24. Retrieved October 30, 2011, from Research Library. (Document ID: 1624744). –Babett Koncz