Leadership Experiences

ELCC Standard 7.0: Internship. The internship provides significant opportunities for candidates to synthesize and apply the knowledge and practice and develop the skills identified in ELCC Standards 1-6 through substantial, sustained, standards-based work in real settings, planned and guided cooperatively by the institution and by the school leaders for graduate credit.

 The purpose of leadership experiences is to utilize the hands-on experiences one has encountered in order to lead the future, while learning from the past. The leadership experiences have provided prospective building leaders with the opportunity to function as a leader in different roles and disciplines.  For example, opportunities were provided for students that included, ethical, managerial, organizational, instructional, social, and political roles.

Leadership experiences provide the necessary opportunities to build the skills that are so necessary and essential to effective school leadership.  A myriad of critical skills were developed through these experiences which include, but are not limited to, goal-setting, shared-decision making, problem solving, and management skills.  The program allowed for varied experiences to help build these critical skills, such as principal shadowing, conducting school walk-arounds, creating organizstional charts, identifying community agencies and organizations, conducting counseling interviews, analyzing school-based programs and conducting principal meetings.

Many of the leadership experiences were conducted within the Yonkers Public Schools District, at the Rosemarie Ann Siragusa International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme School.  This is a pre-kindergarten through fifth grade school which provides free, public education to approximately 430 children each school year.  The school has one building administrator, 20 classroom teachers, 2 Title 1, 2 Title 3, and 5 itinerant teachers.  In addition, the school employs 1 full-time guidance counselor and a part-time social worker and school psychologists.  The pupil/ teacher ratio is 18:1.  The number of students by grade is as follows, PreK:48; K:77; 1:66; 2:67; 3:57; 4:60; 5:58.  There is some parental involvement at the Rosemarie Ann Siragusa IBPYP School.