Principal Academy blog's first topic: Interviewing for outstanding teachers

by Linda Borquist, COSA Principals Academy Coordinator

Welcome to COSA's new resource blog for principals. We hope this site will be particularly helpful to the new principals who are participating in the Principals Academy, but we encourage everyone to use, post, and share resources and helpful hints. You may also want to use this blog to interact with your colleagues to problem solve or contact one another. Each month a new resource topic will be shared. We hope to post examples of helpful tools and have you add to them. This is your site, so let the sharing begin!!

This summer's topic is: Interviewing for Outstanding Teachers. These are some sample questions developed by the 2007-8 group of new principals during their March 14 session with Rob Hess from Springfield School District.

Please share your comments, thoughts and questions in the comment form below. If you have resources you'd like to share, please e-mail them to Craig Hawkins at COSA, and he will add them to this blog.

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Elementary PBS & Reading First Questions
written by Tim Larkin, July 31, 2008

In addition to the great set of questions and areas listed above, for those positions in PBS schools and who participate in Reading First primary literacy programs there are additional documents they have been developed as well.

For info on these topic areas you can reach the Oregon Reading First center at oregonreadingfirst.uoregon.edu--document link below:

http://oregonreadingfirst.uore...iteria.doc

In addition, the statewide clearing house for PBS at www.pbis.org may have similar information on Schoolwide PBS and RTI components for interviewing new staff. I received a printed copy in a meeting last year, but it is in the office.

Slides/ Notes from Rob, Matt, and Sara\
written by Linda Borquist, July 31, 2008

Here are the slides that Rob Hess used in their presentation:

[url= http://www.cosa.k12.or.us/down...July08.pdf

[url= http://www.cosa.k12.or.us/down...Answer.pdf

[url= http://www.cosa.k12.or.us/down...mework.pdf

PR resources from OSBA
written by Shannon Priem, July 31, 2008

Thanks for the great morning! You guys wake up really well. Here is a link to the social media YouTube segment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiP79vYsfbo

Here is a PDF file of the teacher bookmarks:

[url= http://www.cosa.k12.or.us/down...kmarks.pdf

along with my media speech (on "why we can't talk about that"):

[url= http://www.cosa.k12.or.us/down...ttosay.pdf

Or, email me at spriem@osba.org and I'll send everything. Happy communicating!

Sample neighbor letters
written by Craig Hawkins, August 04, 2008

Shannon Priem from OSBA noted that a couple folks wanted to see some sample letters a principal can send to the neighborhood, and she sent me approximately 15 samples. If you are interested, let me know (craig@cosa.k12.or.us) and I will send them to you via e-mail.

Interviewing for Outstanding Teachers
written by Michael McKinney, August 11, 2008

I recently completed initial interviews for a teacher opening using a totally new format. The results are the best (by far) of any interview sessions I've ever participated in. The rationale for why we should aggressively pursue the best candidate available comes from an article, "How the world's best-performing school systems come out on top". The platform for constructing interview questions came from research on competency based interviewing. My prior interview experiences were mostly in the hypothetical question style. By asking about past behavior (competence), our interview team was able to thoroughly explore a candidate's past performance in the areas that were important to us. Top candidate reference interviews have very closely matched the performance discussed by candidates.

Preparing for the first day with staff
written by James Phillips, August 14, 2008

For a wonderful two hour activity, we have used a great organization called ComedySportz. They do general team building activities as well as activities surrounded by and tailored to a central/specific theme. It's a fun and thought-provoking way to kick off the year.

...comedy.com

Preparing for the first day with staff
written by Noel Hygelund, August 14, 2008

I am planning to include all teachers, IA's, custodians, cooks, and bus drivers for a two hour
session during my first day with staff. My intent is to develop a common mission that is easy to communicate.

Does anyone have any suggestions for activities that would take place within a two hour time frame? At the end of the two hours I want to have built a sense of community and purpose.

Remember to share on the Blog
written by Linda Borquist, August 25, 2008

Thank you to Michael McKinney, James Phillips, Tim Larkin, Shannon Priem, Craig Hawkins, and Rob Hess for their recent sharings on our blog.

Colin and I will be sending out registration information for Lewis and Clark and PSU soon. The academy has been approved at both universities for credit.

If anyone has any "mixer"/ staff introduction/ welcome back activities that work well for them as they worked with staff, please share them this month so that others may use them at future staff development/ staff meetings.

Have a great start to your year!!!

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This page was last updated on Monday, July 21, 2008 .