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School leadership is the difference maker in achieving high expectations for all students by involving all staff, parents, community, and business partnerships. Everyone employed in the school has an important role in promoting high student achievement! The principal is the leader and is ultimately responsible for everything but does not need to do or know everything! Organization, early learning, professional learning, implementation, follow-up, and feedback are critical components in building an effective school. The principal needs a strong leadership team and a very smart, dependable, and knowledgeable secretary (administrative assistant) to give leadership to the front office. Any principal without anyone other than the best in this position has a setup for failure because the major part of the job is in the classroom for the leader and not the office!
Early learning is the foundation for all future learning, and beginning in pre-k and kindergarten, educators can set the tone for student success. All children can learn to read by the end of kindergarten by utilizing the services of paraprofessionals who have received professional learning skills to reinforce instruction previously taught by the teacher! Why do we have some students in middle and high schools who can't read? The answer is obvious-the foundation was not set in the early years! Try building a house without a foundation and you will find yourself spending twice the amount of time and money doing what should have been done in the first place! Many times, when students have not been adequately prepared to enter secondary schools, they no longer have the will and motivation to learn, and this is tragic, because dropout is usually the only option.
Students need social, emotional, and other developmental skills in the early years, but it is time to emphasize instructional skills also, starting with writing, reading, listening to daily storytelling, and daily high frequency words. We can't afford to continue moving students from grade to grade, and they cannot read!
