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department heads

topic posted Fri, August 17, 2007 - 11:27 AM by 
Long story short, looks like I'm going to be dept head this year at my little charter school. One problem I *know* needs work is communication - up to and including exactly what the job description of dept head is...lol. I've led teacher workshops and mentored new teachers before, but dept head is something new for me. Other than being the "go to person" for things and organizer of meetings, what are some things YOUR dept head (or you, if you are one) takes care of? I mainly anticipate a lot of bookkeeping type chores.... is that about right or am I way off base here?
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  • dani
    dani
    offline 131

    Re: department heads

    Sun, August 26, 2007 - 3:16 PM
    things that might include:

    1. curriculum and instruction for your department (whos teaching what...math right? Pretty set probably)
    2. school policies that come up in meetings you've had with the other department heads/admin
    3. testing and standardized testing and how it will be conducted for your department
    4. new teacher training and support
    5. School wide learning results for math
    6. department meetings with your own teachers to disseminate this knowledge

    Good luck Dawn!
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    • Re: department heads

      Sun, September 2, 2007 - 10:19 AM
      That's pretty much it. I was English Dept. head last year at a brand middle new school here in Reno. I did all of those things plus trying to promote school-wide literacy and train content teachers. We also came up with a curriculum map to start working on standards-based grading. There is no extra pay or prep for department heads in middle school and since I teach Reading, not LA, I turned the dept. head job over this year to a LA teacher.

      Good Luck!
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  • Re: department heads

    Mon, September 3, 2007 - 9:26 AM
    thanks you two ;-)

    We're going through another level of WASC accreditation this year, so the whole school has really been focused on the ESLRs.... nice for me cuz it makes that part of my job a little easier. I'm "feelin' it" a bit more now but one thing I'm gonna put together is an actual job description cuz that would have helped me quite a bit during the first couple of weeks.... every one just kept expecting me to have/know/do stuff - most of which was a complete surprise to me!
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