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Cathy Howard
Principal
eMail Cathy Howard
As a principal, I get to use all the things I have learned as an elementary, high school and college teacher, as the PAUSD mathematics resource teacher, and as the mother of two daughters who attended and graduated from PAUSD schools. I love the variety of my job, and the opportunities I have to work with children, families, and staff members in so many different ways. |
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| Outside of school time I love hiking and traveling. Recent trips have included hiking the Mont Blanc Circuit in the Alps, kayaking in Alaska’s Glacier Bay, trekking the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu in Peru, and an Outward Bound backpacking trip in Montana. | ||
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The Alps
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The Alps
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When
I was growing up, I wanted to be an archaeologist or a doctor.
I knew for sure I didn’t want to be a teacher like my mother!
And yet, teaching chose me and I have loved every minute of my
30+ years in education. In the fall of 2004 I enrolled in an external degree doctoral program through Fielding Graduate University. In my application essay I wrote about my experiences starting Barron Park School. Here are some excerpts from that essay:
My Vision and Goals for Barron Park School
In 1998 I had the opportunity to bring together my professional experiences and my beliefs about teaching and learning when I was hired to open a new neighborhood elementary school, Barron Park School. In many ways this has been both the professional high point of my career and my greatest learning experience. As I found ways to apply my educational philosophy and bring theory to practice, I also found that the experiences and practice in turn impacted my beliefs and theories.
I came to the principalship with deeply held beliefs about teaching and learning developed over twenty five years’ teaching at high school, college, and elementary school levels. My philosophy of education is based on my understanding and application of Piaget’s work differentiating social knowledge from knowledge that must be experienced and constructed by the learner. In my teaching at all levels, and in my training workshops for teachers, I emphasize active, hands-on learning followed by reflection and generalization to scaffold students’ construction of knowledge and understanding.
As a new principal I thought of the whole school as my classroom, and was eager to involve all staff members and all parents and families in working together to build a community of learners. I set out to hire a staff that reflected the diversity of our community. I wanted teachers who had the skills to teach students from a wide variety of backgrounds, and who brought varying backgrounds and different strengths to complement each other. Just as I had in my classroom, in my school I would treat all students, staff, and families with respect, and would expect everyone to treat each other with respect. I sought ways to teach students — and teachers — to take responsibility for their own work and learning. I believed it was important to provide opportunities for teacher collaboration, reflection, and collegial discussion. I reached out and listened to parents from all parts of our community.
I have learned ways to stay focused on and implement my vision through a variety of specific approaches and activities. For example, one way we involve students in taking responsibility for their own behavior is through holding regular class meetings in all classrooms. Each class develops their own class norms at the beginning of each school year, and revisits those norms regularly to reflect on their own behaviors. Similarly, we created a structure to enable students to take responsibility for their own work and learning as they reflect on their school work and prepare for and hold student-led conferences with their parents each spring.
In order to develop respectful relationships across grade levels, students meet biweekly in cross grade level Constellation Groups. Since they stay in the same constellation group throughout their years at Barron Park, the constellation group leader becomes another adult who knows them well. These school-wide practices - regular class meetings, norm-setting procedures, student-led conferences, and constellation groups - all exemplified and reinforced my teaching philosophy and my beliefs about children and learning.
Another thing I learned was the importance of having the people who will be impacted by decisions, be involved in making those decisions. Our first year we wanted to involve the community in developing our school vision statement and our core values.
My experiences in starting Barron Park School reinforced my constructivist view of leadership — I see the staff as a group of people identifying and working toward common vision together. And yet because I work with a diverse community and staff, that philosophy means that I am listening to and learning from many different people with different points of view. Over the start-up period and since then I have learned to honor and respect many different approaches to teaching and learning in order to meet the needs of different kinds of learners
