As school and district leaders, and educators in teacher preparation, we face daily the questions of what we do well and should continue to do and the top barriers or challenges that prevent us from achieving results in our districts and with our teachers—higher performance. Let’s take the questions separately; today’s is:
The Urban Institute issued challenges and choices for “sustaining and strengthening” Washington DC schools (December, 2014). Among the recommendations aligned to the Goal for the First 100 Days is “Encourage stability by retaining and building a cohesive leadership team” (p. 2):
The mayor-elect has already signaled her commitment to stable schools by announcing that she will retain the current DCPS chancellor, Kaya Henderson, who has been integral to many recent reforms and is well respected by students, parents, and other city stakeholders.
Aligning the mayor-elect’s commitment with today’s question, “what’s working well… and should continue…?” is the work of the current DCPS Chancellor, Kaya Henderson (photo credit). 
Henderson became Chancellor of DC Public Schools in 2011. Hear from the Chancellor in the video below; learn what motivates her and learn how she worked with students, parents, and colleagues to “recommit DCPS to providing every student with a safe, academically challenging, and inspiring learning experience” (here).
Our learning must continue when we move into leadership positions in school systems as well as any organizations! Alignment of our work – what we do well and must continue to do well – only happens when leaders understand that if their organization performs exactly as it does today on “what it does well,” five years from now their current performance will not be sustained. We must support and engage these new leaders so that they may be successful and achieve at their highest performance levels, and lead their school systems to excellence.
________________
TeacherReady® is state approved and is the Educator Preparation Institute of the NCATE accredited Professional Education Unit at the University of West Florida. Upon completion of TeacherReady, individuals earn a professional teaching certificate from the State of Florida. Visit the TeacherReady websiteor connect with them on Facebook for more information.
Our mission at Studer Education is to help education systems achieve measurable results that produce positive outcomes in student achievement, employee engagement, support services, and financial efficiencies and productivity. Our goal is to help school systems provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Follow us on Twitter at @StuderEducation and visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the seventh straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Filed under: Our Partners, Who’s Engaged? Tagged: #altcert, #teacherprep, @TeachForAmerica, DCPS, Effective Teacher, Leadership, Leadership development, Straight A, Teacher Preparation, TeacherReady 
