|  | | MESPA Home > Honors > MESPA Division Leadership Award > 2009 Awards |  | Jayne Ropella, St. Paul Division
 | | Jayne Ropella, principal of Eastern Heights Elementary, St. Paul |
Educational philosophy: “If I can’t say that I would have my child in each classroom in the school, why would I settle for anything less for any other child?”
Among her most significant career accomplishments, Ropella lists moving her school out of AYP, being accepted into the Five Freedoms National Leadership Fellows, and creating a principal professional learning community.
In moving her school from corrective action to making AYP in all areas for the last three years, Ropella said: “We were one of the first schools in the state to be in that level at the time. This was an extremely difficult and discouraging time for our school. As a staff we worked together to evaluate and change the instruction. We then used the data to target instruction so each student could be successful.“
Being chosen as a Five Freedoms National Leadership Fellow in 2008 put Ropella into the inaugural group of 45 administrators from across the nation. “We have worked with each other, Five Freedoms and Stanford staff to help our schools create the conditions that best support meaningful, equitable, co-created school change strategies,” said Ropella. “The week-long training I received in July has transformed me as an leader. I continue to work with the network through e-mail, blogs, and readings.”
Having served for several years on the MESPA St. Paul division board and three years as the division representative to the statewide Educational Advisory Committee, Ropella said: “I saw that our group needed to debrief and share ideas with each other in a safe environment. Last year, I organized several professional discussion sessions for our members. The feedback was very positive, so this year I formalized the meetings as monthly professional learning communities and applied for administrative clock hours. The group generates the topics according to what we need. We share what we are doing or problems we are having and together problem solve. We have many new administrators and this has been a place to get ideas and support from one other.”
In nominating Ropella, her peers stated: “Jayne demonstrated strong instructional leadership at Eastern Heights by moving her building off of AYP.” “ She is delighted in her role of informally mentoring some of our younger colleagues.” “All of us are aware of her work on principal professional development and the meetings she has scheduled to improve principal professional development, classroom instruction, and student achievement.”
Other recognitions: MESPA Educational Advisory Committee division representative; St. Paul division board member; MN Language Arts Standards, chair 2002-03; Five Freedoms National Leadership Fellow, 2008-present; National School Climate Council Committee, develop national climate standards, 2008-present.
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