Books worth reading: documenting improvement; promising practices for school communities.

The California Documentation Handbook is a wonderful guide for school administrators who must create a document trail for an employee in need of improvement and create professional growth plans. Designed for supervisors who are working with teachers in need of assistance, it provides templates for "keeping you legal" and strategies for ensuring improvement.

The titles of the chapters tell the story of this book: The Legal Framework, The Practice of Documentation, The Teacher in Need of Assistance, Writing and Monitoring Professional Growth Plans, Documenting, Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning, Documenting Classroom Management and the Learning Environment, Documenting Concerns about Subject Matter Presentation, Documenting Instructional Planning, Documenting the Assessment of Student Learning, and Classroom Focused Observation Instruments.

The alert reader will notice the direct correlation between the documentation support and the California Standards for the Teaching Profession.

Users of this book are most likely to find two of the many features especially helpful: one, the numerous focused observation instruments tied to specific areas of concern; and two, the examples of the types of write-ups that can be created based on the use of the observation instruments.

This is a "must-have" book for school administrators who are in the process of documenting improvement plans or will one day be doing so. That means it's a great resource for every school and/or district leader.

The California Documentation Handbook: A Guide for Supervisors, Peer Coaches, and Consulting Teachers. By Frank Kemerer, John Crain and Catherine Maloney. (2004). San Diego: Education Law Services. ISBN # 0-9748768-0-1.

Leadership on Purpose is the result of interviews with administrators, teachers and parents in schools who are defying the socioeconomic odds of being academically successful. It provides a range of practical suggestions for how others can do the same. Those suggestions have been divided into these categories: Principal Strategies, School Curriculum and Classroom Instruction, and Family and Community Connections. The concluding chapter of the book includes a list of questions that can be asked of a school community, and in the process of answering be used to develop a plan of next steps.

Promising practices of school principals include: visiting every classroom every day for the first few weeks of school to set high expectations, scheduling an uninterrupted language arts block, and reviewing pacing schedules weekly.

Promising curriculum practices include: the principal testing all students before they are placed in a class, collaboration meetings for teachers, the use of direct instruction, and the school-wide teaching of English development skills.

Promising community practices include: the wearing of school uniforms, the restructuring of the school day and year to provide more instructional time, and training parents to work in the classroom.

Although the book title identifies the practices as promising for African American and Hispanic students, the authors point out that "only a few of the practices are specific to Hispanic or African American children. We did not find a lot of culturally specific instructional materials or activities."

An accompanying DVD is also available that includes the principals of a number of the schools identified for study telling the stories of their schools.

Leadership on Purpose: Promising Practices for African American and Hispanic Students. By Rosemary Papalewis and Rex Fortune. (2002). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. ISBN # 0-7619-4548-2

George Manthey is a professional learning executive for ACSA.