Susie Sirman

What does this look like in practice?

• I attend mass regularly with my family
• I have served on Celebrations Team for ten years
• I include faith-based topics throughout all courses included religious-themed artwork, and topics such as bioethics and care for creation

Understanding & responding to the larger societal context

Here, a leader understands the world outside the school and how it affects the school community. This requires keeping abreast of local to global issues affecting education, and advocating for the community's support.

Managing school operations and resources

Developing and facilitating leadership

What does this look like in practice?

In this dimension, a leader ensures a safe & caring learning environment. The leader manages the human, physical and financial resources of the school.

• involved with the 'train the trainer' model of bringing about new initiatives, including the myECSD portal, the High School Redesign project, and most recently, Transform

In this dimension, a leader identifies staff and students who are capable of themselves becoming leaders, and enables & empowers them to do so. This is accomplished through open dialogue, strong team building and willingness to mentor teachers.

• being a mentor teacher to pre-service and beginning teachers

• facilitating professional development sessions for teachers on ed.tech, virtual classrooms, Flex schools, project-based learning, solution fluency and more

And in the community

In the classroom...

For the school...

Artifacts

The artifacts I chose to include for this dimension are all related to the work I have done in my school with the District's Transform initiative.

I included several artifacts to highlight my work with a number of different levels of stakeholders:

• students - a project I developed using the 6 Ds of Solution Fluency
• teachers - some of the resources created for a school-wide PD session
• outside community - a presentation delivered to substitute teachers on the Transform project

Leading a learning community

• nurtures a school culture of learning
• promotes and models life-long learning
• promotes and facilitates meaningful professional development
• facilitates meaningful parental involvement

Embodying visionary leadership

Fostering effective relationships

In this dimension, a leader engages the school community to create and implement a vision, and commit to meaningful improvement. The leader inspires innovation and growth by celebrating accomplishments.

What does this look like in practice?

In this dimension, a leader builds positive working relationships by being an effective communicator and problem-solver. The leader promotes the Catholic values of fairness, dignity and integrity.

• Lead teacher for the Transform initiative

• teacher representative on District's steering Committee for Transform

• developed a Display of Teaching among staff to enable us to collaborate on project-based learning and celebrate the shift in approach our school has made

What does this look like in practice?

• working with students in Art that have severe special needs & designing projects for them that allow them to fully participate

• enabling students to work in partnership with students with special needs

• developing projects for students that take the audience outside of the classroom, and allow them to collaborate with students from different classes and disciplines

• developing common Virtual Classrooms within departments to facilitate and promote collaboration

Committing to live the Gospel teachings

In this dimension, a leader demonstrates a commitment to foster, develop, celebrate and permeate the faith. The leader acts with moral and ethical integrity and lives the Gospel teachings not just in what they teach, but how they teach.

Providing instructional leadership

In this dimension, a leader works to ensure all students have access to appropriate, and high-quality learning opportunities, as well as fair assessment of that learning. The leader recognizes the potential of new and emerging technologies and implements them in meaningful ways.

What does this look like in practice?

• a 100% success rate (in students meeting Acceptable Standard) in Science 30 over 12 semesters

• involvement with the development of Science 30 diploma exams

• initiation & development of a new Science Academy course

• working as the Tech Mentor for the largest staff in the district

• spearheading the Virtual Classroom initiative within the school and across the district.

• an Excellence in Teaching Award (2010)

• working with High School Redesign team from the inception of the High School Flexibility Project

Susie Sirman

Demonstrating the Dimensions of Catholic Leadership

Leading a learning community

In this dimension, a leader feeds a school culture of life-long learning, by modeling it oneself, and by creating an atmosphere of high expectations for students & teachers.