Administrators from around the region joined together for the 31
st
Annual Principals’ Academy on August 24 and 25. This year’s speaker was
Dr. Luis Cruz
, who is known for his work on creating a collaborative culture that leads to high achievement for all students.
During the two-day academy, principals and district administrators were presented with practical ideas for re-culturing their schools. Dr. Cruz spoke about the vital role of a guiding coalition in establishing a school culture and structure focused on learning for all students. He addressed what it really means to collaborate and teams had an opportunity to reflect on the stages of collaboration for their professional learning teams. At the end of the two days, teams had an opportunity to process all of the ideas and resources and develop an action plan to move the work forward in their district and buildings.
Participants were very happy with the professional development and left energized for the start of the 2017-18 school year. Their comments included:
- “Dr. Cruz is a great presenter”
- “We can take materials and apply it to our building/staff immediately”
- “Practical examples and approaches were great”
- “Great balance between stories, information, and activities”
- “Great presentation- we left with an action plan to incorporate and many topics to continue discussion in our district”
Participants also noted that they would like continuing support in developing teacher leaders, designing common assessments, and identifying learning targets.
At the conclusion of the academy, the
Professional Development & Resource Center team
highlighted some of the upcoming opportunities that support the work of collaborative teams. These opportunities include:
We look forward to continuing this work throughout 2017-18 during regional leadership meetings.
