Interview a person in your school whom you consider a leader such as the person
responsible for the oversight of Special Education and/or ELL services, a school counselor, the Dean, or an
AP.
The Interview Questions (1A)
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During each of the three interviews you will ask the set of base questions listed below. Sometimes two
possible ways are given to pose the same question. Choose the version with which you are most comfortable,
or reword the question, but keep the essence/main meaning of the question.
What is your role in our school? How would you describe that role and its responsibilities?
How did you decide to enter into this aspect of education? or How did you come to have this role at
XYZ School?
How would you describe the mission and vision of our school?
How would you describe our school in three words?
How do you feel your role in the school contributes to actualizing the mission of the school?
How do you support the work of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in the school?
Who do you work closely with in the school? Or How do you collaborate with others in the school?
What professional development or support have you received? What additional professional
development or support would you like to receive or think you need?
What is your favorite part of your job? or What makes you want to come to work in the morning?
What is the most challenging element of your job?
Think about our school. What is one change that you feel could make a positive impact on our
school?
Do you consider yourself a leader? Why or why not?
(Part 1B) In addition to the base questions, you are required to ask at least 5 additional questions of each
interviewee that you develop on your own. These should be prepared and written down before the interview
and should be different for each interviewee based on their specific role within the school. They can also be
interwoven among the base questions.
Part 2: Conducting the Interview/Answers to Questions
Based on when each interview is due, set up interview appointments and inform each interviewee that you
will need about an hour of their time.
Interviewing is a combination of engaged listening, interacting with the person you are interviewing by
nodding, making eye content, and acknowledging what they are saying, and taking thorough notes as
responses are given. Address all the base questions AND each question you wrote. When appropriate while
you are interviewing, add additional questions that will allow the interviewee to expand on their responses or
help clarify what they have said. We will discuss and practice this process of probing in class. If needed, you
might split interviews into two separate meetings to be able to ask all the questions. After each interview,
“clean up” your notes so they are more legible/understandable. You might add a word here and there that
you missed during the interview but be sure not to interpret or misrepresent your interviewee’s responses.
The interviewee’s answers that you captured from the one-on-one interview is Part 2.
Part 3: Post-Interview Reflections
1. Reflect on what was shared during each interview, then write about the interviewee’s responses and
any questions raised for you about this experience. Consider what you learned about leadership in
general and what you learned about this person’s role specifically in the school community.
Additionally, consider what you learned about the interviewing process.
2. Next, read through the standards and connect what you learned to specific elements from the
standards. Select three elements from three different standards and write a short paragraph about
each element discussing/explaining your learning from the interviewee.
NOTE: A template will be provided in class that will guide your post-interview reflections.
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Part 4: Leading to Improve the School: Action Plan
There are multiple purposes for conducting these interviews: to learn about the roles of various school
leaders, to deepen your understanding of leadership and the standards, and to help you determine leadership
activities that you can do as part of your fieldwork. In each interview, you will have heard about the roles and
responsibilities of the individual you interviewed and learned about some of the challenges or struggles that
exist within your school community.
1. For each interview, use the information shared to determine what you think are three focus areas
(ideas/problems) for the school. For example, when you spoke with the Parent Coordinator, she
said some parents are really concerned about “X”, mentioned that few parents come to PTA
meetings, and talked about needing more information about “Y”.
2. Next, think about: What needs to be done to improve each focus area? What strengths can I build
upon? What might I, as an aspiring leader, do related to the needed area of improvement?
3. Lastly, identify the standard and element to which what you can do relates (Do not just use the
number of the standard and the letter of the element.) Eventually, you will add what you actually did
as follow-up as well as how many hours this took on your fieldwork logs.
