I think that I was an effective House Coordinator (a "house" is a school within a school with a vertically aligned 6th, 7th, and 8th grade team) because my strengths are interpersonal leadership and motivational leaderhip. We communicated well with all stakeholders. Examples include writing a pamphlet with teacher biographies for parents, and I heard that some faculty in other houses were jealous of our Mental Maestros letterhead and T-shirts! Together, our house faculty motivated students with special awards and celebrations, and some of the most recalcitrant adults in the building were team players when it came to planning for the Mental Maestros.

However, I feel like I was an ineffective department chair because I did not know how to be an instructional leader. The district-led department chair training sessions were no help at all. We actually had to sit listening to the text book sellers go through their materials one page at a time. The Managers told us about certain meetings we had to run and information we had to pass along, and sign-in sheets that we had to turn in.

There was no training at all about accessing data, analyzing data, and making changes to improve student learning. There were so many opportunities for improvement lost--I wish that I could go back and try again.