5.+Preparation

**As you stepped into your first role as a site leader of color, what skills, knowledge and** = **experiences do you wish you had attained that would have better prepared you for leadership?** =

Team #1: 1. Strategic use of time. 2. Preparation in dealing with social/emotional issues of students. 3. Development of family and community engagement. 4. Awareness of different leadership roles. 5. Knowing the moral imperative of achievement gap and other inequitites/ discrepencies. 6. Knowledge around master schedule/ instructuional programming 7. Familiarity with teacher contracts 8. Residency or assistant principalship for mentoring/ coaching/ development before entering a principal role and knowing how to mentor 9. How to use data. Making data driven decisions.

Team #2: A. Having time to plan, 3 to 6 months. To be successful, having that strategic planning time to get going. Time to lay out PD, collaboration, operations, budget. Can do it all in one month. B. You don't know what to ignore yet. As being a new leader, knowing that you don't have to do everything. What do I have to do either politically or instructionally? C. Apprenticeship for the new leader. Invaluable experience to understand what is needed to be successful in the various parts of leading a school. D. Understanding the historical aspects of a school. What is the context of the school or community... E. Excited but niave. Understadning that the leader may not be able to do what they want to do. Running into a beuracracy. Forecast that it exists, and know how to navigate it around it. F. Realization how lonely the job is....isolated. G. How tiring the job is, learning to pace yourself H. Reflective practice, being intentional about evaluating what worked and what didnt and why did it happen that way. I. Understanding that you need to maintain a focus on instruction, even in the face of other priorities. J. Sometimes there is a relationship with the supervisor that is not a source of support. Having a person, mentor, or coach that is a source of support. K. Getting into a network of similar schools to share best practices. L. A learning community, a space to be brutally honest about what was happening in schools.

Team #3: