CHAPTER FOUR:

LEADERSHIP AS IT APPLIES TO SPECIFIC AREAS IN EDUCATION - INCLUDING LIBRARIANS, COACHES, SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS, COUNSELORS, EXTRACURRICULAR SUPERVISORS AND STUDENTS


Special Areas of Education…

This chapter takes a brief look at the unique leadership challenges and leadership approaches for several key domains of PreK-12 education. This section is not designed to summarize all of the work that has been done in leadership in each of these areas. Rather, its goal is to provide key insights about leadership development from each of these key aspects of PreK-12 education.

Each group discussed in this chapter fits well within our broad definition of stakeholders in education, and have a critical and essential role in PreK-12 education. Even more importantly, we believe that sharing some of the leadership ideas from each of these groups with all of the teachers and others who are be reading this book will be of great use to all readers.

Conclusion…

This chapter of the book calls on all segments of the school - administrators, teachers, librarians, coaches, special education teachers, staff and teachers’ assistants, and students - to be viewed as key resources that can be tapped to help improve our schools. Leaders seek resources in an inclusive manner. Leaders find solutions to challenges that actually bring people closer to them rather than drive them further away. Inclusion is a key word for twenty-first century leaders, and this chapter has attempted to show how to include all personnel in schools, including students, in helping improve our schools.

We may not all agree on the best approaches to have teachers become better leaders. We may not agree on the best roles students can play in helping schools improve and helping teachers become better leaders. But we must all agree that in order to improve schools, we need to leverage more and better resources than we have in the past. School budgets will not grow dramatically in an economy as challenged as ours.

However, with the great talent of teachers, students, and those in the community who want to improve our schools, we can all agree that if teachers could become better leaders, they could be more effective at securing and leverage key resources that will benefit the schools of our nation. We can also all agree that improving our schools and improving student outcomes are some of the most important goals of our nation.