Servant-Leadership

As a servant leader, building a sense of community among the administration, teachers, staff, and the board as one team supporting all students is vital to the health of our institution.

As a servant leader, I posit myself to serve first and then lead towards accomplishing tasks. The focal point of my work is to support the needs presented in a collaborative approach. Our student populations stem from varied ethnic backgrounds. An equitable system is essential to care for all.

In serving, I will endeavor to

• Work towards the creation of an equitably shared vision

• Promote a healthy culture within the school district.

• Pursue ethical and fair standards.

• Uphold accountability

Solution-Oriented

My path to being solution-oriented is by creating collaborative solutions.

In crises, we all have opinions, but in reality, not all opinions render themselves to solutions.

Conflict Resolution Commission

Miscommunication often stems from cognitive dissonance. To address this, we promote the understanding of diverse perspectives, allowing individuals to express their lived experiences. These understandings do not diminish the value of individual viewpoints. As a "body," we stand united in our support for ideals that care for all of humanity equitably. While we may have disagreements, we're all committed to the same goal of upholding humanness. Yes, criticism will often be thrown at us, sometimes as wrecking balls, but let’s ignore the intended gaslighting and look within it, the pearls of constructiveness that the criticism may hold to help us further the vision toward equitable and fair outcomes, protecting the crucible holding humanity!

Practical Steps to Consensus Building: I use an approach I've named "The Lists " to factor in all voices. "The List" comprises the "Opinion entry" and the "Topic category" Catalog.

The “opinion entry” was simply the summary of the suggested information received from all individuals willing to lend their voices and those of expert opinions in the field. The “topic-category catalog” is then generated for each proposed solution, incorporating all inputs, including the voices of the silent, dominant, minority, and majority groups. These voices received equal weight, followed by the pros and cons for each item on the “opinion entry” from

• silent voices,

• dominant voices,

• minority voices,

• majority voices.

The final step is consensus-building. Although everyone can have an opinion, realistically, not all ideas can lead to a solution. However, the process provided a consensus that included elements of suggested views from the diverse inputs provided. This seemingly laborious process was essential in demonstrating transparency and promoting equitable solutions.

Consensus-building Process: Clearly define the specific problem by clearly delineating compounded problems into separate ones. Each individual presents their viewpoints.

Each viewpoint receives equal weight. Intentionally encapsulate all the pros and cons within the deliberation process for each presented perspective. Reconnect the list of pros and cons as solution points to the identified and delineated problem. Complete dialogue by gleaning the elements that lend to an equitable solution to the problem. Land on an ethical and honest decision made by consensus building.

Viewpoints

As a board member, working with all stakeholders to accomplish the primary work of providing all of our students with a holistic education will remain front and center. Below are some thoughts I have on some questions below

What are some reasons for seeking election, and issues that motivates you to serve on the Board of Education?motivate

• Curriculum design by integration

• To serve our student body holistically

• Decision-making is approached equitably.

• Cohesive integration and increased stability of hired Superintendents

What leadership skill set would you offer to benefit service on the board

• I am a mobilizer and an active community participant.

• My decision-making skills are about creating collaborative solutions.

• I am a value integrator and not in an overpowering approach of dominance.

• I have a keen eye for recognizing and an ear for hearing the input of silent voices.

• I have managerial and leadership skills that bring redirection and focus to tasks.

What qualities would you look for in hiring the next Superintendent of schools?

• Listener

• Visionary

• Integrator

• Collaborator

• Ethically firm

• Communicative

• Interpersonal skills

• Most importantly, I am committed to students.

What proposals would you recommend to help oversee the implementation and accomplishments of district goals and policies?

• Outcome monitoring - Review desired results of program achievement.

• Budget development – Integrate evidence of value into budget and policy decisions

• Implementation oversight – Scrutinize the effective delivery process of established programs.

• Perform targeted evaluation - Thoroughly evaluate programs that lack in their productivity

• Program assessment – Holistic measuring elements to assess evidence of program effectiveness

What is your take on ways to improve student achievements, engagements as community citizens, and overall development of life skills?

• Strengthen education leadership to improve student achievement;

• Interschool partnership projects to increase diverse interactions with other ethnic groups

• DIY skill developments as extracurricular initiatives, and provide or recommend paid internships

• Improve out-of-school learning by collaborating with the community via the library and the youth council.

• Increase ethnic diversity in the curriculum to allow all students to have a space to learn about themselves.

To enrich college readiness for all students, what are your recommendations besides the high-impact learning that utilizes traditional teaching methods?

• Introduce Pre-concept and Blended Learning: Pre-work is included in homework assignments to familiarize oneself with novel concepts before face-to-face instruction. The process prepares the brain to become more receptive to newly taught content. Following face-to-face instruction, students absorb course content outside of class—through lecture videos or online activities —and then use classroom time to reinforce their understanding of content.

• Institute Adaptive learning for personalized education: Incorporate adaptive learning technology to tailor learning to a student's current level of mastery, anticipating what content and resources each student needs at each point in their learning process for each course

• Accommodate Competency-based education: Allow for learning at student pace and measure attainment through demonstrated proficiency.

In what ways would you suggest improvement toward Special Education programs for adequate student support and success?

This question, amongst many others, is quite close to home.

• Inclusiveness leads to normalizing students in special education with everybody else in the school.

• Equitable resources that will enhance learning, apart from those of the general education setting

• A drastic approach to improve literacy by;

  • Skill training toward implementation techniques

  • Instructional tools to augment established Program design

  • Data-driven implementation in structuring programs and instruction to improve students in Special Ed

What is your take on the Budget?

• Streamline expenditure processes

• Explore ways to increase revenue outside of tax increases.

• Employ benchmarking data to determine cost-effective measures.

• Identify instructional goals aligned with clearly defined spending strategies.

• Mapping out and aligning deliberate connections between business and education services

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Additional Sources

Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative. (2014). Evidence-based policymaking: A guide for effective government. Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts.

De Bruin, L. (2014). Budget control and monitoring challenges for school governing bodies (Doctoral dissertation, North-West University).