Kristina Rovtar

EDAM27600: Practicum and Seminar in Administration and Supervision I

Leadership Change Project Interim Report

Rowan University

Introduction
 The responsibility of the administration in a given school district is to identify areas of

concern and create a plan to help facilitate changes that need to happen in order for the mission

statement of the given school to be achieved. Through studying the Professional Standards for

Educational Leaders, all ten of these standards should be taken into account when leading a

district or a school on the path of change. Sometimes change takes a while to initiate and this is

something I have been learning in leaps and bounds. I also think that this year, more than ever,

the change initiatives are even harder to implement with the constant back and forth of hybrid

versus remote learning as well as constant rotation of students and teachers having to quarantine.

Statement of the Problem

“With the sudden halt to in-person learning, many students missed their friends, yearned

to be out of the house, developed erratic sleep habits and drove their (often working) parents

crazy. Dealing with the pandemic is a very “adult experience and one that students may not have

been adequately prepared to cope with” (Calderon).

The initial purpose of this proposal is to help Hanover Park High School deal with the

problem most high schoolers are facing in this 21st century school setting of high anxiety, which

has been exponentially exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as helping to provide

teachers with the necessary tools to guide this practice. Given the stressful nature of the current

pandemic, our Hanover Park faculty could find themselves directly benefiting from these skills

as well.

Since September, some things that have worked well have been the Mindful Monday

emails that go out weekly first thing in the morning. Mindful Monday is something that we have

adopted as part of this change initiative and the topics range from music to breathing techniques

to just making time for yourself to process when dealing with stressful situations.
 While I have received very positive feedback from these messages I have crafted from

both faculty and students, I wish there was a better way to gage if everyone is actually reading

the emails. I just feel in this world of remote learning, we are all inundated with emails so I am

not sure how to really see if the information is going through. When I pick this back up next

year, I think I might use some of the great technology resources I have learned and turn it into a

video format. Using a platform like Loom, I would be able to see just how many people have

actually viewed the information.

Specific Objectives to be Achieved

Since the main objective of my internship is to reduce the level of stress and anxiety in

my school by at least 10-15% by the end of the year, I am still going to be working towards this

goal in the 2021-2022 school year as I feel stress levels are even higher than they were in the

spring. I am hoping at the start of next school year we will have returned to some sense of

normalcy and it will be easier to achieve all of my objectives.

Preparing the scope of this project, there were many different activities that would help

with this initiative program. Many people have been involved in helping to create this project

including the principal, Tom Callanan, as well many guidance counselors and a variety of

teachers. One of my biggest takeaways from this entire process is change takes time and you

need time to make a change. Time is not something that is on the side of any of the

administrators as they are constantly being pulled in many different directions constantly with

the ever growing landscape that has become this hybrid remote learning environment.

Through my four objectives; Wellness Day improvement plan, creating a database for

social emotional learning, teaching mindfulness, and creating more visible gratitude throughout

the building, this would create a culture of change for my school and for them to embrace more
positivity and collaboration. While these seemed like achievable objectives there is still much

work to be done. For example, Wellness Day has been moved to the Spring of 2021 to alot more

time for planning activities since the start of the school year had been delayed.

The research is still supporting my initial claims that social emotional learning and

mindfulness are more important now than ever before. One thing that truly I feel needs to be

initiated into this change process is time for unplugging. Students, staff, parents, every

stakeholder has truly never been more intertwined with their technology. When I revisit this

change project, this is something that I will fold into the database as I feel like finding mindful or

social emotional activities that do not involve a screen as this I feel will be most beneficial.

“Since students are spending time on their screens this year, McClure and Koller are

emphasizing the importance of Outdoor Social Emotional Learning. This is a strategy to help

students, “get clean air, breathe it in, and find peace and balance” (McClure and Koller 2020).

Relationship of the Project to the PSEL Standards

As previously stated the Professional Standards for Educational Leadership (PSEL) are

the driving force between all that administrators do for the betterment of their schools and

districts. Working with Thomas Callanan, the Hanover Park High School principal, I have been

able to achieve some of my internship proposal goals by following all ten of the standards.

Taking an indepth look at the PSEL standards, Standard 1 is addressed in the mission

statement set forth by the school district which explicitly talks about character education and I

believe that goes hand in hand with social emotional learning and is being worked on as I go

through this process. In relation to ethics and standards (PSEL Standard 2), I will be able to

“provide moral direction for the school and promote ethical and professional behavior among

faculty and staff”. This would be a direct result of improving upon the already established social
emotional goals and truly creating a Social Emotional Learning Environment plan through all of

my set objectives.

One of the goals of this internship is to connect the activities to the various dimensions of

building organizational capacity, including enhancing curriculum and instruction through

multiple measures of evaluation. The Hanover Park Regional School District utilizes the

Framework for Teaching Evaluation Instrument as developed by Charlotte Danielson. Our

district has identified Domain 2, The Classroom Environment, and Domain 3, Instruction, as the

ones that have the greatest impact on student achievement. There are two specific indicators

which I feel are directly connected to the focus of this internship proposal. The first is item 2a -

Creating an Environment of Respect and Rapport. While the database has been created, I hope

that teachers will connect with students through the array of mindfulness as well as social

emotional activities embedded in their lessons.

Furthermore, I believe that by creating a database of resources for teachers to help their

students' needs whether in person or virtually, this would cover a multitude of different PSEL

standards. By using the database, teachers will be able to improve upon their curriculum,

instruction as well as equity for all students which would be covered under Standards 3 and 4. I

truly believe that Standard 5 will be one of great importance for my internship proposal as it

directly deals with my overarching goal of community of care and support of students. In the

Spring of 2021, the implementation of a Wellness Day will create a better social emotional

learning plan the students will be able to be engaged in the school environment and the teachers

will be able to cultivate and create a more positive student outlook, even if we are still in a

remote learning capacity.

stakeholders in the school, the teachers and support staff. Standard 6 and Standard 7 directly deal

with this and I believe that by creating the database as well as the monthly workshops and

weekly emails, teachers will be getting the social emotional support they need as well. By

creating teacher to teacher led workshops and activities, we could create a “celebration of

learning” environment that would be able to enforce the objectives. The publication student

writing will also contribute to the recognition of the impact of mindfulness and the ability of

students to clearly and meaningfully embrace the concepts of mindfulness.

Description of Internship Site

Hanover Park High School Regional School District is made up of two separate regional

high schools, Hanover Park and Whippany Park, that are fed from five different towns. Hanover

Park High School is a unique building as it is a “California style” campus located in Northern

New Jersey, meaning there really is not a main school building but rather each academic

department has their own individual buildings which are connected by outdoor sidewalks. There

are approximately 839 students in grades 9-12 and approximately 80 faculty and staff members

to facilitate learning for all of those students. We have gone back and forth between hybrid and

remote as Covid-19 is spiking, as of right now, we are on a remote learning plan until the 17th of

December. As far as the community is concerned, 79% of the student population is White, 9%

Asian, 6% Hispanic and 4% Black. Through a survey done in the spring using the platform of

Google Forms, 1 in 6 students expressed that their anxiety levels were higher than the previous

six months. In addition, staff claimed that their stress levels were much higher, about 25%, than

previous semester as they were dealing with the unknowns of distance learning. I have sent out
another survey which will be collected and tabulated at the end of semester one, in January, to

see how if any of this has changed with some of the initiatives in place.

Even with a relatively new administrative team, there is usually a real sense of the phrase

“we are family”, our unofficial motto that is written on a banner as you enter our school.

However, this year, there has been some disruption to that family core. A few grievances being

filed against the Board of Education has made for some real challenges when trying to get

change to happen within the school. It feels as though lots of us are left in the dark or not

responded to in a timely manner because of all that is going on behind closed doors which is very

frustrating in this remote climate because you cannot have candid conversations with your

colleagues face to face.

Scope of the Effort

In order for the objectives to be achieved, goals and a timeline need to be established in

order for the new social emotional plan to be successful. I was successful in creating a small,

four person, Social Emotional Initiative Committee which is helping with some of the larger

aspects of the change process. Initially, I wanted to do Wellness Day at the end of October

because it would take time to pull together the necessary resources and teachers to participate

and give their efforts to creating meaningful workshops for the students and staff to enroll in.

Since we had about a two week delayed start to the school year, we did not come back into a

hybrid model until the Thursday before Halloween, it was hard to truly plan this out and get

approval so it had been shelved until the Spring of 2021. Which I believe will be better because I

think regardless of what model we are in at that time, staff and students will be in a better routine

and swing of things. While we have put the plan into action we are still pending Board of

Education approval for a final date.

discussions on mindfulness practices as well as just good for the order kind of check ins for

mental health reasons. After doing a brief staff survey in the end of September, many teachers

said that they would not attend another meeting that they did not have to as we were getting

bombarded with professional development and constant changes. In order to feel as though I was

still working towards this objective, I decided to pivot to a Mindful Monday weekly email. This

is something I take some time in preparing each week for the students and staff that covers a

variety of topics. For example, last week, I discussed the importance of music to our mental

health and how listening to a favorite song can boost your mood. I feel like this still creates a

smaller sense of community as I always get great feedback from a lot of the teachers and

students via email responses. Going forward, I would like to expand this into maybe a video

segment where I can see how many people are watching this, almost like a Mindful news report

just to be more engaging with everyone.

The database has taken some time to put together, by creating a virtual classroom in a

Google Slideshow, I have created a more interactive platform teachers will be able to find user

friendly resources to interject into their lesson plans. I have heard from several teachers that

having these ideas at fingertips they have been able to add some of them into their existing

lessons or just do full lessons on social emotional learning.

The next phase of my plan will start in 2021, The New Year’s Evolution campaign,

which has been set up with some graphics that can be pushed out through social media to convey

the daily suggestions for this initiative. Pending Board of Education approval, a press release

will be prepared for the local newspaper and Tap Into online publication. This will allow the
mindfulness initiative to spread beyond the walls of the school and into the homes of our

students and to other community residents.

The publication of the collection of student writing will be launched in the early spring.

This is something that I have already set up with the ELA teachers as something their students

can optionally do. A flyer has been created and will be inviting all students across all grade

levels to participate. A deadline for submission will be established in early May. This will allow

for the submissions to be edited and prepared for self-publication through Amazon Kindle Direct

Publishing.

References

Calderon, Valerie U.S. Parents Day COVID-19 Harming Child’s Mental Health Gallup - June

16, 2020

Common Core Data 2019, www.nces.ed.gov/ccd/schoolsearch/school_detail. Accessed July 31,

2020 https://news.gallup.com/poll/312605/parents-say-covid-harming-child-mental-health.aspx
National Policy Board for Educational Administration (2015). Professional Standards for

Educational Leaders 2015. Reston, VA: Author.

Powers/ABC7, K. (2020, November 30). As virtual learning continues, here's how to help kids

unplug from screens. Retrieved December 01, 2020, from

https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/as-virtual-learning-continues-heres-how-to-help-kids-

unplug-from-screens

Richards, Erin, “Kids’ Mental Health Can Struggle During Online School. Here’s How Teachers

are Planning Ahead.” USA Today, July 31, 2020

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/07/31/covid-online-school-kids-mental-

health-teachers/5529846002/