Ala. Admin. Code r. 290-3-3-.47 - Instructional Leadership (Grades P-12)
(1)
Unconditional Admission to an
Instructional Leadership Program. In addition to a
valid Class B Professional Educator Certificate in a
teaching field or a valid Class A Professional
Educator Certificate in a teaching field or instructional support area, the
applicant must document a criminal history background check and shall:
(a) Educational Experience. The prospective
Instructional Leadership candidate must meet one of the following criteria:
1. Have a minimum of three full years of
full-time, satisfactory professional educational work experience in a P-12
setting, which must include P-12 teaching experience if admitted prior to
August 2010 or have a minimum of three full years (or
six full semesters) of full-time, acceptable professional educational
experience in a P-12 setting, which must include at least one full year of
full-time P-12 classroom teaching experience if admitted on or after August 1,
2010.
2. Effective January 1, 2022,
and thereafter, have a valid Alabama Professional Educator Certificate endorsed
for library media or school counseling, document a minimum of seven full years
of full-time employment, in the same school system, as a library media
specialist or school counselor in a P-12 setting if admitted spring semester
2022 or thereafter, and provide a written recommendation from the current
employing superintendent.
(b) Submit an admission portfolio before an
interview. The portfolio must contain the following:
1. Three letters of recommendation to include
the applicant's principal or supervisor. Each local superintendent will
establish requirements for recommendations from the principal and/or
supervisor.
2. Completed copy (all
forms) of the most recent performance appraisal to include the professional
development component, if available.
3. Evidence of ability to improve student
achievement.
4. Evidence of
leadership and management potential, including evidence of most recent
accomplishments in the area of educational leadership.
5. Summary of candidate's reasons for
pursuing instructional leadership certification.
6. Summary of what the candidate expects from
the preparation program.
(c) Pass an interview conducted by a program
admission committee that includes both P-12 instructional leaders and higher
education faculty.
(d) Individuals
must be unconditionally admitted to the Class A instructional leadership
program before enrolling in any instructional leadership courses in the
program.
(2)
Curriculum of an Instructional Leadership Program. In addition to
meeting Rule 290-2-2 -.46(2)(a) -(e), the curriculum for instructional leaders
builds on candidate knowledge and abilities acquired through preparation for
and employment as a teacher. The standards are based on the Professional
Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL) prepared by the Council of Chief
School Officers with support from numerous professional associations to update
the former Interstate School Leader Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Standards.
(a)
Mission, Vision, and Core
Values. Effective instructional leaders develop, advocate for, and enact
a shared mission, vision, and core values of high-quality education and
academic success and well-being of each student. Prospective instructional
leaders will be prepared and able to:
1.
Develop an educational mission for the school to promote the academic success
and well-being of each student.
2.
In collaboration with members of the school and the community and using
relevant data, develop and promote a vision for the school focused on the
successful learning and development of each child and on instructional and
organizational practices that promote such success.
3. Articulate, advocate, and cultivate core
values that define the school's culture and stress the imperative of
child-centered education; high expectations and student support; equity,
inclusiveness, and social justice; openness, caring, and trust; and continuous
improvement.
4. Strategically
develop, implement, and evaluate actions to achieve the vision for the
school.
5. Review the school's
mission and vision and adjust them to changing expectations and opportunities
for the school, and changing needs and situations of students.
6. Develop shared understanding of and
commitment to mission, vision, and core values within the school and the
community.
7. Model and pursue the
school's mission, vision, and core values in all aspects of
leadership.
(b)
Ethics and Professional Norms. Effective instructional leaders act
ethically and according to professional norms to promote each student's
academic success and well-being. Prospective instructional leaders will be
prepared and able to:
1. Act ethically and
professionally in personal conduct, relationships with others, decision making,
stewardship of the school's resources, and all aspects of school
leadership.
2. Act according to and
promote the professional norms of integrity, fairness, transparency, trust,
collaboration, perseverance, learning, and continuous improvement.
3. Place children at the center of education
and accept responsibility for each student's academic success and
well-being.
4. Safeguard and
promote the values of democracy, individual freedom and responsibility, equity,
social justice, community, and diversity.
5. Lead with interpersonal and communication
skill, social-emotional insight, and understanding of all students' and staff
members' backgrounds and cultures.
6. Provide moral direction for the school and
promote ethical and professional behavior among faculty and staff.
(c)
Equity and Cultural
Responsiveness. Effective instructional leaders strive for equity of
educational opportunity and culturally responsive practices to promote each
student's academic success and well-being. Prospective instructional leaders
will be prepared and able to:
1. Ensure that
each student is treated fairly, respectfully, and with an understanding of each
student's culture and context.
2.
Recognize, respect, and employ each student's strengths, diversity, and culture
as assets for teaching and learning.
3. Ensure that each student has equitable
access to effective teachers, learning opportunities, academic and social
support, and other resources necessary for success.
4. Develop student policies and address
student misconduct in a positive, fair, and unbiased manner.
5. Confront and alter institutional biases of
student marginalization, deficit-based schooling, and low expectations
associated with race, class, culture and language, gender and sexual
orientation, and disability or special status.
6. Promote the preparation of students to
live productively in and contribute to the diverse cultural contexts of a
global society.
7. Act with
cultural competence and responsiveness in their interactions, decision making,
and practice.
8. Address matters of
equity and cultural responsiveness in all aspects of leadership.
Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment. Effective instructional leaders develop and support intellectually rigorous and coherent systems of curriculum, instruction, and assessment to promote each student's academic success and well-being. Prospective instructional leaders will be prepared and able to:
1.
Implement coherent systems of curriculum, instruction, and assessment that
promote the mission, vision, and core values of the school, embody high
expectations for student learning, align with academic standards, and are
culturally responsive.
2. Align and
focus systems of curriculum, instruction, and assessment within and across
grade levels to promote student academic success, love of learning, the
identities and habits of learners, and healthy sense of self.
3. Promote instructional practice that is
consistent with knowledge of child learning and development, effective
pedagogy, and the needs of each student.
4. Ensure instructional practice that is
intellectually challenging, authentic to student experiences, recognizes
student strengths, and is differentiated and personalized.
5. Promote the effective use of technology in
the service of teaching and learning.
6. Employ valid assessments that are
consistent with knowledge of child learning and development and technical
standards of measurement.
7. Use
assessment data appropriately and within technical limitations to monitor
student progress and improve instruction.
Community of Care and Support for Students. Effective instructional leaders cultivate an inclusive, caring, and supportive school community that promotes the academic success and well-being of each student. Prospective instructional leaders will be prepared and able to:
1. Build and maintain a safe,
caring, and healthy school environment that meets the academic, social,
emotional, and physical needs of each student.
2. Create and sustain a school environment in
which each student is known, accepted and valued, trusted and respected, cared
for, and encouraged to be an active and responsible member of the school
community.
3. Provide coherent
systems of academic and social supports, services, extracurricular activities,
and accommodations to meet the range of learning needs of each
student.
4. Promote adult-student,
student-peer, and school-community relationships that value and support
academic learning and positive social and emotional development.
5. Cultivate and reinforce student engagement
in school and positive student conduct.
6. Infuse the school's learning environment
with the cultures and languages of the school's community.
(f)
Professional Capacity and School
Personnel. Effective instructional leaders develop the professional
capacity and practice of school personnel to promote each student's academic
success and well-being. Prospective instructional leaders will be prepared and
able to:
1. Recruit, hire, support, develop,
and retain effective and caring teachers and other professional staff and form
them into an educationally effective faculty.
2. Plan for and manage staff turnover and
succession, providing opportunities for effective induction and mentoring of
new personnel.
3. Develop teachers'
and staff members' professional knowledge, skills, and practice through
differentiated opportunities for learning and growth, guided by understanding
of professional and adult learning and development.
4. Foster continuous improvement of
individual and collective instructional capacity to achieve outcomes envisioned
for each student.
5. Deliver
actionable feedback about instruction and other professional practice through
valid, research-anchored systems of supervision and evaluation to support the
development of teachers' and staff members' knowledge, skills, and
practice.
6. Empower and motivate
teachers and staff to the highest levels of professional practice and to
continuous learning and improvement.
7. Develop the capacity, opportunities, and
support for teacher leadership and leadership from other members of the school
community.
8. Promote the personal
and professional health, well-being, and work-life balance of faculty and
staff.
9. Tend to their own
learning and effectiveness through reflection, study, and improvement,
maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
(g)
Professional Community for Teachers
and Staff. Effective instructional leaders foster a professional
community of teachers and other professional staff to promote each student's
academic success and well-being. Prospective instructional leaders will be
prepared and able to:
1. Develop workplace
conditions for teachers and other professional staff that promote effective
professional development, practice, and student learning.
2. Empower and entrust teachers and staff
with collective responsibility for meeting the academic, social, emotional, and
physical needs of each student, pursuant to the mission, vision, and core
values of the school.
3. Establish
and sustain a professional culture of engagement and commitment to shared
vision, goals, and objectives pertaining to the education of the whole child;
high expectations for professional work; ethical and equitable practice; trust
and open communication; collaboration, collective efficacy, and continuous
individual and organizational learning and improvement.
4. Promote mutual accountability among
teachers and other professional staff for each student's success and the
effectiveness of the school as a whole.
5. Develop and support open, productive,
caring, and trusting working relationships among leaders, faculty, and staff to
promote professional capacity and the improvement of practice.
6. Design and implement job-embedded and
other opportunities for professional learning collaboratively with faculty and
staff.
7. Provide opportunities for
collaborative examination of practice, collegial feedback, and collective
learning.
8. Encourage
faculty-initiated improvement of programs and practices.
(h)
Meaningful Engagement of Families
and Community. Effective instructional leaders engage families and the
community in meaningful, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial ways to promote
each student's academic success and well-being. Prospective instructional
leaders will be prepared and able to:
1. Be
approachable, accessible, and welcoming to families and members of the
community.
2. Create and sustain
positive, collaborative, and productive relationships with families and the
community for the benefit of students.
3. Engage in regular and open two-way
communication with families and the community about the school, students,
needs, problems, and accomplishments.
4. Maintain a presence in the community to
understand its strengths and needs, develop productive relationships, and
engage its resources for the school.
5. Create means for the school community to
partner with families to support student learning in and out of
school.
6. Understand, value, and
employ the community's cultural, social, intellectual, and political resources
to promote student learning and school improvement.
7. Develop and provide the school as a
resource for families and the community.
8. Advocate for the school and district, and
for the importance of education and student needs and priorities to families
and the community.
9. Advocate
publicly for the needs and priorities of students, families, and the
community.
10. Build and sustain
productive partnerships with public and private sectors to promote school
improvement and student learning.
(i)
Operations and Management.
Effective instructional leaders manage school operations and resources to
promote each student's academic success and well-being. Prospective
instructional leaders will be prepared and able to:
1. Institute, manage, and monitor operations
and administrative systems that promote the mission and vision of the
school.
2. Strategically manage
staff resources, assigning and scheduling teachers and staff to roles and
responsibilities that optimize their professional capacity to address each
student's learning needs.
3. Seek,
acquire, and manage fiscal, physical, and other resources to support
curriculum, instruction, and assessment; student learning community;
professional capacity and community; and family and community
engagement.
4. Be responsible,
ethical, and accountable stewards of the school's monetary and nonmonetary
resources, engaging in effective budgeting and accounting practices.
5. Protect teachers' and other staff members'
work and learning from disruption.
6. Employ technology to improve the quality
and efficiency of operations and management.
7. Develop and maintain data and
communication systems to deliver actionable information for classroom and
school improvement.
8. Know, comply
with, and help the school community understand local, state, and federal laws,
rights, policies, and regulations so as to promote student success.
9. Develop and manage relationships with
feeder and connecting schools for enrollment management and curricular and
instructional articulation.
10.
Develop and manage productive relationships with the central office and school
board.
11. Develop and administer
systems for fair and equitable management of conflict among students, faculty
and staff, leaders, families, and community.
12. Manage governance processes and internal
and external politics toward achieving the school's mission and
vision.
(j)
School
Improvement. Effective instructional leaders act as agents of continuous
improvement to promote each student's academic success and well-being.
Prospective instructional leaders will be prepared and able to:
1. Seek to make school more effective for
each student, teachers and staff, families, and the community.
2. Use methods of continuous improvement to
achieve the vision, fulfill the mission, and promote the core values of the
school.
3. Prepare the school and
the community for improvement, promoting readiness, an imperative for
improvement, instilling mutual commitment and accountability, and developing
the knowledge, skills, and motivation to succeed in improvement.
4. Engage others in an ongoing process of
evidence-based inquiry, learning, strategic goal setting, planning,
implementation, and evaluation for continuous school and classroom
improvement.
5. Employ
situationally-appropriate strategies for improvement, including
transformational and incremental, adaptive approaches and attention to
different phases of implementation.
6. Assess and develop the capacity of staff
to assess the value and applicability of emerging educational trends and the
findings of research for the school and its improvement.
7. Develop technically appropriate systems of
data collection, management, analysis, and use, connecting as needed to the
local school system office and external partners for support in planning,
implementation, monitoring, feedback, and evaluation.
8. Adopt a systems perspective and promote
coherence among improvement efforts and all aspects of school organization,
programs, and services.
9. Manage
uncertainty, risk, competing initiatives, and politics of change with courage
and perseverance, providing support and encouragement, and openly communicating
the need for, process for, and outcomes of improvement efforts.
10. Develop and promote leadership among
teachers and staff for inquiry, experimentation and innovation and initiating
and implementing improvement.
(3)
Requirements for Certification in
Instructional Leadership. Readiness to serve as an instructional leader
shall include:
(a) An official transcript
from a regionally accredited institution documenting an earned master's
degree.
(b) A survey of special
education course is required unless that course was taken for prior level
certification. [See definition (51)]. An individual who completed a survey of
special education course prior to the semester when the individual met
requirements for unconditional admission to a Class A program July 1, 2017, and
thereafter, must take a course focused primarily on one of the following
categories: methods of accommodating instruction to meet the needs of students
with exceptionalities in inclusive settings, multicultural education, teaching
English language learners, rural education, or urban education. A diversity
course used to meet this requirement for one level of certification may not be
used to meet the requirement for a higher level of certification. This rule is
applicable to the Reduced-Hour Option described in Rule 290-3-3-.47(6).
(c) Satisfactory completion of a
State-approved program with a minimum GPA of 3.0 in all courses in the Alabama
State Board of Education approved program in instructional leadership.
Effective for candidates unconditionally admitted to a Class A instructional
leadership program July 1, 2017, and thereafter, satisfactory completion of a
State-approved program with a minimum GPA of 3.25 on all courses in the Alabama
State Board of Education approved program.
(d) A valid Alabama
Class B Professional Educator Certificate in a teaching field or a
valid Alabama Class A Professional Educator
Certificate in a teaching field or instructional support area.
(e) An internship
that allows candidates to benefit from purposeful hands-on experiences designed
to prepare them to lead the essential work of school improvement and higher
student achievement.
1.
Components: Candidates in Alabama instructional
leadership preparation programs must experience an internship in which the
following occur:
(i) Collaboration between the
university and LEAs that anchors internship activities in real-world problems
instructional leaders face, provides for appropriate structure and support of
learning experiences, and ensures quality guidance and supervision.
(ii) An explicit set of school-based
assignments designed to provide opportunities for the application of knowledge,
skills, and ways of thinking that are required to effectively perform the core
responsibilities of an instructional leader, as identified in Alabama standards
and research and incorporated in the preparation programs' design.
(iii) A developmental continuum of practice
progresses from observing to participating in and then to leading school-based
activities related to the core responsibilities of instructional leaders, with
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of real-life problems at each
level.
(iv) Field placements
provide opportunities to work with diverse students, teachers, parents, and
communities.
(v) Handbooks or other
guiding materials clearly define the expectations, processes, and schedule of
the internship to participants, faculty supervisors, directing P-12
instructional leaders (principals and central office staff), and LEA
personnel.
(vi) Ongoing supervision
provided by program faculty who have the expertise and time to provide frequent
formative feedback on interns' performance that lets them know how they need to
improve.
(vii) Directing
instructional leaders (principals and central office staff) model the desired
leadership behaviors and know how to guide interns through required activities
that bring their performance to established standards.
(viii) Rigorous evaluations of interns'
performance of core school leader responsibilities based on clearly defined
performance standards and exit criteria and consistent procedures.
2.
Design. Universities and LEAs collaborate to insure
that candidates have meaningful and practical experiences in actual school
settings during the course of the instructional leadership preparation program.
The internship is designed to place candidates in the
cooperating schools during critical times of instructional planning. This
collaborative model requires that LEAs provide release time for candidates and
for universities to work with LEAs so that the candidate's experiences are
comprehensive and valuable. The internship experiences are the
total sum of practical experiences, either field or clinical, as part of every
course taken for preparation, plus a residency. The residency is
uninterrupted service in an active school with students present for the
equivalent of ten full days. The residency allows interns to experience
leadership in as many of the Alabama Leadership Standard indicators as
possible. Candidates shall prepare and maintain a comprehensive portfolio which
indicates the level of experiences and knowledge gained in instructional
leadership during the intern experiences. The portfolio shall be juried by a
committee of university and cooperating school staff before the candidate is
recommended for certification.
(4)
Testing for Certification in
Instructional Leadership. Applicants for initial certification in
instructional leadership through the completion of a Class A program must meet
the Praxis requirements of the Alabama Educator Certification Assessment
Program (AECAP) as a precondition for certification. Additional information is
provided in Rule
290-3-3-.46(7).
(5)
Faculty. An
institution shall meet the following criteria.
(a) At least two faculty members who are
full-time to the instructional leadership program shall hold earned doctorates
in instructional leadership (educational administration) or related
fields.
(b) A minimum of two
full-time faculty members in instructional leadership (educational
administration) shall each have a minimum of three years of experience as a
practicing assistant principal, principal, central office supervisor, assistant
superintendent, or superintendent, or any three years combination
thereof.
(c) Instructional
leadership faculty with recent experience in instructional leadership shall
supervise interns. The institution shall have and follow a written policy
pertaining to teaching load credit for supervising candidates in field
experiences and residencies.
(d) In
order to ensure recency of exemplary instructional leadership in a P-12
setting(s), an EPP may request permission from the State Superintendent of
Education to meet one of the two required faculty positions by combining the
work of no more than two part-time faculty members whose combined workload
equals one full-time position. The request to do so must be supported with
evidence that each of the two individuals to be employed part-time meets the
doctoral degree and experience requirements indicated in Rule 290-3-3-.47(5)(a)
and (b).
(6)
Reduced-Hour Option Effective July 1, 2014. A person who holds a
Class A Professional Educator Certificate and meets the program admission
requirements in Rule 290-3-3-.47(1)(a) and (b) may be able to complete a
reduced-hour program to be recommended for a Class A Instructional Leadership
Certificate. Although the number of semester hours of required credit for
instructional leadership courses may vary by EPP,
depending on the courses needed to document compliance with program approval
standards, at least 18 semester hours of credit for instructional
leadership courses are required for this option. EPPs may choose
to require additional courses or set a higher GPA requirement. Every
instructional leadership course required for the
reduced-hour option must include either field or clinical
experiences.
(7)
Interim
Employment Certificate. An Interim Employment Certificate (IEC) allows a
superintendent or administrator to employ an applicant who is completing
requirements for Class A certification in instructional leadership through a
State-approved Class A program at an Alabama institution. Additional
Information is provided in the Educator Certification Chapter of the
Alabama Administrative Code.
Notes
Previous Rule.48 was renumbered.47 per certification published August 31, 2021; effective October 15, 2021.
Author: Dr. Eric G. Mackey
Statutory Authority: Code of Ala. 1975, ยงยง 16-3-16, 16-23-14.
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