Al’s Notes - RAPPS Management Team Teleconference, 11/24/08

•    Participants: Gary Whiteley, Susan Garton, Carol Kane, Kathy Blanc, Robert Ozuna, Kelly Tonsmiere and Al Smith

•    Cherie Lyons of McREL may be joining us for our next teleconference 12/8/08 to discuss the McREL role(s) with the project.

•    Susan mentioned that she has received information on the Balanced Leadership model and she believes it may the pre-post progress measurement potential.

•    The Val Ed instrument is being developed by Vanderbilt University under auspices of a Wallace Foundation Grant. It identifies six areas of leadership skill sets and is scheduled to be available this January. An initial observation is that the skill sets tested appear to be compatible with the 21 leadership responsibilities identified by McREL.

•    As for a scope of work for McREL, we envision (1) Cherie working with Susan and her team on revising the current Ed Leadership pre service curriculum, (2) Cherie helping us develop and present the Corrective Action Strand (i.e. the RAPPs Staff Development Component), and (3) Cherie possibly helping to deliver a set of webinars to begin Fall 2009.

•    Susan and Gary envision developing a series of curriculum “chunks” or “modules” that our discrete by design (i.e. stand alone)… on topics such as purposeful communities, how to build community support, etc.

•    So far, of our 18 original partner districts, we have 16 actively involved in nominating candidates for the UAA component and enrolling for the current webinar series.

•    Susan has been personally communicating with superintendents. Everyone agreed that our recent series of regional teleconferences with partner district superintendents was very beneficial and participating superintendents were very appreciative of the opportunity.

•    Susan mentioned that she has identified 13 people from our partner districts that are already enrolled in the UAA Ed Leadership program; and she has alerted their respective superintendents. Note: These people could constitute UAA Cohort #1. But, remember that even continuing students will have to be nominated by their respective superintendents in order to be accepted to the RAPPs program.

•    Gary and Carol asked about the possibility of having our RAPPs coaches assist in recruiting candidates for the UAA program from some of our partner districts. Coaches assigned to our partner districts have distributed fliers in their districts.

•    Susan mentioned that she will make sure information on the current webinar series gets to the 13 UAA students currently enrolled with the Ed Leadership program.

•    Al mentioned that during the Evaluation Team’s upcoming visit in Alaska, the team will take time to get initially acquainted with the respective ASDN, EED, and UAA data systems and will begin developing a collaborative rapport with appropriate personnel at each institution.

•    Susan mentioned UAA faculty are interested in a possible spin off research associated with component #1 Pre service Preparation. Al and Robert mentioned that RGI is open to exploring related collaboration scenarios with Susan and her team.

•    Kathy Blanc mentioned that she is maintaining coaching data on the ASDN website.