About UsThe Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) System rewards effective teachers with leadership opportunities, attracts promising new teachers with competitive starting salaries and more support, and fosters greater collaboration for all teachers to learn from each other. The overriding philosophy of the system is multi-pronged, but boils down to this: Improving student learning requires improving the instruction they receive each day. There is no better way to do this than to empower our best teachers to lead the effort. Through the system, teacher leaders take on extra responsibilities, including helping colleagues analyze data and fine tune instructional strategies as well as coaching and co-teaching.
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Who We Are |
For the last couple of years, the state of Iowa has been rolling out a new program aimed to improve education. With the main premise that student learning will increase as the quality of instruction increases, teacher leaders all over the state have taken on the challenge to raise the bar on BOTH instruction and learning. WMU is no exception.
This year’s Teacher Leadership Team has been working hard to innovate and improve student learning. Through Wednesday afternoon Professional Development sessions, full-day collaborative events with other districts, collaboration time within the district and the integration of many new ideas, both teachers and students at WMU are working to expand their learning horizons. Barb Phelps has been WMU’s Lead Teacher. To use a sports reference, Barb functions as the “head coach” of the TL team. She works with administration and works with the Teacher Leadership team to innovate WMU teaching and learning. She collaborates with other teachers, serves as a link of communication between teachers and administrators, and helps present professional development sessions to staff. Patricia Jones, Alex Klopfenstein, and Scott McCarty are serving as the district’s two Instructional Coaches. To use a sports reference for them, they function as “position coaches.” Their primary focus is to help teachers use data to enhance the instructional strategies in the classroom. They periodically observe teachers, reflect with teachers, and model strategies to teachers. Mr. McCarty serves specifically as the technology coach, and works to integrate technology in classrooms through working individually with staff members and also by presenting professional development sessions on various technology-related topics. Trevor Kongable is the Data Manager for the team. He is our “Statistics Guy.” He collects, analyzes, and communicates data that will influence the directions of education. Mr. Kongable also periodically shares data at professional development sessions with staff. MIchele Robertson is the district’s Professional Development Coordinator. Her sports reference? She’s the team’s strength and conditioning coach. She plans the professional development sessions to align district goals with staff needs to ensure instructional growth and awareness. She uses surveys, student data, and current research to plan weekly and sometimes full-day professional development sessions. Lindsey Pogmore is the Family/Community Liaison. Her role is that of the radio announcer who shares the play-by-play of the game. She plans events to increase family and community participation at school and shares information through the use of local media outlets and social media to increase awareness of and participation at various school events. Finally, the mentoring committee of Cindy Riley, Melissa Anderson, Susan Eaves, and Cheryl Putnam are serving as the district’s Mentoring Committee. They actually have two roles--they are both coaches and cheerleaders. They work hard to make sure that teachers who are new to either teaching or new to the district have all of the support and guidance that they need to be successful. They help them learn the ropes at WMU and celebrate their successes. As you can see, WMU’s Teacher Leadership Team is a true team. Everyone on the team plays a specific role in improving teaching and learning. And the other members of the team? Administrators, Teachers, Support Staff, Parents, Community Members, of course the Students all play important roles at WMU, too! There are great things happening at WMU, and the work that the Teacher Leadership Team is doing is just one of many of those things! |
Our History |
WMU began utilizing the Teacher Leadership and Compensation Program in the 2014-2015 school year. WMU has been a leader in getting this program fully implemented.
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