Maureen Lonergan

Unit 4 Reflection

Unit 4 has challenged me to examine my schools brand new evaluation and

compensation system. This critical analysis and reflection after reading several of
the articles helped me identify some strengths of our system and some weaknesses
that I would work on as an administrator. Also, I want to bring the idea of growing
leadership into my role as an administrator.
Our school started looking into evaluation and compensation improvements
well over three years ago. The Board and administrative team were seeking to find
ways to better reward teachers for their contributions to the school- both academic
and cultural contributions. In order to organize and carry out this big change, we
hired a consultant. This is where I would have used some of the advice and wisdom
from several of the articles. When we hired a consultant, many teachers felt that
their input was not counted or valued. Instead, the consultant became the final
word in what to do. Teachers felt that this was condescending. After reading the
articles and reading my peers responses to the case study, I recognized how
important it is to not just ask for, but listen to and value, teacher input and
conversation. After years of planning and now implementation, I feel that our
school could have gone through the changes with less angst if teachers had been
included more authentically throughout the whole process. I recognize that the role
of an administrator is to be a lead teacher, not just a king/queen decision maker.
There was an article that mentioned the collective wisdom of a community. I hear
my principal use this phrase frequently, but now I truly recognize the importance of
listening and valuing wisdom from teachers. The end result of our years of
consultant work, planning, and implementation does have some strengths. For one,
in order to improve compensation, the Board and Admin team recognized the need

for authentic and fair evaluation. Therefore, our evaluation system is GREATLY
improved. When I become an administrator, I will seek to implement a system at
least like the one that we currently use. Currently, all teachers are observed a total
of six times per year by an Admin team member and their department chair- four
15-min walk throughs and two full period observations. The department chairs are
given an extra course release in order to handle all of the observations. Prior to this
system, only non-tenured teachers were observed each year, and tenured teachers
were only observed once every three years! I see only benefits from improving our
evaluation expectations and classroom observations. I learned from the readings
and discussions that our system was gravely outdated before and teaching and
learning can only improve when there is an authentic and meaningful system to
help teachers grow!
My other take home point of Unit 4 was an idea mentioned in the last weeks
readings. It mentioned that leaders grow leadership. I like this concept from a
practical and personal perspective. Growing leadership makes a school work more
effectively toward goals, which is practical and can help a leader delegate
responsibility. In addition, growing leadership builds trust and investment to the
mission of the school. I feel that my school, and its leadership, grows leaders. In
fact, we joke that Saint Ignatius is a principal grower! There are four principals in
the Chicagoland area (that I can think of) who worked as assistant principals or
department chairs at Saint Ignatius before stepping into principal positions at other
Catholic high schools. I feel it is a sign of a high functioning school when the
schools leadership can foster and grow teacher leaders. I want to be able to do this
as a principal. It will be important to me to foster a community of learners that is
always growing.

Unit 4 was a full circle capstone in the human resources department. I felt it
brought together themes from this class and from the summer courses in
Instructional Leadership and School Culture.