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Principal’s Corner by John Mahal

 

When we returned from the Marzano High Reliability Schools conference this past summer, I began working with our Hawthorne instructional leadership team around how we wanted to start working with our staff to earn a Level 1 certification around having a “safe, supportive and collaborative culture.” We came up with an outline for the year and started right away this past fall, working together around specific professional development and other conversations throughout the year that helped us make progress toward being certified.

One important thing we did to ensure our entire staff worked collaboratively was to place each person into one of eight committees. Each committee then had an opportunity to meet throughout the year to verify different pieces of evidence around what we already had in place as a building, and, if we needed to improve in any area, come up with a plan to implement moving forward. Gaining Level 1 certification doesn’t mean every indicator is perfectly in place, rather, multiple indicators are in place, along with great plans to work with when we do return to school in the fall.

I’m proud to announce that through the collaborative work the Hawthorne staff completed, we were able to attain Level 1 certification in less than seven months of our summer conference! This work allowed us to become even closer as a staff, and I’m very excited to continue our work toward Level 2 certification — our community should feel great about what is happening at Hawthorne and across our district! Enjoy the Marzano HRS announcement below.

Hawthorne Elementary School is pleased to announce the achievement of Level 1 certification in Marzano High Reliability SchoolsTM. Level 1 certification means Hawthorne Elementary School has created a “safe, supportive and collaborative culture,” which is the foundation for every level that follows. Without such a culture, student achievement will be compromised. Day-to-day school operations are also addressed and evaluated in Level 1.

John Mahal is the principal of Hawthorne Elementary School.