Key Characteristic 2: Leadership for Learning

STANDARD # 9
Leaders cultivate effective individual and collective leadership among stakeholders.

Elements

Leaders recognize and encourage leadership potential among stakeholders. Leaders create conditions that offer formal and informal leadership opportunities, and support individuals and groups to improve their leadership skills. Stakeholders demonstrate a willingness to take on individual or shared responsibilities that support the institution’s priorities.

Evidence
Evidence 1: The Organization structure (https://www.mntamilschool.org/school-board/) been enhanced under 2 broader categories: Academic Council and Administrative Council. The Academic Council is further grouped under 3 broader topics: Syllabus, Process, Teacher Training/assessment and Infrastructure. The community contribution towards the organization is purely voluntary. MNTS Tamil School is primarily driven by passionate parents who are motivated in sustaining the Tamil language in Minnesota/USA with vested interest. This drives each one of them to volunteer a few hours each week with dedicated responsibility in various areas of operation. This volunteer base has expanded significantly over years and now we have hundreds of parents investing their time for Tamil school. The school provides a greater platform for everyone to excel in their area of interest. From this volunteer base, people who have demonstrated committed contributions and thought leadership are identified, groomed to take over independent responsibilities in school board and executive committee. Graduated students also volunteer at school in various areas including volunteering during school hours, as secondary teachers and helping with infrastructure work all through the week remotely as their time permits. The school board represents a few major areas, with leaders taking primary responsibilities with other team members in the school board. In addition there are many committees catering to various services via WhatsApp groups and Email groups providing yearlong continuous support. These volunteers are continuously guided, monitored and groomed to become leaders who first are inducted into the school board followed by being inducted into executive committee as leaders. The organization have a strong mix of individual contributors, innovators and leaders at various capacities.