Next Thursday, we will hear from two assistant principals: Tamera Moore from North Chatham K-8 in Chatham County, and Lutashia Dove from Ballentine Elementary in Wake County. Both Tamera and Lutashia completed their MSA last year at UNC. They will be joining us to speak about school improvement, the internship experience, the transition into administration, the job application process, and anything else you're interested in discussing.
Prior to next Thursday's class, please post any questions that you have for Tamera and Lutashia so that they can prepare to focus on your interests. After we are done with the panel discussion, the remainder of class will be a work session for you to prepare your school improvement plan presentations. Please bring any materials or resources you will need, and I will be available to answer any questions as you work on your presentations.
17 comments:
I would like to know about the application process. Do you wait until the spring or can you complete the application at any point?
Also, is it harder to receive an administration position with an add-on license versus going through the regular process?
Another question: How did you decide on your current school to be an assistance principal? I do not know if I want to be at a large or small school, a school that is predominantly white or minority, etc. (I really do not have a preference.) Therefore, what criteria did you use?
Are you currently working in the same school or district in which you taught? If so, have you found it difficult to work with colleagues in a different capacity?
Tamera and Lutashia, did either of you split your MSA internship between elementary and middle school? If so, can you talk about that experience. If you had it to do over again, would you still split your internship between two schools?
Tamera, why did you choose to apply for a job at a K-8 school rather than the more common elementary or middle school setting?
Thanks for coming and answering questions. I am full of them! I would like to know if most of the learning you did as an intern was due simply to the experience of being an administrator or was it due to the explicit teaching/modeling of your prinipal mentor? In other words, how important is the choice of the mentor ?
Also, what are your hours as an AP?
HOw many positions did you apply for?
Do you plan to stay where you are next year? Why or why not?
Tamera, North Chatham is one of the schools I was considering for an internship site, so I would definitely like to know it that would be a good internship site which maybe you could talk to me about at the break on Thurs?
Lutashia, if you know anything about how the year round calendar works from an administrative standpoint, I would be interested in that as well.
Thanks again.
Thanks for taking time out of your hectic schedules to speak to us. A couple of questions...
1. Have you found strategies to balance your responsibilities to your school with responsibilities to your family/life outside your job? What are they?
2. Do you miss being in the classroom? Are you able to keep your hand in classroom instruction at all? We have learned that effective school leaders cannot look at things solely through a teacher's lens. To what degree do you still consider yourself a teacher?
I'm looking forward to meeting you on Thursday.
Thank you both for coming to elighten us as we delve into this career. I have a few questions:
1. What responsibilites should we, as interns next year, expect to be given?
2. What do you do if your principal/mentor is giving you only menial tasks and you feel that your experience as an intern is being hampered by their control?
3. When conducting unscheduled observations, how do you decide what to look for and what guides your post-conference discussion(being that the teacher did not guide you to the data collection source).
4. Do you recommend interning in a district outside where you previously taught for the experience?
5. Would you be more likely to hire someone who had successfully completed an internship within your district or who went outside your district, and why?
Thanks!
Did you use any particular strategies for getting to know your staff and building relationships with individuals/teams?
What role did you play as an intern? Meaning, what were you in charge of at your school during the internship?
If you are the AP at the same school you completed your internship, what are things like now? Has your role changed?
Tamera and Lutashia,
I feel that many of the questions I wanted to ask have been asked by my classmates.
I am eager to hear about your experiences leaving the classroom and how they compare to your experiences as an administrator.
Furthermore, how has your mentor or principal been able to assist you in this transition?
Tamera and Lutashia,
We recently read a case study on "Lounge Talk." What has been your experiences regarding you abilities to be an administrator? While in school did any of your former teachers begin such conversation on your abilities or inabilities to be an effective administrator.
Thank you for time and I look forward to meeting you both,
v/r
Sharon C
I would like to know if it is possible to function as an assistant principal without the majority of your time being taken up with "administrivia" (e.g., keeping track of textbooks, planning for graduation, coordinating the testing calendar, checking off bus arrivals, etc.). In other words, is it possible to spend the majority of your time as an A.P. doing things that could not be done by a secretary?
I would like to thank you both for taking the time to come and answer our questions. I read through the previous post and will try not to duplicate, but I do have many of the same questions.
1. Did either of you intern at a year-round school? If so, what challenges did you face with the differences in schedules? Did you work through the intercessions?
2. Thinking about yourself and your former classmates, do most graduates find jobs in the counties that they worked (prior to entering the program)?
Ms. Moore and Ms. Dove,
Thanks for taking the time to come visit our class! Ms. Moore-I taught at NCS for 5 years! In fact, I have an interview scheduled with you for this Friday! I'm looking forward to meeting you both.
Here are my questions:
What would your biggest piece of advise be for us as we prepare for our internships?
How did you go about choosing your internship school? What can we do to get the most out of that experience?
Thanks!
Jennifer H.
Two other questions I have are:
1) Why did you decide to leave the classroom (if you were previously a teacher) in order to go into school administration?
2) Where do you see your career trajectory taking you?
What has been your greatest challenge so far?
What has been your most rewarding experience so far?
How much of your job deals with student disciplne?
Have you had any experiences dealing with difficult teachers? What were they?
Thanks again. Hope you can stay a long time!
Have either of you been placed in a situation (during your internship or position as an AP) where you were challenged ethically. If so, how did you respond? Looking back, would you make the same decision again!
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