Comments on: Principal evaluation time

By: Adele

Adele — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:43:39 +0000

Training is everything if you want to be a knowledgeable and effective an LSC member. Contact Designs for Change, an excellent non-profit that offer wonderful training. Also, get to a monthly Board of Ed meeting to find out how parents, LSC members, and teachers with problems can address the Board and Ron Huberman directly and for the public record.

By: Mayfair Dad

Mayfair Dad — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:31:24 +0000

I, too, proudly serve on our neighborhood elementary school’s LSC. I am a community rep now that my kids are attending school elsewhere. A few ideas you might find helpful:

1.) Your CAO – Chief Area Officer – has a much firmer handle on what goes on in your school than you think. Most principals find the seemingly endless reporting they are required to do onerous, but this is one tool the CAO uses to monitor your school’s progress.

2.) Your monthly Principal’s Report given at the LSC meeting should mirror the items he/she is being evaluated against. These priorities are driven by your SIPAAA. The CAO receives the same monthly report.

3.) You may want to consider bringing in the regional LSC liaison to an upcoming LSC Meeting for a refresher course on principal evaluation. You can go into closed session for this.

4.) The monthly LSC Meeting is not the venue to discuss fundraising, teacher grievances, which kid used the f-word in the lunchroom, etc. All of the rough-and-tumble debate and robust exchange of ideas happens at the committee level. The purview of the LSC is clearly defined, and evaluating prinipal effectiveness is a big part of the job.

5.) Invite the CAO to your next LSC Meeting. You don’t need to ask anyone’s permission to do this. They are a valuable resource – use them.

Selecting and retaining a great principal is the single most important thing you can do to improve a school. Period.

By: cpsobsessed

cpsobsessed — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 02:30:42 +0000

Thanks Julia. I would love for my whole LSC to attend a meeting like that. I think they would be unable to process it. And that is part of what the contentiousness arose from. You probably need half (or better, a majority) on the LSC to make it happen. When there’s just a couple it gets tiresome to make the fight.

By: RL Julia

RL Julia — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:00:26 +0000

Went through the principal hiring process a few year’s ago with a completely different experience. Worked pretty closely with the Area Office and the AIO (and what seemed at the time with about another million people).

I cordially invite you to attend one of my kid’s school LSC meetings to see the level of well, trust and disclosure that can happen with an LSC. At its worst the LSC is a pretty and manipulatable rubber stamp. At its best it cen support the different interests of the school, open lines of communication and facilitate communication between different entities.

By: cpsobsessed

cpsobsessed — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:59:38 +0000

You have to go to maybe 8 training sessions. Many are run by CPS and are fairly torturously boring (although from the discussions I heard some shocking stories about issues with principals at other schools!)
Personally, I don’t think the class-taking is seriously enforced, unfortunately. I think they could cram the basics into one 2-hour session. And SO much of it is about how to run a meeting on the standard rules that need to be followed.
There is also a group called PURE who runs rogue training sessions. They are very much into Parent-Power and the classes are highly engaging (but they do count for credit!)

By: hopeful

hopeful — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:51:34 +0000

How much training did you have to go to in order to be on the LSC? I thought I remember a time when members had to go to something like 20 hours of training to be on it. I at one time was interested in being on an LSC but the thought of that much extra time was prohibitive to me. Just curious!
Anyways, thank you for your work on your local LSC…..schools can’t run without them! Plus they serve as some form of control for principals who often need it.