Instructional Leadership
Sub-Competencies
- Support teachers and staff in the implementation of state academic standards, coherent systems of culturally responsive curriculum, instruction, and assessment that promote the mission, vision, and core values of the school district to embody high expectations for student learning.
- Demonstrate the ability to understand and apply districtwide literacy and lead schoolwide literacy efforts in all content areas including numeracy.
Reflections and Artifacts
Summary: This artifact was the agenda for one of our mentor meetings that took place every other month during the school year. In this meeting, we led the district mentors through the observation process aligned with both the New Teacher Center framework and Danielson’s Domains model, which our school district uses to evaluate instructional staff.
Reflection: A Principal is the instructional leader for the building they lead. It is important that instructional observations are used as a tool to develop the teaching staff within a building and to align student learning with the overall mission of the school they serve. I learned about the importance of leading intentional conversations in a pre-conference and being an effective observer in decoding the data in an active classroom during an observation.
Summary: This artifact is the roles and responsibilities section of the 2026 MCA policy manual. This represents the processes of coordination between buildings and course scheduling that the building and district assessment coordinators must complete, which, in a school district, can fall to the building administration.
Reflection: School leaders need to create an educational environment where students can learn at their best. Leaders are in charge of the operation of the entire school; as such, they must trust the expertise and experience of the staff in that building. While working with the District Assessment Coordinator to ensure that the teaching staff and testing coordination are aligned with what teachers are expecting for students. I learned that collaboration is vital to ensuring a smooth testing environment that requires coordination among so many staff members. Learning from the expertise of the teaching staff can help to illuminate the correct decision in a process.
Summary: This artifact is the agenda of the MN4AI annual thought leaders summit. This conference covers the cutting-edge uses of AI within the education space. Presenters and speakers included superintendents, technology directors, curriculum directors, as well as industry and political leaders. This conference focused on the responsibility of keeping humans at the center of all decisions.
Reflection: School leaders must be at the forefront of technology nd be able to adopt it APPROPRIATELY in order for meaningful learning to occur. This opportunity was a school/thought-leader summit focused on how school districts and non-profits are using AI in strategic educational decision-making. An important session I attended provided a robust set of prompting instructions that, when combined with assessment data, can streamline the deep analysis of different data sets that may not normally interact. There were a couple of important takeaways I had from the first day of the conference. First, AI use among students has been shown to decrease learning. When teachers use it appropriately, student learning outcomes improve. The other was a concept that helped me better understand the role of AI LLMs in educational materials; the AI serves more like an API or a translator between systems than as a standalone concept.
