Baruti K. Kafele

In this one or two full days workshop (or keynote address), Principal Kafele contends emphatically that, “The primary purpose of the supervision of teachers is student achievement and their continued improvement of instruction!” Due to the complexities of school leadership, it is easy to be so inundated by the non-instructional aspects of the work that the instructional side of the leadership inclusive of instructional coaching suffers. When the instructional side suffers, it adversely impacts the entire school academically. To that end, in this high-engagement, self-reflective workshop (or keynote address), Principal Kafele will provide principals and assistant principals with strategies toward maintaining a focus on the instructional side of their leadership toward increasing the probability that teacher pedagogy will improve significantly and student achievement will soar. Attention will also be given to creating a school-wide culture of instructional leadership that is conducive to sustaining instructional leadership engagement and effectiveness over the course of an entire school year.

Topics covered: 1 & 2 (below) are built into the presentation. Either the client or Principal Kafele determine the remaining topics to be covered based upon need and length of time of presentation.

1. Instructional Leadership Must Be at Your Core: Everything Else Is Secondary (What is instructional leadership and what does it mean to my practice as a school leader?)

2. Instructional Leadership and Student Achievement Go "Hand in Glove" (Do I understand that my main priority is student achievement and the continued improvement of instruction?)

3. Instructional Leadership Is Where the "Rubber Meets the Road" (Would I consider the instructional aspect of my leadership to be my primary focus as a leader? What is the evidence?)

4. Instructional Leadership and Your Instructional Self-Assessment (What does instructional leadership look like for me during the normal course of a day?)

5. Instructional Leadership and Your Expectations of Excellence (Do I have a philosophy, beliefs, opinions and ideas about how children learn based upon my own research, reading and experiences?)

6. Instructional Leadership and the Pre- & Post Observation Conference (What is the significance of the pre- and post-observation conference to my leadership instructionally, inclusive of the analysis of data?)

7. Instructional Leadership and Knowing Excellent Pedagogy (What do I know about excellent pedagogy beyond who I was as a classroom teacher?)

8. Instructional Leadership and Maximizing Your Leadership Team (What is the role of my administrative leadership team toward establishing a culture of instructional leadership?)

9. Instructional Leadership and Maximizing Your Instructional Coaches (How am I utilizing my instructional coaches and what measures have I put in place for them to be optimally successful?)

10. Instructional Leadership and Your Teachers' Perceptions of Who You Are as Instructional Coach (How do the teachers that I supervise perceive me as an Instructional leader?)