Case Study: Developing Professional Capacity

You are a continuing principal of a K-8 school, with more than 1,400 diverse students and over 100 certified and classified team members. In your second year as principal, the district received a grant from an outside agency to reform the teacher observation process. During that school year, you and your staff created the observation tool to be used to inform teachers of their progress in meeting the established expectations for classroom instruction and professional behavior.In your third year as principal, you became fully immersed in the use of the new observation tool. You and your instructional team of two assistant principals began to notice negative trends in staff scores in particular areas, namely the role of the teacher, the methods used for instruction, monitoring and adjusting the lesson, and the levels of engagement between students. As the instructional leader, you know it is your role to develop the professional capacity of staff, yet you realize that your instructional team has a great task ahead.Over time, your instructional team begins to connect student achievement to the observed needs of your teachers and to the global school community. All of your data sources begin to point to the fact that you need to strengthen the staff's theoretical model for instruction and you will need to provide professional development to support the positive instructional changes. Where do you begin? What should you do?

Part 1: Case Analysis

In five hundred words, respond to the case study by addressing the following:

1. Brief summary of the case
2. Issues to be resolved
3. Stakeholders involved in the issues
4. One or two existing laws or court rulings that relate to the issues
5. District policies that relate to the issues
6. Possible solutions to the issues
7. Solutions chosen to resolve the issues
8. Action steps (2-5) for implementing each solution, including a timeline for each step
9. Potential moral and legal consequences of each solution

Part 2: Rationale

Support the case analysis with a five hundred word rationale explaining the solutions you chose and how each solution:

• Uses data to design plans for developing the instructional capacity of faculty.
• Makes decisions that promote a culture of collaboration, trust, learning, and high expectations.
• Evaluates potential moral and legal consequences to make difficult decisions with integrity and fairness.
• Strives to build and sustain positive relationships between school representatives, students, families, and community partners, when their needs conflict.

Cite the case as well as 2-3 scholarly resources.