Jason L. Morgan

Lumberton Intermediate School
Lumberton, Texas
jmorgan@lumberton.k12.tx.us

Best Practices

1) My favorite part of being an educational leader has always been the people (students, parents. and staff) and the relationships that I have the opportunity to build with them. I make it a priority to be the most positive person that our students see all day long. From greeting students in the morning when they walk through the door until they walk out the door in the evening, the students get high and positive energy from me. I feel that it is very important to be a visible presence on our campus. My personal goal is to visit every classroom daily with the goal of being accessible to the students and staff. I challenge myself to know my students by name and make them feel important (over 900 students on our campus). In my three years at Lumberton Intermediate School, I have had many students and parents contact the school to let me know how they are doing at the Middle School (next level) campus. When I am constantly accessible to the students and staff. discipline on our campus is more proactive instead of reactive for most situations. Building and maintaining meaningful relationships with the staff and students has helped to create a culture on our campus where everyone feels valued. I feel the practice of visibility and availability has helped to build trust and establish a good rapport with our teachers and staff. This best practice has helped me to know my staff and in tum, them to get to know me. My educational leadership philosophy is one where the leaders should lead by example. and if I want our teachers and staff to make relationships with their students. then as a campus leader I must also model this.

2) Supporting our teachers and staff is one of the most important roles that I play as an assistant principal. My focus for our campus is the growth of every student academically, socially and emotionally. This year’s focus for me is to spend more time with the Response to Intervention team and help with placement of students into the correct program. As a team, we review all universal screeners and the Beginning of the Year Assessment (BOY). We work together to place students into the correct interventions based on data. This was a large undertaking due to the
pandemic and the loss of the final few months of school last year. Another area where I have supported our teachers is with distance learning. Since the Texas Education Agency is allowing for distance learning this year, I have lead our campus development of our online learning program. One way I was be able to support our teachers was to enroll and complete the Distance Learning Specialist certification through Texas Computer Educators Association (TCEA). This program has helped our campus to create an online experience that is ve1y similar to what is happening in
person. With distance learning being new to our teachers, there has been a lot of trial and error. To assist with this process, I facilitate meetings with our online teachers once every few weeks.
This allows our online teachers a chance to talk about what is working well and what is not. I feel that our online students receive a high rigor learning experience that allows them to seamlessly
return to campus when they are ready.