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Three Associations and LEAD Seek Stronger Alliances
At their recent board meetings, NDASA, NDASSP, and NDAESP heard and endorsed a proposal aimed at expanding and improving the leadership development opportunities for school leaders in North Dakota. The plan also will strengthen alliances between the three administrator associations and the LEAD Center. Here’s how the plan will work. Regional representatives of the associations will assume greater responsibility for fostering professional development within their regions and acting as liaisons between LEAD and their regions. They will help determine regional needs and interests for professional development and help coordinate and schedule programs to meet those needs and interests. LEAD will continue producing professional development programs but will have many more partners fostering its mission of "developing excellent school leaders." The plan seeks to achieve the following desired results:
	School leaders will have more options and opportunities to participate in professional development programs. New professional development options are being considered, which will address the changing complexity of school leadership.
	Professional development will be more accessible. Some statewide program offerings will continue. However, more emphasis will be placed on regional program offerings in order to reduce travel costs and time away from the job.
	Professional development will be customized to meet needs and interests. Regional representatives will help determine professional development topics that address needs, dates that minimize calendar conflicts, delivery schedules that fit, and locations that are convenient yet conducive to learning.
	Opportunities will be created for business and school leaders to collaborate in professional development efforts. Although some professional development is "school specific," many leadership training components are universal and appeal to school and business/community leaders alike. This part of the plan also aligns well with the Governor's vision of greater collaboration and leadership development in the state.
	The status of schools, schools’ leaders, and the professional associations will be enhanced by modeling a "green and growing" philosophy.
	Existing talents and organizational structures will be utilized and new bureaucracies avoided.
Several new professional development options are under consideration.
	Peer Mentoring and Coaching (see related article)
	Principle Centered Leadership – An expansion of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. The Seven Habits focus is on personal effectiveness and balance from the inside out. Principle Centered Leadership focuses on applying the Seven Habits at the organizational level.
	Marketing Yourself – Strategies and best practices for writing resumes, interviewing, and presenting oneself.
	Personal Profile and Professional Development Planning – Through programs like the Leadership Early Assessment Program, the LEAD Center has successfully worked with beginning administrators to identify their leadership strengths and problem areas as a baseline for professional development planning. No such services are available for more experienced practitioners, however. Ideas under consideration include using confidential profiling instruments to provide information for personal development planning.
	Creative Thinking and Problem Solving – Some people seem to be naturally creative. However, creativity also is a process skill that can be learned. One such process is Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, which capitalizes on natural talents and channels a group’s energy toward problem solving.
	Strategic Planning – Strategies and group processes for facilitating effective strategic planning.
	Listening – At least half of good communication is listening. Most people have had formal training in other aspects of communication such as speaking and writing, but not listening.
Peer Mentoring Breaks Isolation
"This was really a good experience. We have meetings all the time, but we never have the time or the structure to really discuss problems in any depth," said a superintendent recently after participating in a process called peer mentoring. The process was introduced to the southwest region NDASA this spring after several members of that group had participated in LEAD’s Mentoring and Coaching program. Typically, mentoring involves matching a beginning administrator with one or more senior administrators. However, during one of the formal training sessions, the power of peer mentoring was discovered while participants practiced their mentoring and coaching skills on each other while listening to their colleagues present "real" situations and problems. Someone suggested this same process might be beneficial for all practitioners in the field and recommended a pilot with one of the regional administrators groups. Upon hearing such a proposal, the southwest superintendents eagerly volunteered to experiment with peer mentoring at their spring meeting. Members received a "reflective review" form asking them to identify a problem or situation they would like to discuss with their colleagues and receive feedback. A series of questions served to help clarify the problem and the underlying issues and concerns. During the meeting, the group heard highlights of listening and coaching fundamentals, then divided into groups of three or four to present their situations and receive feedback and ideas for possible solutions. After several hours the group reconvened to debrief their experience. Most spoke of the isolation they feel in their jobs and the fact that they rarely have opportunities, such as this, to talk about problems in any depth. Some spoke of developing stronger relationships with people that they hadn’t previously known very well. Others mentioned that they already had ideas for solving their particular problem, but the process affirmed their thinking and sometimes helped them gain new insights or a fresh perspective. The consensus of the group was that the process was beneficial, and peer mentoring will be added to the group’s meeting agenda at least once or twice a year. Peer mentoring is one of the professional development options available to the regional superintendent or principal association groups.
Selecting and Developing the 21st Century Principal
School Leaders from North Dakota and Minnesota recently completed an intensive two-day assessor re-training session for the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) latest assessment center process titled, Selecting and Developing the 21st Century Principal. Assessment centers are events designed to generate information useful in selecting and developing school leaders. Participants perform a series of activities that simulate the tasks of a school principal. In some of the activities they work alone while in others they work in groups. A staff of experienced educational leaders, who have been specially trained in the process, observe and analyze participants’ work to determine the level of skill demonstrated in areas identified as critical for success in the principalship. Selecting and Developing the 21st Century Principal is being considered as a possible "authentic performance assessment" for aspiring school leaders who are completing their graduate programs. The process also may be used by districts as an additional source of information in making principal selection and placement decisions. A pilot 21st Century Principal assessment center will take place in Bismarck and Fargo in June for a group of educators who completed Educational Leadership graduate programs this spring.