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CALENDAR OF EVENTS
| LEADERSHIP FOR EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT FOUNDATION
The Council offers several opportunities for professional growth and development. Following is a summary for your reference. See Calendar of Events for dates & locations. Aspiring Superintendent Programs Educational Leadership Workshop (6 hours per session) This one-day workshop is offered in April in three locations: Long Island, Albany, Rochester. The program targets administrators seeking a career as a superintendent. All candidates must be nominated by a superintendent of schools or a university professor. Candidates are identified for possessing leadership qualities that are an integral part of the superintendency. Topics covered include: the superintendency as a career; educational and financial leadership roles specific to the superintendency; superintendent and school board relationships; professional and personal changes associated with the job; the resume, credentials and interview process; and the rewards of being a school leader . Future Superintendents Academy In 2009, LEAF developed the Future Superintendents Academy to provide comprehensive preparation to those interested in pursuing a superintendency. It is designed to be highly intensive and has a rigorous application process. The first cohort began in July 2009 and will cover the following topics: Communications and Culture; Change, Systems and Planning; Governance; Lobbying; Finance; Instructional Leadership; Professional Learning Communities; Human Resources; and the Hiring Process including resumes, credentials and interviews. Each session will be highly interactive with real-life simulations and case studies, journals, reading assignments and projects. Each participant will be assigned a leadership coach to assist them throughout the program. The Academy consists of a three-day Summer Institute and eight extended weekend sessions. Courses are taught by LEAF's cadre of highly trained and experienced faculty, all of whom are or have been superintendents themselves. Upon completion of the Future Superintendents Academy, participants are expected to pursue a superintendency or cabinet-level position in New York State. The first cohort will consist of 25 participants. the program will be offered each year beginning in July and concluding in May. Applications for the 2010-11 Academy will be available in the spring of 2010. Future Superintendents Academy dates: July 22-24, 2009 September 25-26, 2009 October 30-31, 2009 November 20-21, 2009 January 11-12, 2010 February 5-6, 2010 March 12-13, 2010 April 16-17, 2010 May 14-15, 2010 Programs for Cabinet Members (6 hours per session) LEAF is committed to offering a variety of programs for The Council's Cabinet members. Cabinet members are deputy or assistant superintendents for curriculum and instruction. LEAF offers pre-conference workshops on instructional issues during our Fall Leadership Summit and Mid-Winter Institute. We also offer a program each spring that features nationally-known experts to offer high-quality programs on their area of expertise. We invite you to join us on November 3-4, 2009, when we welcome back Dr. Rick DuFour and Becky DuFour to Albany to present a two-day workshop on professional learning communities, co-sponsored by the New York State Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. New Superintendents Institute (6 hours per full day session; 3 hours for half day sessions) The New Superintendents Institute is a year-long seminar series tailored to making the transition to the superintendency successful. Participants may opt to attend individual workshops or all five workshops in the series. A certificate is awarded upon completion of three of five seminars. The New Superintendent Orientation is held in July, prior to the start of the school year, and offers an introduction to Council and LEAF staff and services, the Commissioner of Education and key SED staff. Themes throughout the series include school board relationships, budget development, the State’s assessment program and reporting requirements, and the superintendent’s role as an advocate for the school district and students. The New Superintendents Success Seminar series continues with sessions in October (Fall Leadership Summit), December, January (Mid-Winter Institute) and February. They feature opportunities to meet with veteran superintendents in open roundtable discussions to gain information about issues they have faced: the legislative scene in Albany, Regents issues and strategies to engage in problem-solving with theirpeers. Topics include superintendent evaluations, financial and instructional leadership, ethics, communication strategies, and personnel management. Participants play a significant part in developing each seminar’s agenda. New Superintendents are strongly encouraged to attend the Institute. 2009-2010 Program Dates: New Superintendents Orientation (July 19 & 20, 2009) Albany New Superintendents Success Seminar (at Fall Leadership Summit, October 3, 2009) Rochester New Superintendents Success Seminar (December 4, 2009) Albany New Superintendents Success Seminar (at Mid-Winter Institute, January 9, 2010) Albany New Superintendents Success Seminar (February 5, 2010) Albany The Summer Institute at Harvard (15 hours, 2 ½ day session) The Summer Institute at Harvard is offered every July on the Harvard University campus for 30 school superintendents. The program provides an opportunity for a small group of superintendents to exchange ideas in a collegial atmosphere with Harvard University faculty and highly respected education researchers. Over the years, speakers have included scholars such as Dr. Roland Barth, Dr. Howard Gardner, Dr. Richard Elmore, and Dr. Thomas Payzant. The program provides the advantage of hearing from presenters from multiple divisions of Harvard's Graduate School. Information on the Institute will be available in April 2010. Frames of Leadership (available upon request) Frames of Leadership, based on leadership theory and practice, is designed for all superintendents and assistant superintendents regardless of experience and district size. It examines the issues faced by school leaders and incorporates the knowledge, skills and experiences of both faculty and program participants. Frames of Leadership provides a rare opportunity to reflect on professional practice and build collaborative networks. The curriculum is based on Bohlman and Deal's four frames of leadership: political, symbolic, structural, and human resource leadership. Structural leadership addresses policies, procedures, job descriptions, organizational structures and other formal mechanisms to clarify and/or problem solve. Human resource leadership emphasizes the superintendent's role in the empowerment of people, understanding their desires, concerns, strengths and limitations, and providing them with psychological support when needed. Political leadership focuses on the competition for power and scarce resources, the management of conflict among individuals and/or groups and the importance of coalition building. Symbolic leadership focuses on the development of organizational meaning, inspiring others, and helping them to feel a sense of commitment or common purpose. Developing High Performing Schools: Characteristics and Models (6 hours session, available upon request) This one-day offering discusses common characteristics of high performing schools and school districts and the roles building and district leaders can play in moving any district to higher performance by adults and students. The development and use of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) will be highlighted, including an analysis of how districts have successfully created a culture based on staff members engaged in ongoing professional dialogue focused on instructional quality. The analysis will provide insights into the successful strategies for full implementation that any district can use as well as noting and discussing the difficult points in the process. Superintendent-School Board Relations and Team Governance (6 hours for a full-day session, available upon request) This one-day session will provide superintendents with time-tested successful practices for developing and maintaining strong, positive relationships and team governance practices with their Boards of Education. The session will discuss characteristics of effective boards and strategies and how to deal with the most common difficulties of dysfunctional boards and board-superintendent relationships. As all board-superintendent relationships are unique, participants will have opportunities to analyze their specific relationship and share the successful practices they use as well as difficulties they have had or are experiencing with their board. Materials will include checklists for effective board-superintendent leadership and governance, case studies for discussion purposes, and short readings about best practices for board-superintendent relationships. Leadership for Student Achievement (30 hours for five, full-day sessions) Leadership for Student Achievement is geared specifically towards strengthening district leadership teams focused on working together to improve student achievement. The series consists of five full-day sessions from November to May, led by top education experts in the areas of professional learning communities, change leadership, curriculum and assessment, professional development and organizational effectiveness. Topics are pertinent to rural, suburban and urban school districts. Throughout the year, teams will focus on and discuss how to best influence student achievement in their districts. Time is incorporated into each session for district planning and team-building. This year’s speakers include: November 5, 2009 - Dr. Rick & Becky Dufour December 10, 2009 - Michael Fullan February 12, 2010 - Giselle Martin-Kniep March 19, 2010 - Jay McTighe May 6, 2010 - Douglas Reeves Teams have a unique opportunity for open discussion, reflection, gaining insight from experts and other school districts. Team members have ranged from teachers, teacher leaders, board members, assistant principals, principals, assistant superintendents, and superintendents. BOCES Aid is available for this program. Advanced Leadership for Student Achievement (available upon request) Advanced Leadership for Student Achievement was piloted in 2008-09 with great success. The program requires a district to bring a team to the Leadership for Student Achievement series. The team will attend the LSA sessions with a trained consultant who will assist the team in making connections between sessions. The consultant spends additional days in the district working with the superintendent and team on a district-wide improvement plan. In addition, an electronic discussion forum is provided for teams to share best practices with one another. Participation by the superintendent is required. The cost is determined by the size of the team attending the LSA sessions and the number of days the consultant spends working with the team. Please contact Kelly Masline, LEAF Director, at kelly@nyscoss.org for more information. Balanced Leadership: Balanced Leadership: School Leadership That Works TM is based on the work of the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL). The program is a series of four, two-day professional development sessions for school administrators (superintendents, assistant superintendents, and principals) delivered over the course of one year. The consortium is based on McREL’s research on school-level leadership, which identifies research-based leadership responsibilities and practices, as well as extensive reviews of theoretical literature on leadership, focus of change, magnitude of change, and purposeful community—the components of McREL’s Balanced Leadership Framework. The existing research on high-quality professional development and the emerging research on professional development for school leaders; and the four types of knowledge identified in McREL’s knowledge taxonomy: 1. Why (experiential), 2. What (declarative), 3. When (contextual), The ultimate outcomes reflect what school leaders will know and be able to do as a result of their participation. Participants will learn to use research-based practices to choose the right focus for change initiatives, lead the change process, and develop a purposeful community in order to improve student achievement. The program is taught by McREL-trained consultants.
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