The Alberta Teachers’ Association

The Alberta Teachers’ Association is the driving force for professional development for school leaders in this province. We welcome standards that appropriately describe principals’ important role in Alberta’s collegial school environments, and we routinely collaborate with all stakeholders, including Alberta Education, to support principals in their development as leaders. Principals appreciate the support they receive from the Alberta Teachers’ Association, and more than 1,300 school and district leaders choose to be members of the Council for School Leadership—an ATA specialist council that provides professional development in to school leaders. This article highlights some of the many efforts the Association has undertaken to support principals in their development as school leaders, including pushing for quality standards.

For the last decade the Association has been working with Alberta Education and other education partners to develop provincial standards for school administrators. The Alberta Commission on Learning (ACOL) 2003 Report Every Child Learns, Every Child Succeeds included a recommendation to “develop a  Principal Quality Practice standard and to identify the knowledge, skills and attributes required of principals.” The following year Alberta Education formed a stakeholder advisory committee, which included representation from the Association and other education partners, to undertake the development of standards for principals. This committee developed a comprehensive draft document and sent it to all school board chairs, superintendents, principals, school council chairs and stakeholder groups for their review and comments. As well, the general public was given the opportunity to respond via regional focus groups held across the province and through the Alberta Education website. In 2009, then Education Minister Hancock released the Principal Quality Practice Guideline for voluntary implementation and announced that the School Leadership Framework was in development to support and “promote its future use as a provincial requirement” (Alberta Education 2009). One of the stated goals (2.4) in Alberta Education’s February, 2011 Annual Business Plan (signed by then Education Minister Hancock) was to “implement the School Leadership Framework.” Despite this and the fact that the Stakeholder Advisory Committee completed the School Leadership Framework in 2011 after a long, mindful and very deliberate process involving the Association, Alberta Education and a broad spectrum of other education partners, it has still not been released by Education Minister Johnson. With the recent release of Minister Johnson’s task force recommendations, it appears that the minister had no intentions of approving the framework that was prepared for him two years ago. Notwithstanding this, the Association has adopted the Principal Quality Practice Guideline as the standard for school leaders and collaborated with school jurisdictions and school administrators across the province on initiatives to support the leadership development, professional growth and evaluation of school administrators.

Recognizing that school leadership plays a crucial role in fostering student learning, the Alberta Teachers’ Association, Livingstone Range Local No14 and Livingstone Range School Division No 68 (LRSD) formed a steering committee in 2007 that undertook a collaborative project developing policies and procedures for the professional growth, supervision and evaluation of school principals. At the completion of the two-year project, the LRSD steering committee had developed and field-tested new jurisdiction evaluation procedures and performance rubrics for each of the seven leadership dimensions in the Principal Quality Practice Guideline. The evaluation procedures provide for a fair, transparent and equitable evaluation process where the superintendent (evaluator) applies reasoned, evidence-based professional judgement. The performance rubrics align with the provincial leadership dimensions and list “required” and “optional” sources of evidence for the evaluation. The rubrics have a four-point rating scale: Excellent, Proficient, Adequate (meets the standard) and Limited (does not meet the standard). Each of the ratings includes descriptive language specific to the evidence suggested for that dimension.

The LRSD evaluation procedures require a minimum of three meetings between the principal and superintendent. The first meeting, held early in the school year, results in an evaluation plan that outlines which leadership dimensions will be included in the evaluation and how the evidence will be gathered through the year by the principal and the superintendent. The evaluation plan is very important to the process because it provides flexibility to address different school and career contexts. The superintendent and principal have an interim meeting midway through the school year to examine the evidence gathered to date and discuss strengths and weaknesses. This meeting is formative, and the school principal uses this feedback to continue to improve his or her practice. Near the end of the school year the superintendent and principal meet to examine the evidence that has been compiled and, using the rubrics, determine the ratings for the summative evaluation report. An independent evaluator interviewed the principals involved in the field test of the new evaluation procedures and rubrics to determine the success of the field test, and their feedback was overwhelmingly positive. This project is reported in Evaluating the School Principal: A Professional Model for Enhancing the Leadership Practices of Alberta’s School Administrators (ATA 2010).

Based on the success of this project, LRSD collaborated with the Association in 2011 to develop a system for evaluating its assistant principals that would support the continuous growth and development of every school leader. This project’s steering committee recognized early on that the assistant principal role is diverse and highly contextual. The role description, duties, time provided for administrative duties (including a teaching assignment), level of decision making and accountability varied widely across schools within the district. One assistant principal summed it up by saying, “I’m busy all the time, but I don’t know what I am responsible and accountable for.” The committee’s response to this challenge was to require that every assistant principal, in collaboration with the principal, develop an annual profile that outlines the leadership dimensions and corresponding duties that comprise their leadership role in the school.

This annual profile must be completed and filed with the superintendent by September 30 each year. The assistant principal’s profile is then used to determine areas for professional growth and the scope of an evaluation, when necessary. This requirement ensures the leadership evaluation is limited to the specific leadership dimensions that apply to the assistant principal’s role in that year. Once the profile was developed, the steering committee then developed a jurisdiction policy for assistant principal growth, supervision and evaluation, and created rubrics for the seven leadership dimensions that identified sources of evidence and evaluation criteria appropriate to the assistant principal role. It is expected that, over time, the assistant principal will have the opportunity to develop competency in all seven leadership dimensions documented in their annual profiles.

In the fall of 2009, the Black Gold Regional Division (BGRD) No 18 and the Association collaborated on a project to encourage a leadership culture in the jurisdiction and develop a framework for administrator professional growth based on the Principal Quality Practice Guideline. As with most jurisdictions in Alberta, the Black Gold Regional Division uses its strategic plan and annual education plan priorities to provide the focus for the system and school administrators in their leadership practice. Early in this project the provincial descriptions for the seven dimensions of leadership were reviewed, slightly modified, and adopted as the BGRD’s expectations for school leadership. Next, all the district school administrators collaborated to develop self-reflective tools including questions and quality indicators to act as a guide for implementing jurisdiction priorities in each school. Newly developed quality indicators for each of the seven leadership dimensions define success for school administration and the implementation of the division’s education plan priorities of AISI, technology integration and inclusive student services. These self-reflection documents have become integral to the development of each administrator’s annual professional growth plan by providing a meaningful and practical focus for ongoing professional growth and leading change at the school level. This project is reported in Principal Professional Growth for Continuous Improvement: A Collaborative Project (ATA 2013).

The Association has also developed programs to support administrator professional growth using the standards set out in the Principal Quality Practice Guideline. The Leadership Essentials for Administrators (LEA) Conference is an annual conference intended to support principals and assistant principals new to their roles or new to school administration in Alberta. The program for this conference, based on the seven leadership dimensions, provides current information and practical tips for leadership success. There is no registration fee to attend LEA and a grant-in-aid is provided to offset the costs of travel and accommodation. Information about the LEA Conference is available in the ATA News and website.

Reflections on Practice is a professional development program offered by the Association that provides experienced school administrators the opportunity to engage in a meaningful learning experience focused on the standards outlined in the Principal Quality Practice Guideline. Principals in this two-year program commit to engaging in a personal action research project that incorporates professional inquiry and reflective practice. Each principal develops a personal research question applicable to his or her school context, undertakes a literature review and engages in action research. During the two years of the program, participants reflect on their professional practice as principals, question their assumptions and practices, share with their colleagues and, above all, develop professionally. At the completion of the program, the Association publishes the principals’ action research project reports to share with principals across Alberta. Reflections on Practice: Project Research Reports 2010 is a compilation of projects from a cohort of 10 principals from Edmonton Public Schools (ATA 2010).

Leader2Leader (L2L) is a two-year pilot project that evaluates the effectiveness of a structured leadership development program utilizing peer coaching with Cognitive Coaching^SM and a program of professional development. L2L is managed by the Alberta Teachers’ Association through a conditional grant from Alberta Education and is supported by a Stakeholder Advisory Committee. The pilot project aims to enhance the leadership competencies and professional self-efficacy of first-, second- and third-year Alberta school principals and support the implementation of the Principal Quality Practice standards. The program design incorporates a combination of face-to-face and technology-facilitated peer coaching sessions, professional development workshops and completion and reporting of individual professional growth projects.

A total of 23 beginning principals participated in the program and were coached by 15 experienced principals, all of whom were certified in Cognitive Coaching^SM. Together, program participants represented 23 of Alberta’s school jurisdictions. The pilot project was independently evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the coaching program and professional development workshops to support the development of professional practice standards and enhanced personal efficacy. Results showed that 100 per cent of the beginning principals and peer coaches indicated that the program had a positive impact on their leadership practice and recommended that the L2L program continue to be offered to all Alberta principals. Based on the success of the pilot project the Association is currently seeking funding to furnish the Leader2Leader program with longer-term funding to ensure its sustainability as a provincial mentorship program for beginning principals in 2014/15.

As well, the Association’s Council for School Leadership (CSL) plays a very active role in the development and delivery of quality professional learning activities that hold as their foundation the standards outlined in the Principal Quality Practice Guideline. These activities include the popular uLead conference for current and emerging school leaders, multiple workshops held throughout Alberta in the five geographical regions of the CSL and two upcoming Cognitive Coaching^SM programs (in Calgary and Edmonton) for Alberta school leaders this fall. The CSL supports action research projects that connect Alberta school leaders with one another and with principals and teachers in other high-performing jurisdictions in Canada and abroad. Last April, the CSL hosted the Canadian Association of Principals’ Conference at the Banff Springs Hotel bringing together more than 800 school and district leaders from around the world. That event was described by the president of the Canadian Association of Principals as the “most successful national conference CAP has ever had.” Alberta school principals and assistant principals are active contributors of courses and professional learning materials to the new iTunes site of the CSL, with many new resources being made available this month to their colleagues in Alberta and around the world.

In 2003, the Alberta Commission on Learning envisioned a provincial Principal Quality Practice standard that outlined the knowledge, skills and attributes for successful school leadership. This standard would then form the basis for recruiting principals, preparing school principals and assessing each principal’s performance (ACOL 2003). A provincial standard would also provide the public with an assurance that all school administrators are working to provide excellent, focused educational leadership in Alberta schools, where all students have the learning opportunities to achieve success and fulfillment, and reach their full potential. Over the last decade the Alberta Teachers’ Association has supported the development of Principal Quality Practice standards because they would ensure that all school administrators are subject to a provincial standard and are evaluated according to that standard.

The Principal Quality Practice Guideline has been a foundational document for the Association and its education partners to guide leadership development initiatives, professional development programs and policy development. The most important evidence of the impact of a provincial Principal Quality Practice standard is the feedback from school administrators who have participated in these Association initiatives. “The best thing about this initiative was that it was the first time our admin association spoke about the principalship and what effective practice looks like. We had some great dialogue. Appreciating and devoting time to administrators’ needs is important.” Another said, “This is the best PD I’ve experienced as a principal, and it’s had a tremendous impact on my leadership practice.”

References

Alberta’s Commission on Learning (ACOL). 2003. Alberta’s Commission on Learning (ACOL) Every Child Learns, Every Child Succeeds. Released October 2003. Edmonton, Alta: ACOL.

Alberta Education. 2009. Principal Quality Practice Guideline. http://education.alberta.ca/admin/resources.aspx (accessed May 20, 2014).

Alberta Teachers` Association (ATA). 2010. Evaluating the School Principal: A Professional Model for Enhancing the Leadership Practices of Alberta’s School Administrators. Edmonton, Alta: ATA.

———. 2013. Principal Professional Growth for Continuous Improvement: A Collaborative Project. Edmonton, Alta: ATA.

———. 2010. Reflections on Practice: Project Research Reports 2010. Edmonton, Alta: ATA.

Jeff Johnson is an executive staff officer with the Alberta Teachers’ Association. Prior to his current position, he was a principal with Edmonton Catholic School District and a regional president for the Council on School Leadership.

Jacquie Skytt is a retired teacher who most recently served as the Assistant Executive Secretary of the Alberta Teachers’ Association. She also served as the Coordinator of Professional Development for the ATA.