Jul 18, 2021
Dr. Gregory Gardner, Jr. began his educational career in 2007 in the Griffin-Spalding County school system at Carver Road Middle School. He spent seven years there as a Language Arts, Social Studies, and remedial reading teacher. Over the course of those seven years, he helped to pilot the Positive Behavior Intervention System program and served as a member of the leadership team.
In 2014, Dr. Gardner completed his doctoral studies in Curriculum and Instruction, and he began the transition process to become an assistant principal. Later that year, he was promoted within the same school, where he spent four years as an assistant principal. During those times, Dr. Gardner was a part of the administrative team that lead Carver Road Middle School to recognitions from the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE) as a Model School for 2016 and 2017, and the team continued to exceed performance measures through the use of a transformative model that led to a shift in instructional practice and a focus on teaching and learning.
In 2018, Dr. Gardner was named principal of Kennedy Road Middle School, also in the Griffin-Spalding County school system, and he was tasked with turning around the school, which historically was underperforming based on the targets set by the Georgia Department of Education. Dr. Gardner rebranded the school with #CougarAccountability and put a clear set of expectations which were pulled from the Learning by Doing Framework where there was a Focus on Learning, Collaborative Culture, and a Results Orientation. This led to a huge culture shift, and at the end of the year 30% of the staff either resigned or were not offered a contract.
The work was hard, and everyone wasn’t committed to doing the work. The efforts Dr. Gardner and his leadership team put in place, however, led to a huge increase in the school’s College and Career Readiness Performance Index (CCRPI) from a 57.3/F to a 71.2/C, a 14.9 percentage point increase overall, and there were notable recognitions in the school’s focus on closing gaps in subgroup performance, which increased by 28.7 percentage points. The school also was deemed a 2020 Model School due to 1) professional learning community, 2) high expectations 3) collaborative leadership 4) data-driven decision making, and 5) meeting all students’ needs.
Dr. Gardner is currently in his 3rd year of his principalship, and has a focus on building the team around him. Ultimately, his goal is to prepare a member of his team to take the reigns of the school once it is time for him to move to his next opportunity, and he also has ambitions of starting his own business and tackling the challenges of becoming a published author.
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The Coach’s Guide to Teaching by Doug Lemov
The Feedback Pendulum: A manifesto for enhancing feedback in education by Michael Chiles
Putting Staff First: A blueprint for revitalising our schools by John Tomsett and Jonny Uttley
10 Things Schools Get Wrong (And How We Can Get Them Right) by Jared Cooney Horvath and David Bott
Let’s Talk About Flex: Flipping the flexible working narrative for education by Emma Turner
A Parent’s Guide to Powerful Teaching by Patrice Bain
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