Purpose and Substance of the Reflection with Professional Growth Plan

EDUCATION ADMINISTRATION

Education Administration: SLC 2- Refection and Growth Plan

Purpose and Substance of the Reflection with Professional Growth Plan

Continuous improvement and growth are essential for professional development. It should be known what skills and talents are needed for a certain occupation to align with the industry trends for making a conspicuous place among job vacancies. The demonstration of performance should be based on the available standards for the learner to become more professionally responsible towards his profession and society. This paper aims at providing a purpose and substance of the reflection with the professional growth plan so that growth in the program or department school district is elucidated. Building the growth plan consistently with the District Leader standards is explained in each section and how this has helped formulate a personal view of the future road ahead. 

Overall Progress Being Engaged In

The overall progress that I was constantly engaged in while writing the reflection and growth plan is based on ELCC Leadership Standards. Promoting self-evaluation was done in alignment with these standards since a school leader must include awareness and understanding of the concepts for their accurate application. The values and their reflection were seen in this order:

1. The first ELCC standard talks about the educational leader who could apply knowledge to promote the success of each student with the collaboration of the school departments, their articulation, implementation, and stewardship of the shared school visions ("Reference Resource 2", n.a.). I came across the theories relevant for facilitating this articulation and leadership for the advancement of school visions since dissemination of this vision with all the stakeholders of an educational institute is the first and key part of the entire process. Staff is responsible for sharing the visions for school improvement with constant engagement from the parents, management, and community members to commit to change for betterment. Leadership should be directed to regulate respect towards the children, even those who belong to different races and their parents, so that acknowledgment of the school constituencies is observed. Moreover, the knowledge of the content should be tactical and strategic so that their implementation and evaluation are convenient. 

2. The second ELCC standard discusses the success of each student along with the promotion of school culture and instructional program deemed effective for student learning via teamwork, faith, and personalized environment and building high expectations among the students. The artifacts that I learned were the theories about human development and behavior, individualized learning environment, school culture, student achievement, and motivation. For the school leadership, goal setting and time management for accomplishing those goals is a real task since cultural competence has to be embedded in the process of personalized learning opportunistic environment. Celebrating diversity is a key element of this ELCC standard since individualism would be reflected in personalization by instructional practices and curriculum design. Leadership for this ELCC standard also demands equity, trust, and fairness so that students and parents create an image of respect for the school. 

3. The third ELCC standard indicates that protecting students and the school environment is upon the school leadership for which operations and resources are utilized to monitor and evaluate and effectively use human, fiscal, and technological resources. The artifacts that I learned for this ELCC standard are operationalizing the resources, specifically the legal ones. Management, marketing, and public relations should be incorporated well within the institute's environment. It becomes the sole responsibility of the school leader to check whether policies and being implemented in each department for keeping a healthy working environment. Making forecasts about the institute's requirements and having an intelligent knowledge of how to capitalize on human capital would be included in the fiscal plans for budgeting and setting school priorities. Both long term and short-term needs of the school staff, students, and other stakeholders would be gauged so that school facilities should be enhanced for better functioning and space utilization. 

4. The fourth ELCC standard mentions that the educational leader should apply their knowledge in diversity. Collaboration of interests should help mobilize resources and collect and analyze data related to school environment improvement. I learned from the artifacts that collaboration is the heart of this standard since it is necessary at every step for the school leader. Communication gaps should be filled, especially when diverse ethnicities are targeted. Communication techniques facilitate better collaboration, and information is gathered to make the school environment conducive to enhanced wisdom. Leadership again plays an integral role in this respect since, with the aid of collaboration tactics and communication strategies, leaders are to disseminate pertinent information to the staff and parents to know their targets and results. Cultural competence is another concept studied in this relevance for operative mobilization of assorted cultural, social, and intellectual community servicing. 

5. The fifth ELCC standard is about equity, fairness, and ethics for each student's success. A school system is built such that a system of accountability is created for academic success. Self-awareness, use of reflective practices, and transparency are some of the major elements of this particular ELCC standard. It is realized that ethical behaviors guide the morality of the specifically assigned role of each school member. I learned through my artifacts that moral and legal obligation towards the institute should be a top priority by keeping in line with the federal and state regulations. Accountability and equity could only be ensured through school practices so that social justice is guaranteed. I also discovered that school leadership should be vigilant that all the staff members carry out policies to ensure the students' academic and social success and that no student becomes a victim of marginalization.  

6. The sixth ELCC standard signals upon creating an influence in political, social, cultural, and legal context so that school caregivers and families know that the school is committed to making a productive school environment. I now know through artifacts that school leaders should not be ignorant of emerging trends and initiatives for keeping an adaptation strategy in a time of need. It would be an additional benefit if the school leader knew about the disadvantages of a community member or family and how this challenge could be addressed. According to state laws, the needy should be catered to appropriately, fairly, and ethically so that discrimination remains far from the school culture and environment. This would inculcate a respected image in the minds of students and parents. They would immediately recognize that the school is dedicated to lessening the problems students' families face as they are the school's responsibility, and making them engaged for better academic results is mandatory. 

Thoughts about Engagement

Standard-based learning (SBL) and School District Leadership (SDL) are two basic features that provide a framework for growing professionally. In the field of education, the skills and proficiencies necessary to become an adept school leader have been studied through various concepts and engagement in tasks so that a professional portfolio is gradually but constantly built over time. It helped in strengthening my certification for school district leader who has the duty of hiring the right talent, gives pedagogical supervision to the hired staff, makes evaluations for their certifications, formulates budgets in line with the available resources, ensures their implementation, provides considerable support in curriculum development and keeps a strict check on the administrative processes of the institute (NYSED.gov, 2020). Engagement in those pertinent tasks has been a professional experience for capturing the right insight for this leadership post following ELCC standards. 

I represented the engagement by indulging myself in planning and ensuring that the right resources and the right quantity of them are present for implementing and deploying those resources. For example, suppose I am to infuse a new technology within the school, which would directly impact the students' academic success. In that case, I have to make sure that I have the financial resources for bringing that technology to the school and making sure its use and handling is known to all the teachers and students fittingly. 

Specific Implications Derived From Pondering the Connections between Readings and Reflection and Growth Plans

The specific implications that I have derived from pondering over the connections between my readings and reflection and growth plan entail that course learnings help bridge a gap between what is unknown and what is known by the experts. Gaining expert advice through the detailed course learning process is compulsory for having training opportunities so that confidence-building and credibility are achieved. The knowledge of best practices is indispensable for future evolvement for making progress and success inevitable in education. 

It is also implicated that technology has become a crucial part of any occupation since with the infusion of this feature, new and experienced professionals can achieve the targets more expediently to honor their knowledge and further polish their skills for obtaining better student outcomes academically. 

Description of Personal View of Future as an SDBL Leader

As a School district business leader (SDBL) in the role I see for myself in the future, I view that information technology and its use inevitable in each educational department. Managing information systems across the entire district schools would be a task since the availability and implementation of information technology for the student's academic growth based on the district and ELCC standards is critical. I believe that financial data and budgeting would be mandatory to ensure that the administrative issues are tackled intelligently and choices are made depending on expert thinking. Professionalism in this role requires that questions for a certain audience be answered with framing choices, and decision-making should be astute for impacting the student learning and fulfilling parents' expectations from the school. 

Discussion of What I Did Not Know at the beginning of the course

When I began this course, I did not know that education administration is about controlling, organizing, leadership, collaboration, communication, diversity inclusion, and effective supervision. It is not only about teachers and students; teachers plan the course content they have to teach to students every day of the week and make evaluations of their assessments. Education administration is to stay updated on the best practices and the constantly adapting standards with the changing needs of the educational arena so that with modernization and globalization, more inclusion of diverse ethnicities could be made possible, and correspondingly, leadership should handle the arising challenges smartly. I also did not know before that parental engagement is equally important for students' academic success, and for that, schools should constantly stay in touch with them. Communication of vital information through media channels, most importantly social media, is highly significant as it helps contact parents and other stakeholders. I also came across the fact that ethics and justice in education administration are inescapable.