Brian Zawislak

Internship Reflection
EA 8940 – Professional Seminar
I was fortunate to be able to do my internship while performing my daily job. In

addition, because I had some authority, I could take the information I was learning in the

classroom and apply it around Troy High School. I worked side-by-side with my mentor, Remo

Roncone, to build capacity in myself and our team as a whole. Our administrative team consists

our principal, Remo, and three assistant principals, me, Melissa Curth, and Dan House. Truth be

told, I also consider Melissa to be a mentor to me. We have never had to talk about it, rather I

think she feels compelled to make sure I am prepared to step into the principalship if needed.

Melissa has been in her current position for 17 years and has basically seen it all. As a result,

she is in the latter years of her career and is very comfortable with her role. Therefore, she

wants to leave the building in good hands and feels like if she is able to share her wisdom with

me, it will be a legacy that lasts for years. It is a gift that I am very grateful for because I learn

something new every day, and if I don’t have an answer for something, she is always willing to

help me. Dan has been in his role for the past 6 years and has good knowledge of athletics and

extra-curricular activities. Our team has been together for 4 years now and we push each other

to get better and better each year. I love our comfort to engage in a conversation, and

pushback on each other’s thinking. It provides an opportunity to offer reasoning and thinking,

which is a skill that is definitely needed in this job!

My role at Troy High School is to provide support for discipline and attendance for all of

the sophomores and for the seniors with last names R – Z. Initially, discipline was something I

struggled with because I did not really believe that suspension was necessarily the best practice

to help students grow as individuals. Therefore, I was thankful for the legislation that

suggested using restorative justice when necessary. Although it takes more effort to work with
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Internship Reflection
EA 8940 – Professional Seminar
a student than to do something to them, I value the opportunity for the student to learn in the

discipline process. If there is one area I have grown during the past 18 months, this is one of

them. I have gone from an administrator who simply doles out consequences to one who not

only utilizes and believes in restorative justice but engages our staff in learning around

restorative practices. Melissa and I have become the lead learners in the school around this

topic and we have used monthly staff meetings to provide information about the social capital

window, restorative questions, restorative language, and even restorative scenarios.

Another area where I serve the community is through instructional leadership. I am

very fortunate to work with an absolutely talented group of teachers and counselors. Currently

I work with the math and science teachers. This was an interesting dynamic for me because I

was a math teacher in the building for nine years and then moved into my current role. I went

from being a colleague to evaluating their work. Remo was patient with me and did not have

me work with the math group right away. He wanted to give me time to “separate” myself a bit

from the group. Initially I evaluated social studies and science and developed great

relationships with the teachers so much so that Remo felt comfortable having me evaluate the

math department starting in the 18-19 school year. I’ve evaluated them for the past two years

and felt very good about the transition. I believe the teachers understand that I am there to

work with them to build their craft. In fact, I often preface my conversations that way. “I know

you are doing tremendous things in the classroom and have been doing that for years, so if I

can make a suggestion to get you to think about how you manage an activity or frame a

question differently, I will consider it a success!” Beyond the teachers I work with, I took an

assignment from one of Dr. Feun’s classes and put it into action for the entire staff. We
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Internship Reflection
EA 8940 – Professional Seminar
encourage job-embedded learning, so I pitched the idea of posting a chart in the workroom

where teachers could invite others into their classrooms to see the amazing things happening in

and around the building. There really was not any conversation because everyone agreed it

was a good idea, and consequently the Pineapple Chart was born. It started slowly, but really

gained steam as the 19-20 year continued.

Overall, I feel like the teachers I have been working with have really grown and several

examples came from a unique occasion. I was given an opportunity late in the 17-18 school

year to attend the New Pedagogies of Deep Learning (NPDL) international conference in

Vancouver with other members from the Troy School District. As an attendee, I felt a sense of

responsibility to share my learning with our Troy High community starting in the 18-19 school

year, particularly with the teachers I was working with. From that experience, I was able to

galvanize teachers to provide a special learning experience for students in Geometry that

connect their work on similarity with a group called Tiny Homes in Detroit. It was something I

focused on for my curriculum unit. Moreover, I was able to encourage a historically

dysfunctional group of biology teachers to pull together and provide students an opportunity to

engage in a deep learning experience. Their work centered around an ecology unit and offered

students an opportunity to choose a topic of interest called the Human Impact Project. The

project connected students to experts in the field and provided them with a platform, through

a showcase of learning, to share how humans are impacting ecology and potential solutions

too. The students loved it, and it built the culture and climate of the biology teachers. Finally, I

worked to encourage a veteran teacher to take a day or two and step away from the AP Physics

C curriculum to take part in a physics photo contest. The students were asked to take a picture
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Internship Reflection
EA 8940 – Professional Seminar
and explain the how physics is present in it. A gallery of pictures was organized on the day

before the winter break, and the teacher invited other science classes in to vote on their

favorite photos. There was a great atmosphere that day, and one of the pictures from the

gallery was selected to be on the cover of the American Association of Physics Teachers

calendar! It was an incredible accomplishment having observed the evolution of the entire

project! In addition to this work, Melissa and I also organized a new teacher institute in the 19-

20 school year thanks to my exposure to it in the Human Resources course. We shared our

work with the other secondary assistant principals as well as our Director of Teaching and

Learning and our Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Ed. My hope is to expand our work

throughout the district and, based on the reaction of the other leaders in the room, it may

happen eventually. As the instructional leader in the building, I also lead a book study using Jon

Gordon’s “The Power of a Positive Team” with our admin team, secretaries, and some of our

counselors.

Besides working with teachers, I am the administrator who works alongside the school

improvement chair. Although our group is small, we have developed an efficient way to

provide an avenue to gather info from all of the staff in the building. During the 18-19 school

year, our district started providing staff with opportunities to learn and collaborate with each

other several times through early-release days. On some days we work with teachers across

the district. On other days we work with teachers in our own building. The school

improvement team has grown to work with teachers on the days we stay in house utilizing an

Ed Camp model. The Ed Camp model offers teachers choices in their learning. Typically, we

host two 20-minute time periods and present 3-4 session to choose from. The sessions are
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Internship Reflection
EA 8940 – Professional Seminar
geared around strategies teachers should be using to help us complete our School

Improvement Plan. We gather feedback from teachers after each meeting to plan for the next

one through electronic surveys, and this past year, we also used the electronic surveys to

gather feedback about overall school goals. I’m proud of the fact that over the past few years,

our group has grown from a small one that simply checked boxes and completed a task for the

department of ed to one that engages the whole school to be involved with the process.

My last area of responsibility involves working with our student government and

leadership classes to develop school spirit and build culture in and around the building. In the

18-19 school year we set a high bar for charity and spirit around the building partly because we

had a fantastic senior group that really was inclusive and were genuinely positive with

everyone. We started the year with what we pitched as Colts Care Week, similar to a welcome

week at a university where we made students aware of clubs, athletics, and fine arts programs

they could get involved with so that they could connect with the school community. We had

different organizations greet students at the doors in the morning, send them off on their way

home, and held events at lunch including a wildly popular clubs fair where students had an

opportunity to mingle through a space and consider some of the clubs we had to offer, and that

was just week one! We raised thousands of dollars at our annual activist week and started a

new tradition to end the school year with the seniors, which included a spring pep assembly, a

lip-dub video that involved the entire school, and a last day for seniors that involved a

breakfast, yearbook distribution, graduation practice, senior mock awards assembly, and a clap-

out around the school where senior donned their graduation caps for the first time. The

morning culminated with a class picture in the gym where the students formed the numbers
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Internship Reflection
EA 8940 – Professional Seminar
2019. Needless to say, they completely embraced the changes and we used that momentum to

springboard into the 2019-2020 school year.

In the 19-20 school year, we did not take our foot off the gas! We added events to Colts

Care Week and raised more money at Activist Week using both old and new ideas like writing

notes to students and teachers to attend to their social and emotional well-being. We also

developed a monthly event for teachers called Thank You Thursdays. What started as a simple

get together of a small snack to show our appreciation and take care of our teachers’ social

and emotional well-being evolved into an extravagant event that teachers rarely missed! Like

everyone else, we did not have a chance to traditionally finish off the school year with our

seniors. Although we could not get them a prom they were hoping for, we embraced the

challenge to provide the seniors with a virtual Honors Convocation that mimicked the in-person

version, yet parents told us, “…it actually felt more personal.” Next, we worked to virtually

produce a senior mock award night and an All-Night Party raffle. On top of this, we organized

an incredible senior parade for the ages that where we received nothing but positive feedback

from everyone involved! It made me feel like no matter what happens in the 20-21 school year,

we can do whatever we put our hearts into. To top all of this off, the students in the student

government worked tirelessly to complete a nomination for me to the Michigan Association of

Secondary Schools Principals to be Assistant Principal of the Year for the state of Michigan!

Although I was not named a finalist, I am grateful that the students thought that much of me to

go to those lengths to complete the nomination. Working with this group is typically the

highlight of my day, and I am hoping their teacher will allow me to come into the leadership

class where I can take some of the articles we used in the professional seminar class to engage
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Internship Reflection
EA 8940 – Professional Seminar
them in learning around leadership. Overall, I believe our entire staff has benefited from my

experience in Oakland University’s Ed Specialist program. It makes me think I can bring more to

the community if I keep going. The January 2019 version of me felt like a novice compared to

the June 2020 version. I almost feel like I am ready to lead a school on my own and then, who

knows, maybe even a district!