What does it mean to be the Team Leader?

Hey guys,

As we get closer to the beginning of the year, I thought I'd take a moment to share my thoughts about my role this year. Let me start by saying a huge thank you to Amanda for taking the lead for the last two years. She has been a great team leader as we have transitioned from two separate grade levels to this new thing called a Learning Community. We all really appreciate your time, effort, and dedication to our team, our school, and our community.

As we move forward with our Learning Community, and the leadership structure of our school continues to evolve, the role of team leader is evolving as well. I see my role as two-fold. The first is to be the voice of our team during Leadership Meetings; to advocate for our position and bring our thoughts, voices, and concerns forward. As part of that role, I will also report back to you guys through this blog what is happening on a school level.

A second part of my role (which may be even more important) is to help push our thinking and challenging us to go above and beyond as we are pioneers on this movement toward a new paradigm in education. To this end, I will occasionally re-post information and excerpts from other education blogs and encourage you to read them and respond. We will also transform our Tuesday meetings to focus more on practice and less on paperwork.

I'm really excited about this year and all the things we have planned. As leaders in education (which includes all of us at PK) I believe we must push ourselves to be out in front of the pack. This means we should be reading and interacting with other educators invested in the re-imagining of school. There are too many excellent thinkers and educators out there writing and researching about what we are doing for us to simply make it all up on our own. I know that we all have a lot going on, and I respect everyone's need to have a life outside of our work at PK. However, I also believe that, as teachers at a Developmental Research School, we should be willing to do more than simply teach. Please know that as I push all of us to grow as thinkers, learners, and educators (just as we push the kids) I do it out of my passion for kids and education.

It is going to be a great year! :)