Personal Leadership Platform

Personal Leadership Platform

Greg Howard
ED501

Personal Leadership Platform

The Sandy Valley Local School district is a rural school district that is located in
Magnolia, Ohio. The school district serves students in three different counties: Stark,
Tuscarawas, and Carroll County. The school district is considered a Stark County school
because the majority of the students live in Stark County. The school district is made up of two
buildings which are located on the same campus that house the 1,483 students. Of the 1,483
students, 97.4% of the students are white, 0.7% is African American, 0.8% is Hispanic and 0.1%
is Asian. The student population is made up of 53% males and 47% females. There are 52.5% of
the students at Sandy Valley that are on the free and reduced lunch program. Around 19% of the
students are considered to be in the poverty students. Of the population only 0.3% is considered
to be English Language learners, which means that most of the students in the school district
speak English.
There are a total of 88 full time teachers, 8 instructional aids, 3 counselors, 2 librarians
and 5 administrators in the Sandy Valley Local School district. The ratio of students to teachers
is 18 to 1. The staff at Sandy Valley is predomitely white with one teacher that is Latino. Of the
88 full time teachers ten of them live within the school district.
The majority of the school district is located near a huge farming culture. However, the
gas and oil industry is becoming a huge part of the Sandy Valley community. More students
continue to move into the school district as a result of the oil industry. The average household
income in the Sandy Valley school district is $58,030. The marital status of families in the
Sandy Valley area are, 62.3% married, 20.1% never married, and 17.6% divorced or widowed.
The educational status of families in the Sandy Valley area are, 36.2% some college, 20.2%
Bachelors degree, 18.3% some college, 10% graduate degree, 10.2% associates degree and
5.2% no high school diploma.

Personal Leadership Platform

In order to be an effective leader, one must first understand the community and the
culture of the organization. An effective leader then must help their staff better understand the
community in which the organization is a part of. As a leader of an organization, I believe that
the most intrical part of the organization is the staff. Therefore, I believe there is nothing more
important in the school system than the teachers. The teachers are the ones who are in the
classroom daily with our students. The quality of the teacher is the single most important
determinant in the learning of the students. (Hargreaves, Fullen p. 15) They have the
opportunity to influence our students the most with knowledge and social experiences needed to
improve their future.
In order to help the students be successful the teachers need to relate to the diversity of
the classroom. To make this possible, the teachers need to become familiar with and have a
better understanding of their students and the culture in which they come from to organize
learning activities (Sleeter 106). At Sandy Valley the teachers might be able to relate to their
students better if they know it is a farming community. The teachers can relate particular lessons
to farming to help the students better understand the lesson.
Teaching, like any other profession, doesnt come down to individual skill or will
(Harggreaves, Fullan p.20). The school or district is affected by the environment or the culture
of the workplace (Hargreaves Fullen ). As a leader, the culture of the workplace cant be
ignored. Therefore, as a leader I want to have a vision to create an environment and culture in
which all my students can be successful in.
When students, parents, or community members enter a school they should be able to see
the culture of the school. The culture of the school starts with the way they are greeted at the
door to the decorations on the teachers walls of the school. As a leader, I want to create a

Personal Leadership Platform

culture in which is inviting to the whole community and one in which is viewed as a positive
experience by all members involved. I believe to create this positive culture it needs to start with
me as a leader and work its way down to every member of my staff. If this positive culture is
created all around, I believe it will lead to the students being successful in all situations.
As a future principal, I believe that to create a positive culture with my students, staff and
community, as a leader, I will incorporate the democratic style of leadership. A democratic style
of leader is about creating an environment in which the leader makes a decision though
interactions of the team (Ryan, Democratic Leadership Style). Using this democratic style of
leadership brings people together to solve a common problem. As a school leader, I believe this
style will be the most effective in most situations. This style can be used with student, parents
and staff to solve different issues that may arise. This style of leadership can also allow for the
community to come together for a common goal. I believe this style of leadership can lead to a
positive culture due to the fact that everyone is working together. The democratic style of
leadership gives the individuals involved value. Instead of having the leader as the only one
making the decisions, this style allows for other to be part of the process.
As a leader of an organization, one should have multiple styles of leadership to rely on.
There may be certain situations in which a principle might have to rely on more than one style of
leadership. For example, if a leader uses the Democratic style of leadership all the time and is
collaborating all the time the staff might question the integrity of the leader. There are certain
instances where the leader might have to use a democratic style of leadership. An example of
this would be in a time of crisis (Ryan, Democratic Leadership Style). In this instance there will
be not time to collaborate with other people in a time of need. The leader will have to make a
swift decision in order to keep the environment safe.

Personal Leadership Platform

In todays society technology is evolving at a rapid pace. In order to keep up with this
change, we have to continue to adapt our learning environment and the way we deliver
instruction. The same goes the way in which we utilize technology as leaders. A leader can use
technology as an easy way to communicate with the staff. Often times this might lead to the
administrator to sit in their office to deliver information. This is not the type of leadership style
that I want to incorporate with technology. I want to utilize technology to send out building level
information. However, if there is a personal issue to discuss with a team or individual I would
prefer to have the discussion with them personally.
As a principal there will be different conflicts that I will have to deal with. When a
conflict happens, I will use a collaborative approach. I will try and get all of the information
possible before making a definite decision. As a leader, I want to make sure I get all of my facts
right and want to make sure the decision is the best for our organization before coming up with a
outcome.
When I become a principal, I see myself using Peter Senges systems thinking approach
to leadership. According to Peter Senges Fifth Discipline, he discusses a self-fulfilling
prophecy on how often, whether positive or negative, can create a cycle of success or failure
(2010). I see myself being a leader that is a servant, coach and influencing leader. I want to be
the leader that is supportive to their students and staff. To achieve this I want to be active in the
classroom and positively supporting where ever possible. My goal is to help my staff and
learners expand and become the best that they can be each and every day. I want to push my
students and staff to new limits that they never thought imaginable. In order to do this, I have to
set a positive example, have positive expectations, and have a positive learning environment.

Personal Leadership Platform

The mission of the Sandy Valley Local School District is to provide a quality education
to all students through the cooperative efforts of the schools, parents and community. Each
student, regardless of achievement or ability level, is to be prepared for success in his or her
chosen endeavors.
Based on the vision of Sandy Valley Local Schools there are three leadership goals I have
for our organization. The first goal is to maintain high expectations for every student that enters
the doors of Sandy Valley Local Schools. The second goal is to use more collaborative
strategies to help bring the school, parents, and community together. The last goal is to provide a
quality education for all students in our classroom to reach the needs of each individual student.
The reason I want to implement the first goal is due to classroom environment. Our
students enter the classroom and are already defeated because they do not have high
expectations. I want to create a school environment in which every student believes they can be
successful. This all starts with the expectation of the leaders and staff of our organization. I
believe if we can get every staff member to believe our students can achieve and have high
expectations for them as soon as they enter the door then it will rub off on our students and they
will start to believe they can.
The second goal of collaboration is important to implement to our organization on a
parent, school, and community level. It is important that our staff members collaborate with
each other to provide a quality education for all of our students. With collaboration, teacher will
continue to develop a relationship with one another and continue to share ideas. Collaboration is
important with our parents to help them understand what is going on in the classroom. It is also
important to work with the parents to resolve any issues. It is the ultimate goal of parent
collaboration to help each student become successful. The last goal of collaboration is the goal

Personal Leadership Platform

of collaboration with our community members. It is important to involve the community with
the school to help the community understand the school better and the school to understand
different aspects of the community. The more the two work together, the more opportunities
there are for the school community to grow and be successful.
The third goal is to provide a quality education for all students in our classroom to reach
the needs of each individual student. In order to provide a quality education for all students in
the classroom, our teachers need to reach the needs of each individual student. Therefore, the
goal I have for our organization is to incorporate diffentiation instruction into the classroom. By
incorporating this approach into the classroom daily, I believe that we will reach the diverse
students population in our school district.
The stakeholders who I am targeting for the third goal are the teachers. The reason that I
am targeting the teachers is due to the fact that teachers are the ones responsible for delivering
the lessons to each individual student. In order to provide a quality education for all students, I
believe it is important that the teacher learn different ways of delivering lessons.
The plan that I have to incorporate the third goal into our organization is a collaborative
approach. Before the teachers can incorporate different lessons that involve differention
instruction, they need to have a better understanding of what differentiated instruction is about.
To help the staff, the teachers will go through a professional development session that involves
differentiated instruction. After the staff has gone through this professional development, I
would then want them create four different lessons in the second nine weeks that incorporate
differentiated instruction. At the end of the second nine weeks the teachers will then collaborate
and share their lessons on differentiated instruction with their teacher based teams. By the end of
the meeting, I would want the teachers to have at least ten different strategies.

Personal Leadership Platform

The following week there would be a teacher based team meeting. At this meeting all of
the lead teacher will discuss the strategies they came up within their meeting the previous week.
By the end of this meeting, I want the lead teachers to come up with twenty different strategies
that they feel would be most effective for our building. After we have the list of twenty different
strategies we will then roll out the strategies to the staff at our weekly staff meetings on Friday.
We will roll out four strategies to the staff each week. By the end of a four week period, the staff
will end up with our twenty different differentiated strategies that we are to implement into our
lessons. Throughout the rest of the year my expectation as the leader, would be to have the staff
use differianted instruction in their lessons at least once per week.
The implementation of this plan might come with some difficulties and challenges. One
of the challenges might be the resistance of staff members and their unwillingness to change the
delivery of their instruction. As a leader, we need to be prepared for these types of challenges.
We need to come up with strategies of leaders on how to present information to staff in a way
that will help them understand that the plan is important and in the best interest of the
organization. On the other side of the challenges, there might be teachers who do this already.
They might see this plan as redundant. However, I believe that these teachers at the end of the
plan might end up learning new strategies to incorporate into their lesson.
The group to who I am going to present the implementation of this goal is going to be the
principal, assistant principal and team leader of a teacher based team. I choose to include head
principal because he has been in the school district for three years and is a Sandy Valley
graduate. Therefore, he has a better understanding of the community and the type of students
that are in the district. I choose to include the assistant principal because he is new to the district
and I would like to hear his views of the plan. He might have a different perspective of this goal

Personal Leadership Platform

implementation than the principal. Finally, I choose one of the lead teachers because I wanted to
have a teacher perspective and hear what the teachers thoughts would be on this plan.

Personal Leadership Platform

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References
Hargreaves, A., & Fullan, M. (2012). Professional capital: Transforming teaching in every school. New
York: Teachers College Press.
Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York:
Doubleday/Currency.
Sandy Valley Local Schools Mission Statement. (n.d.) Retrieved from
http://www.svlocal.org/index.php/district?start=5.