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Monday, January 25, 2016

Appreciating Dr. Tulbert's 'Gutsy' Post

"What is it like being designated as a low performing school?" by Dr. Carrie Tulbert

Many of you reading this blog post know Carrie Tulbert, either professionally or personally.

If you don't know Carrie Tulbert, she was the 2014 Wells Fargo North Carolina Principal of the Year. This past summer, to the surprise of many, she made the decision to accept the Principal position at Concord Middle School in Cabarrus County, becoming the fourth principal in five years.  She has previously served as Principal of Mooresville Middle School in the Mooresville Graded School System.

One thing is for sure: You have to RESPECT her guts in her recent blog post.

Carrie is an invaluable resource and a key member of my Professional Learning Network.  We co-moderated an #ncadmin chat at the beginning of this school-year titled "Leadership Best Practices in a New School", along with Derek McCoy, as we all transitioned to a new school (and district) this summer.

All of our situations were very different and unique to our respective schools, districts, and communities; yet, we all shared the common transitions and challenges of leading a different school.

As North Carolina administrators, we get to handle the respective "designations" assigned by legislators and public officials through the NC School Report Cards, an ever-evolving process of letter grades being assigned to every public school throughout the state, which includes information ranging from teacher-qualification, percentages of students by achievement level, to SAT performance for us high school folks.

Directly from the Department of Public Instruction:

Every traditional and public charter school receives an A-F letter grade based 80 percent on the school's achievement score (calculated using a composite method based on the sum of points earned by a school on all of the indicators measured for that school), and 20 percent on students' academic growth (compares the actual performance of the school's students to their expected performance based on their prior testing performance).

Whether the "grade" is positive or negative, school leaders are required to answer the appropriate questions by all stakeholders, resulting from the information shared during these reports.  These conversations are critical, but can also be very challenging.

I applaud Dr. Tulbert for her transparency, honesty, and thoughtfulness through her post.
Thanks for viewing,

CS

The opinions shared in this blog belong to Craig Smith and do not represent the school or district in which he works.

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