While they're often overlooked in education policy debates,
district central office staff can play critical roles in improving schools and ensuring student success.
Most new teachers (77 %) are hired through a decentralized process in which most of their interactions are with individual schools rather than
with district central offices.
-- Principals — Assistant principals — Student support personnel — Curriculum coordinators — Lead teachers — Members of teams or committees addressing bullying, school culture and climate, discipline, character, SEL and related school - wide areas — Those who hold positions in district central offices
The University of Washington Center for Educational Leadership (CEL) has released a set of three tools designed for school
district central office leaders, especially principal supervisors, to help principals improve teaching and learning in every school across the district.
While important, this focus on schools reflects a mismatch with federal and state policies that demand not only that school staff work with evidence but that school
district central office administrators do as well.
He studies how the variability in organizational structures of school districts impact curriculum management, especially science curriculum and in particular
how district central offices support elementary science teaching through such structures as K - 12 departments.
Noticing a large number of inefficiencies at school
district central offices across the country, Broad established two academies designed to bring private - sector management strategy to school districts.
In the Literacy Mentors of Distinction Program, Judson Independent School
District central office professional staff mentor kindergarten and first and second grade economically disadvantaged students from Title I schools.
Meredith Honig, Lydia R. Rainey, Susan Enfield, Susanne Jerde, and Steve Grubb University of Washington «Leaders at the Center: A research - practice partnership advancing school
district central office research, leadership practice, and systems»
There is a unique leadership position for those who work closely with both teachers and students, and with stakeholders who are some distance from students (e.g., the business community, state policymakers, higher education, or
district central office personnel).
However, decades of school reform research «has shown that school improvements tend not to deepen at single schools or spread across schools without substantial support
from district central offices,» as Mike Copland and Meredith Honig, University of Washington researchers, point out in their recent Education Week commentary, «Don't Cut Out the Center.»
2) Teachers working full time in the classroom have limited opportunities to understand
how district central offices, university partners, or other policy - making organizations work — unless they are released to spend substantial time outside of the school.
About a month later, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget aimed to reduce funding for
school district central offices by $ 1.2 billion.
All shirts that are ordered after midnight tonight will be delivered to Rochester City School
District Central Office!
A districts central office staff also may have to change its thinking.
The Tri State Astronomers, who meet at
the districts central office planetarium, offer stargazing instruction.
In Newark, the wholesale reduction of employment in the traditional schools and
district central office, coupled with the hiring of high - priced consultants and the modest rate of improvement, convinced many that the reform did more harm than good.
For that reason, parents can be annoyingly inconsistent: They can favor better schools but oppose anything that reallocates resources, challenges teachers to improve, or threatens jobs in schools or
the district central office.
Now in her second year as principal, Rosalind Chivis had a hand in the school's start - up and spent several years in
the district central office before being sent to rescue SOF.
31 % are screened first by
the district central office but ultimately are interviewed and offered a position by a specific school
Candidate Impact Through Partnership: How
District Central Offices Can Foster Principals» Development as Effective Instructional Leaders Through Systems of Support, Development, and Accountability Friday, April 14, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m., Gutman Conference Center, Area 3
District central offices have grown by providing services once needed and then building units that continue providing them whether needed or not.
By sharing the audit results with
the district central office team and garnering their support, we were able to reallocate monies to support dedicated staffing, such as:
Educators, no longer merely assigned to a school by
a district central office, have teamed up with colleagues to found new schools.
Evidence, interpretation, and persuasion: Instructional decision making at
the district central office.
In short,
district central office leaders have a responsibility to develop principals» instructional leadership capacity before holding them accountable for the quality of their leadership.
The bottom line is this: If we are serious about eliminating long - standing academic achievement gaps and improving learning for all students, we can not ignore the critical role of school
district central offices in improving educational outcomes for all students.
Fully 80 percent of superintendents follow a career path that leads from teacher, to principal, to superintendent, with two - thirds serving in
the district central office en route (Glass, Bjork, & Brunner, 2000, as cited in Orr, 2002).
Summer hours for the Syracuse City School
District Central Office (725 Harrison St.) will be 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday - Friday.
Critics may complain that spending on school
district central offices and school building administration would be cut by only 5 % under a 5 % reduction or 7.5 % under a 10 % reduction.
It's inevitable that well - meaning people in
a district central office develop loyalties to the schools and programs they are working to improve.
DL2 supports school
district central offices to develop the leadership of all staff in service of educational equity for each and every student.
Her recent publications address how school
district central offices can fundamentally transform how they work to support districtwide teaching and learning improvement.
Although neither their job descriptions nor their backgrounds had prepared them for this role, the assistant principals became a learning community with encouragement from the principal and a combination of training and coaching from
the district central office.
And, in Dr. Honig's view,» It represents nothing short of a transformation of longstanding ways of doing business in many school
district central offices.»
In the summer of 2008,
our district central office declared that it was the season for curriculum renewal for reading and language arts.
This website contains links to a number of sample project - based learning documents from teacher - powered schools (High Marq, Valley New, and Wildlands), including project checklists, justification guides, reflection guides for students, and spreadsheets for reporting students» credits to
district central offices.
District central offices as learning organizations: How sociocultural and organizational learning theories elaborate district central office administrators» participation in teaching and learning improvement efforts.
«Since the contract would be void, the District could wind up with a half finished DCO (
district central office) and an injunction barring it from paying for the completion of the project.