Leadership in my position can be varied. I'm currently the Data Manager for my school district. When I came into the position, I discovered that we were duplicating data entry and people weren't able to obtain the student data that they needed in order to accomplish their daily tasks. Access to student data was kept under very tight control and people had to constantly go to a select few people to get what they needed. I carefully reviewed what needed to be under tight control and what didn't. I strongly believe in building capacity in others. So I give up control of what I can and support others in learning how to make their own tasks easier.
Sometimes we find that our student information system and grade books don't have all the functionality that we need. I often have to look 6 months to a year into the future to obtain the functionality. I use my strong relationship with the company that makes the software to get what we need. This often involves visiting the company and working with higher level executives. The administration and teachers don't often see the results until a year later. In order to obtain what our teachers and administrators need, and avoid paying for it, I have to be very persistent and work well with others.
2 comments:
I appreciate your position in your district, Jenny. I wish we would have one in ours. I find myself without information about kids with IEPs or 504s, parents falsely claiming their kid had been a straight A student the year before and don't understand why they're getting a D now, and students who are low acheivers, but that not surfacing until a couple of months into the school year when parents are irrate because of low grades(a problem that could have avoided had teachers had access to WKCE and MAP scores from the previous year). A leader/avocate like you is indispensible.
Sounds like you have the vision, patience and expertise to be an effective leader in your school. As often is the case effective leaders do a lot of the behind the scenes hard work to get the future results. which of course makes the outcome look like it happened easily by magic. Which of course is not the case. Keep up the good work.
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