A project designed to develop both teachers' and administrators' skills is entering its second year in Chinook's Edge School Division, leading to a better school work environment for everyone, say officials.The Instructional Leadership Project involves the University of Lethbridge and Alberta Education getting together with all administrators plus members of the division office leadership team once a month for 90 minutes to learn how to conduct a classroom visit and have constructive conversations with a teacher both before and after the classroom visit. David Townsend and Pam Adams, professors at the U of L, lead the sessions.“We're really trying to help our teachers develop quality learning environments in every classroom and so to provide additional support to teachers as they develop their skills, we've recognized that our administrators also need to develop their skill set. They basically learn all kinds of skills as an administrator and how to be an instructional leader,” said Kurt Sacher, superintendent of schools for CESD.A member of the division administration team and one of the professors also meet with each principal throughout the division each month to follow up with them on their instructional leadership.Sacher said in the first year, the division leadership team was pleased with the school administrators and their growth.“We were very pleased with our administrators in the first year and how engaged they were and committed to the project. Our teachers have also said how they appreciate having administrators in their classrooms more often, it just seems to validate their work and they're getting more support,” he said.After division staff worked through its vision and mission processes over the past couple of years, division leaders felt more support for teachers to develop their skills was in order and so they embarked on helping administrators lend that support.“We had a small group already working with Dr. Townsend and Dr. Adams, so we thought, ‘Well, why don't we get everybody in on it' and so we made that pitch last fall,” Sacher said.Once the three-year project is over, Sacher said division staff will still be focusing on helping teachers be the best classroom aides they can be, without the partnership between the government and the U of L.Sacher said the advantage to this program over what had been done in the past is that administrators get help at their school more immediately every month.“That allows them to be in a much stronger position to support teachers in a timely fashion. So many times, people go to a conference for two days and they don't learn anything for another number of months, and they forget or they just don't follow up. With this project, it's something that's ongoing and it's embedded over time,” he said, adding that administrators get many opportunities to collaborate and learn from each other.
