Competency Review - End of Program

As I compared my previous responses from September to my current responses in April to the superintendent competencies, I was pleased to see that I had improved significantly.  The large majority of my responses were considered strengths.  Specifically, Competencies 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 10 all were areas in which I scored myself to be all strengths.

Most of the remaining competencies were scored mostly strengths, with a few competent and very few needs improvement.  Competency 8 is the only competency area in which there remains significant work to be done. 

Within Competency 8, the primary driver (for improvement) seems to be a lack of “on the job” type of experience.  To date in my career, I still have very limited experiences in working directly with Board members, working with the budget (on the district level), and most of the other “district level” activities within the competency.

Overall, I am very pleased with my progress since September.  I have gained greater insight into the role of the superintendent and have more confidence in my abilities to function in a leadership role at the district level.

The following is a summary of my findings:

Strengths

My strengths largely tended to lie in areas related to student advocacy, technology, communication, curriculum & instruction, legal issues, and culture.  Those areas are where I have spent the majority of my teaching / campus administrative time. It is possible that I have overestimated my strengths, but when compared to some of the other areas we explored in this exercise; I believe the assessment is true.

Competent

The remainder of my responses was mostly skewed toward competent.  The areas in which I marked competent primarily consisted of campus level skills and legal issues.  As stated above, much of my experience lies in C & I, legal issues, classroom pedagogy, and personnel management. The common delineator for me was the level at which the activity related.  If my experience did not include district level experience, I marked it as competent.  Areas of competency include community outreach and communication, partnerships within the community, defining leadership roles with the Board, communications with the Board, and establishing extracurricular programs.

Needs Improvement

The area in which I showed the greatest amount of improvement was within the needs improvement area.  My experiences during the course of study have greatly decreased the number of “I” responses.  My responses within this category centered upon communication and influencing the media and budget planning for a new facility (or renovation, etc.).  These are areas in which I believe actual training and experience will best occur on the job.  I will likely seek media communication training to prepare me for that type of role.