Research, Writing, Survey, Planning Support (Project Consultant)

2017-06-26

Under the rubric of Mosaic Collective, LLC, I (Holly) offer services as a consultant to both non-profits and educational institutions, which includes organizations located in Bloomington – Normal, IL and elsewhere, since this work may often occur remotely.

This spring, I had the honor of serving as a project consultant for an grant-funded effort being led by Illinois State University’s Center for the Study of Education Policy (CSEP), in which the goal is to create and pilot a new centers for school leadership in Illinois. Such centers are intended to support principals and create a healthy school leadership pipeline.

Principals, as most know, have an enormously difficult job, and often struggle with managing administrative mandates while also meeting the ever-more-complicated needs of the whole-child during the school day.

This theme resonates with my work at my former job(s) in the non-profit world (e.g. managing collective impact, cradle-to-career, and stakeholder/community organizing projects) , and I was grateful when a friend and colleague at CSEP invited me to support their effort with some specific deliverables, which included:

General Project Support

  • Participate in three advisory committee meetings, a cultural competency webinar, and an additional planning meeting
  • Maintained weekly office hours on campus at ISU
  • Wrote project summary / status update for grantor and for Chicago Principal Partnership/Chicago Public Education Fund
  • Research and reading to support all objectives as necessary
  • Created acronym dictionary for Advisory Committee, with hyperlinks

Statewide Survey

  • Construct a Survey-Monkey for statewide dissemination to universities, regional superintendents, district superintendents, schools boards, principals, and teachers (7 pages, 33 questions, 416 respondents, with logic and conditions applied)
  • Obtained IRB approval for survey with CSEP as lead investigator
  • Wrote cover emails for survey solicitation
  • Presented preliminary survey results / analysis at planning meeting, including visuals

Best Practice Manual

  • Research best practices related to supporting principals, educating the whole child, cultural competency, and talent management
  • Create a working document based on this research (see below for final report, delivered to CSEP 5/2017)
  • Prepare and lead an Best Practice webinar for the Advisory Committee based on this working document

It was an honor to serve CSEP on this project, and I am so grateful for the opportunity! Visit the Consulting page on our website to learn more about the type of projects that may be supported on a contract basis by Mosaic Collective, LLC.