Brainstorm Activity New Structure for Leadership Certification & Endorsements

What do you see as the challenges or barriers to implementing the recommendations? 1. Implementing changes in certification that will not create problems of leadership utilization within all school districts. 2. Implementing changes in certification that deal with the emerging differentiated utilization of staff in schools. 3. Clarification of what would be comparable to the attainment of a standard teacher certification for other positions such as school psychologists, counselors, school nurses etc. 4. Establishing a certification process that does not impede the market availability of potential and viable leadership candidates. 5. Establishing specific internship requirements to the attainment of certification. It is estimated that the cost for a full year full time internship for 400 candidates will cost $23,000, Dealing with the political entities that may initially endorse recommendations but through their political actions lobby for status quo or modified changes to recommendations.

What supports will you need to be successful? 1. Consistency of endorsement and application of changes within all programs and regulatory agencies. 2. Significant financial assistance in order to successfully adopt and implement the recommendations. 3. Continued collection of data to confirm that the implemented recommendations are indeed accomplishing the desired impact on the improvement of leadership candidates.

What will your programs look like in the future? 1. Programs will respond to the changing needs of our PK-12 partners which will be adopting greater differentiated staffing patterns. 2. An enhanced focus on assisting all levels of leadership to become true instructional leaders with a strong knowledge base of what good teaching looks like. 3. PK-12 programs will continue to grow in their diversity requiring all leadership candidates to become knowledgeable of multicultural values and beliefs. 4. A enhanced engagement in partnering with school districts to support the mentorship of new administrators. 5. Stronger pursuits of partnerships with PK-12 institutions, Community Colleges, and other Universities. 6. Programs will be offering greater exposure to clinical experiences.

What will you want to keep? 1. Presently established partnerships 2. A standard’s driven curriculum 3. Focus on the continued development of an quality and diverse pool of applicants for the PK- 12 market.

Additional comment from the Advisory Committee discussion: There seems to be a pre-Levine perception of the operation of leadership programs in the Illinois. However, it is felt that many of the programs in our state have taken the information received from the Levine report and the first taskforce and utilized that information to make significant changes in the following areas: Enhanced admission requirements Extended and improved internship opportunities Pursued expanded partnership opportunities Participated in curriculum mapping and audits to assure the alignment of content to standards Pursued the reduction of the full time to adjunct ratio in their programs. It is recommended that an identification of these changes be pursued as a means to validate that the work and recommendations of the commissions have indeed impacted the improvement of programs in Illinois.