Dear all,
I would like to put forward some possible roles/responsibilities that IT's can take on. If you're an IT looking to build some experience that will help getting your foot in the door/prepare you as far as securing a first VP/AP/admin post, which roles (or combination of) have the most efficacy? Some are obviously full-time roles and some are much smaller, but may be useful. Feel free to comment/rate any you have a knowledge of, or add any I haven't entered.
Head of Department
Coach (Numeracy, Literacy, IT, etc)
PYP / MYP Coordinator
Workshop Leader
Guidance Counsellor
Learning Leader (inter-departmental)
Athletic/Activities Director
CIS Evaluator
CIS/IB Committee Chair
IB Examiner
Additionally, if you were going to choose between doing PTC courses or a national/state principal training cert, which would you do?
"Working-in" to Leadership
Re: "Working-in" to Leadership
HoD
Learning Leader / Curriculum Coordinator
CIS / NEASC / WASC Evaluator
A master's in educational leadership won't hurt.
Learning Leader / Curriculum Coordinator
CIS / NEASC / WASC Evaluator
A master's in educational leadership won't hurt.
Re: "Working-in" to Leadership
They’re all good but obviously very dependent on being in an official position.
I highly recommend also being the person who voluntarily takes stuff on without a position. Join committees. Write policies. Take extra duty when someone is absent. Identify weaknesses and present solutions that you are ready to lead. Turn up in someone’s office and ask what you can do to help them/ the school. Become the person people trust and turn to. The person who always says “no problem”. You’ll be the one they think of when a position is open.
I highly recommend also being the person who voluntarily takes stuff on without a position. Join committees. Write policies. Take extra duty when someone is absent. Identify weaknesses and present solutions that you are ready to lead. Turn up in someone’s office and ask what you can do to help them/ the school. Become the person people trust and turn to. The person who always says “no problem”. You’ll be the one they think of when a position is open.
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Thames Pirate
- Posts: 1150
- Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 8:06 am
Re: "Working-in" to Leadership
It also depends--are you looking to get into leadership at your next school or your current school? Sid's advice is just good practice, but it won't necessarily help (except potentially in recommendations) at your future school. I have also seen the "no tooting your own horn" helpers be overlooked despite putting in as much effort as more vocal colleagues. So be that person because it's a good person to be and because it gives you insight into more aspects of running a school and into leadership, but note that external gain is limited.
Other jobs include CAS/Service/MYP Projects/EE coordinator, etc. Running individual events like sports days, internships, parent info nights, etc. can also be valuable.
Other jobs include CAS/Service/MYP Projects/EE coordinator, etc. Running individual events like sports days, internships, parent info nights, etc. can also be valuable.
Re: "Working-in" to Leadership
Depends on the school as well. Some hire internally, others externally. Don't ride too may horses. Join 2-3 committees and contribute significantly (writing part of accreditation report or collecting data, make presentations on latest ed tech during faculty meetings, lead sessions on curriculum, personalized learning, assessment etc.)
You need to be a genuine learner by staying at the forefront of curriculum, instruction, and assessment and share it with your community on an ongoing basis. Many schools lack in-house expertise on scheduling and if you can crack this conundrum, you could prove your raw intelligence or software expertise. I have seen folks with doctoral degrees who failed spectacularly at this task. So much for PhDs and EdDs.
You need to be a genuine learner by staying at the forefront of curriculum, instruction, and assessment and share it with your community on an ongoing basis. Many schools lack in-house expertise on scheduling and if you can crack this conundrum, you could prove your raw intelligence or software expertise. I have seen folks with doctoral degrees who failed spectacularly at this task. So much for PhDs and EdDs.
Response
I dont disagree with @Sids responses, though what @Sid is describing is more 'growing in'. I assume from your post title that your specifically looking at 'working in', as in what can you do in DE/IE to form a marketable candidate to an entry level leadership appointment now as a DT/IT somewhere other than your current appointment.
The primary challenge with your list is that its mostly IT tasks, and leadership tasking and roles are a very different skill set than teaching roles and tasks. Leadership roles are defined by reports, peer deliverables, or resource budgeting and allocation, so looking at your list:
- HOD: Does the HOD manage a substantial budget? Do ITs/DTs come to the HOD when they need something or someone in senior leadership like a principal? Does the HOD do the purchasing for the whole department, or do individual ITs/DTS get classroom budgets and maybe the HOD gets a few hundred in coin? Its leadership utility if the HOD is managing a budget and resources, its not if they are just a person who collects purchasing requests and forwards them to leadership.
Do all the contracts say "reports to division principal" or do they say "reports to HOD", if the former than the HOD isnt really anyone, and if the latter than HOD has utility for leadership.
Does the HOD actually produce something or assess something in terms of curriculum or accreditation if so than that role has leadership utility, if all the HOD does is serve as a contact point for communication, such as attending an extra monthly meeting and then sending out an email of the highlights it doesnt have leadership utility.
Lastly, is the HOD position a FTE position or a sizeable amount of scheduled release time, meaning the HOD responsibilities are at least half if not their full job, or are they essentially an IT with a full teaching load and HOD is the equivalent of their ASP, former leadership utility, latter not.
- Coach/Learning Leader: Im grouping them together. Who are you working with? If its a coaching role thats largely student support than no, if its a role that you have ITs assigned to you then yes, but if basically a Q&A point for ITs than maybe its junior leadership at best.
- PYP/MYP/DP/IB/Academic/Activities/Athletic/SEN,LD,SPED/ESOL/G&T, etc. Coordinators: How much of your FTE tasking is those things. Like HOD above if the majority of your FTE job is teaching and coordinating is just an ASP or provides a minor amount of release time than its great for getting another coordinator appointment but doesnt have much utility for leadership. You have to be in the coordinator role full time or near full time, and making a major contribution of peer deliverables, essentially being in a leadership role in all but title for it to have marketability into leadership.
- Workshop Leader: No, its a nice bullet point but managing an IS or part of an IS has little to do with being a workshop leader which is just teaching to an older audience for a brief period of time. It has more marketability if your goal is HOD but not an AP/VP/DP appointment.
- Guidance Counselor: If you can assume two roles into the position outside mental health and tertiary guidance than yes it can be the start of a work in to leadership. Such roles as scheduling, the first contact point in the behavior management/disciplinary chain or managing the SPED/SEN/LD department for example. If however your tasking mostly involves working with students on Uni applications and doing the morning coffee mixer with the moms and the occasional mental health than no.
- Accreditation/CIS Evaluator: If your focus is an academic AP/VP/DP, then yes it would have utility to an IS that was still developing and growing. If thats the focus of the AP/VP/DP role, but if its a more generic role than theres more to IS management than just the academic portion of it. Regardless your going to need more than just that.
- CIS/IB Committee Chair: No, unless thats just part of the FTE tasking of some other role above.
- IB Examiner/CAS,Service/EE,Honors Paper/Projects/Exhibition: No, those are all essentially teaching tasks. Leadership dont generally do those things, they assign ITs to do them.
- Ed.Ld Degree and/or Credential: Yes.
PTC courses over a leadership credential would depend on your social/political skills and gamesmanship, it really comes down to how well you can network and take advantage of 'presence'. The first break into leadership is the most difficult, and there are ITs who get appointed to leadership roles because of likeability, if you have the charisma to be that person than PTC. If your not that kind of person, and your going to apply for vacancies with resume and an application packet than a leadership credential has the better marketability.
The primary challenge with your list is that its mostly IT tasks, and leadership tasking and roles are a very different skill set than teaching roles and tasks. Leadership roles are defined by reports, peer deliverables, or resource budgeting and allocation, so looking at your list:
- HOD: Does the HOD manage a substantial budget? Do ITs/DTs come to the HOD when they need something or someone in senior leadership like a principal? Does the HOD do the purchasing for the whole department, or do individual ITs/DTS get classroom budgets and maybe the HOD gets a few hundred in coin? Its leadership utility if the HOD is managing a budget and resources, its not if they are just a person who collects purchasing requests and forwards them to leadership.
Do all the contracts say "reports to division principal" or do they say "reports to HOD", if the former than the HOD isnt really anyone, and if the latter than HOD has utility for leadership.
Does the HOD actually produce something or assess something in terms of curriculum or accreditation if so than that role has leadership utility, if all the HOD does is serve as a contact point for communication, such as attending an extra monthly meeting and then sending out an email of the highlights it doesnt have leadership utility.
Lastly, is the HOD position a FTE position or a sizeable amount of scheduled release time, meaning the HOD responsibilities are at least half if not their full job, or are they essentially an IT with a full teaching load and HOD is the equivalent of their ASP, former leadership utility, latter not.
- Coach/Learning Leader: Im grouping them together. Who are you working with? If its a coaching role thats largely student support than no, if its a role that you have ITs assigned to you then yes, but if basically a Q&A point for ITs than maybe its junior leadership at best.
- PYP/MYP/DP/IB/Academic/Activities/Athletic/SEN,LD,SPED/ESOL/G&T, etc. Coordinators: How much of your FTE tasking is those things. Like HOD above if the majority of your FTE job is teaching and coordinating is just an ASP or provides a minor amount of release time than its great for getting another coordinator appointment but doesnt have much utility for leadership. You have to be in the coordinator role full time or near full time, and making a major contribution of peer deliverables, essentially being in a leadership role in all but title for it to have marketability into leadership.
- Workshop Leader: No, its a nice bullet point but managing an IS or part of an IS has little to do with being a workshop leader which is just teaching to an older audience for a brief period of time. It has more marketability if your goal is HOD but not an AP/VP/DP appointment.
- Guidance Counselor: If you can assume two roles into the position outside mental health and tertiary guidance than yes it can be the start of a work in to leadership. Such roles as scheduling, the first contact point in the behavior management/disciplinary chain or managing the SPED/SEN/LD department for example. If however your tasking mostly involves working with students on Uni applications and doing the morning coffee mixer with the moms and the occasional mental health than no.
- Accreditation/CIS Evaluator: If your focus is an academic AP/VP/DP, then yes it would have utility to an IS that was still developing and growing. If thats the focus of the AP/VP/DP role, but if its a more generic role than theres more to IS management than just the academic portion of it. Regardless your going to need more than just that.
- CIS/IB Committee Chair: No, unless thats just part of the FTE tasking of some other role above.
- IB Examiner/CAS,Service/EE,Honors Paper/Projects/Exhibition: No, those are all essentially teaching tasks. Leadership dont generally do those things, they assign ITs to do them.
- Ed.Ld Degree and/or Credential: Yes.
PTC courses over a leadership credential would depend on your social/political skills and gamesmanship, it really comes down to how well you can network and take advantage of 'presence'. The first break into leadership is the most difficult, and there are ITs who get appointed to leadership roles because of likeability, if you have the charisma to be that person than PTC. If your not that kind of person, and your going to apply for vacancies with resume and an application packet than a leadership credential has the better marketability.