After finishing my administrative masters degree and obtaining my administrative license, I began applying to principal positions in Shawnee Mission as well as several nearby school districts. Last year, while experiencing a swell of parent support at Prairie Elementary, I halted the search for principal positions and expanded my plans to concentrate supporting students at Prairie. This included Coleman's Camp, One-On-One tutoring, these websites, and an overall professional and personal connection with parents that is pervasively enriching. The last two years have been a time of tremendous growth and reinvestment in being an exceptional teacher. The parents of Prairie and the students of Prairie have caused me to reevaluate my plans and choose to remain at the school. I hope to serve the community and continue my own learning adventure. For the next few posts to Smells Like Burning Army Men I thought to share some of the material I wrote for my administrative applications in various districts. I spent months writing, revising, and distilling my experience and perspective into short statements that were to be used to evaluate my qualities and qualifications. Though I can readily find areas in the responses that could use additional refinement were I to apply to new principal vacancies, my plans of staying at Prairie mean this material may be relevant now primarily as information to the Prairie community.
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What are three strengths that make you a good candidate for this position?
The first of my three strengths is a diverse educational training that aids me in relating to and supporting those who have had difficult and troubled childhoods, especially in terms of conforming to, or being successful in, a traditionally structured educational environment. As a child, my parents were psychologists at Rainbow Mental Health Facility on the children’s ward and my formative years were awash in child cognitive development theories and treatment discussions. My parents shared with me stories from the ward where they counseled children abused, suicidal, or suffering from the most severe mental health issues. This family profession became an informing backdrop for me when interacting with friends facing troubled home lives, understanding parental behaviors and decisions, and evaluating the world around me in analytical and sympathetic terms that set me up as an agent of change and leadership.
The second of my three strengths is broad professional opportunities, enabled by my passion and concern for the disenfranchised. As a full-time, long-term substitute teacher at Della Lamb Elementary Charter School, I relieved and supported teachers in an urban core, inner city school servicing immigrant, low-income, at risk, and disadvantaged children in kindergarten through 5th grade. I taught multi-grade, multi-ability classes in the year-round school with ethnically and racially diverse student body composed overwhelmingly of African Americans, Somalis, Vietnamese, Sudanese, and Latinos. In the Shawnee Mission School District I am a ten year classroom veteran of teaching 1st through 4th grade and have served as a middle school paraprofessional. I have assisted students assigned to the behavior disorder program, including students diagnosed with A.D.D./A.D.H.D., Tourette’s Syndrome, Asperger’s Syndrome, and children physically abused.
The third of my three strengths is unique leadership background, most notably in my position as an AmeriCorps* V.I.S.T.A. member (akin to a domestic Peace CORPS) in service with Public Achievement, a grassroots youth empowerment program started in Minnesota and funded here in Kansas City by the Kaufmann Foundation. I became familiar with the structure, successes, and struggles of educational institutions by working on the development and sustainability of partners throughout Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri, and Northern Ireland. I advised and organized the application of youth empowerment and democratic processes between Coach and Site Coordinators, volunteers, parents, as well as administrators, instructors, and students at the elementary school, middle school, and university level.
