Meeting the Learning Needs of Students: A Rural High-Need School District's Systemic Leadership Development Initiative

Rural Educator, The, Spring 2005 by Browne-Ferrigno, Tricia, Maynard, Brenda

Carefully Selected Mentor Principals

Elementary and secondary school principals are selected to serve as mentors for the field-based component of the project. The schools selected as inquiry sites represent very diverse rural communities, student populations, faculty and staff composition, community-based support, educational programs and facilities, and student academic performance. The mentor principals are selected by such criteria as career experiences, instructional-guidance expertise, and leadership styles. The superintendent makes the final assignments of cohort-member groups to mentor principals, and the project director provides training for them about the curricular foci for the semester they provide assistance. Mentor principals receive a personalized PEP notebook, copies of all instructional materials and books distributed to cohort members, all electronic messages send to the cohort, and a $500 stipend.

School-Based Action Research about Learning Issues

With assistance from their mentor principals, small teams of cohort members identify actual problems existing in selected schools. The program-supported action research must be conducted at sites other than where cohort members work in order to give them opportunities to explore different school communities in the district. Working as small inquiry teams, participants design and complete two collaborative action research projects, which require formal proposals, human subjects research approval, and formal written reports. Each cohort has opportunities to work for a semester in an elementary school and then in a secondary school.

Findings from the action research projects are disseminated to various authentic audiences. Each inquiry team first gives a copy of the study report to its mentor principal and presents findings to the school community where the research was conducted. The teams then formally present their findings to cohort peers and instructors. Additionally, the superintendent invites all administrators in the district to attend a luncheon each semester where the inquiry teams share their research findings through PowerPoint presentations and professionally designed handouts. The teams have also been invited to present their study findings at state education conferences.

Leadership Preparation: Reflections about PEP

Six years ago PCSD hired a leadership consultant, a retired superintendent who led three very diverse education systems in western and central Kentucky. He assignment is to provide personalized training to district and school administrators, often working with them individually in their own work settings. For several years he has also served as a coach and trainer for the Kentucky Leadership Academy, a two-year professional development program for educational leaders coordinated by the Kentucky Association of School Administrators. The consultant assisted the PCSD leadership team in the preliminary design of PEP before UKY professors refined it to align with the federal grant requirements.