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Best School in the Universe
Best School in the Universe
Sadly, failure is a real and regular option and experience for students at the schools in my district. We are going on seven years of a high percentage of students failing Algebra 1. Last year, one of the comprehensive schools faced the challenge of figuring out how to deal with the high number of fifth year seniors. Our district has also has faced difficulty in placing a high number of incoming ninth graders that have been socially promoted.
It is creating a culture of apathy towards school and education. Students who struggle for reasons such as the ones mentioned above or similar ones, lose their trust and respect for a system that has no consideration for the reasons that have created an obstacle in their learning and achievement. These are the students that we lose, and if they don’t return, it will ultimately negatively impact society. In one school in my district, they have implemented a Reteach, Retake, Replace Program that closely monitors a student’s progress, provides them the opportunity to retake or redo a test or assignment after attending a tutoring session and replacing their low grade, if they demonstrate mastery. Both comprehensive high schools have started to target at-risk freshman, enrolling them in an 8th period class (after regular school hours) to provide them the academic support they need. There are too many conditions that exist that make failure an option, making it too late to learn. Too many teachers consistently reinforce a late assignment policy. The points a student will lose will be determined by the number of days and assignment is submitted late and after a certain time period, the assignment will not be accepted. This is true of too many teachers. My district is a Title I district due to our high percentage of low income students. This means that many of our students have to work to help the family financially or they have to help take care of siblings, where the single parent has to work two jobs. In these situations, if a student doesn’t submit an assignment on time, we need to consider their home life, before we are quick to take away points, not for their inability to master a skill, but for their lack of financial resources at home. Is this fair? As a school leader, I would begin by focusing on strategies for extending the school day. The purpose of extending the school day would be to create structures that will not allow failure. A formal strategy is maintaining the 8th period program, but expanding it to include all struggling students regardless of their grade. I would also ensure there are informal structures where a student can go and get the academic support to guide them towards mastery. In both of these interventions, I would include support for the teacher such as tutors or co-teacher to create a more personal learning experience for students. In my position of Instructional Coach, I can provide guidance to teachers on how to increase student achievement in their classrooms. I can help them analyze the situation, look at student circumstances closely and create individualized plans to provide students multiple opportunities for success. These are the 5 things I am willing to do this semester that will make my school increase learning opportunities:
In my personal and professional opinion, schools, at all levels, play a critical role in building students’ agency and identity. In my mind, this is exactly the same as the role a parent plays in their child’s life. However, in a school a child will come in contact with numerous adults, which could be positive and negative. Therefore, I believe that all the adults in a school learn and understand this, so that they understand the need to work as a team and build a culture of achievement in the school. I am fully aware of the critical impact my choice words have on developing students’ agency and identity. I have studied Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindsets, Robert D. Barr and Emily L. Gibson’s Culture of Hope and now Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and Ian Pumpian’s Culture of Achievement. Along with first-hand observations in my experience in education, I can attest to how we can build or destroy a student’s agency and identity. “You’re never going to change...,” “You can’t...,” “It’s too late…” or no words at all, are all words that my students would tell me that they have heard from schools and have come to believe to be true. Students want to have relationships with school staff and look to us for guidance and support, not only for their education, but for their future and well-being. I believe many of my colleagues are also aware of the power of their words. Unfortunately, not all. If I were a school leader, this would be another pillar that I would internalize and model on a daily basis with all staff and students. This is where it would start, and I would then expand on this by integrating it in all communication with staff. By seeing it, reading it, listening to it, I believe it will stick and help other understand the power of word choice. I think the use of choice words is within everyone’s sphere of influence, including mine. I find myself spending a lot of time communicating via email, and sometimes struggle. I struggle, because I feel that in certain situations it isn’t appropriate and/or impersonal. So, I find myself writing, reading, revising, editing, rereading, rewriting one email, before I finally feel that it is just right. Most of that time is devoted to ensuring that my use of choice words is appropriate, because I understand the power of words. The following are 5 things I commit to do this semester that will make my school choose words wisely: 1. I will carefully consider my audience with all interactions. 2. I will find a creative way to embed this pillar to the trainings I facilitate.. 3. I will share my beliefs on the power of choice words with my colleagues. 4. I will do more research to learn more and apply it at work. 5. I will ask my supervisor and colleagues to proofread and provide feedback on reports and other similar tasks. When it comes to the concept of Do No Harm, I believe that it should be the overarching theme for school and classroom discipline policies. As a school leader, I would work with teachers and staff to develop classroom and discipline policies based on restorative practices, with the intentions that these discipline policies will help create a culture of belonging and safety, allowing their minds to open up to learning. If we can demonstrate to our students that we respect them, as a whole person and not only as student, and that we are here to work “with” them. I believe this will begin a major shift in the mindset of our students, staff and teachers. In regards to program practices and initiatives, I would plan initiatives around the “do no harm” pillar, to increase the reception of all those involved. Successful program practices and initiatives usually involve a number of people. Therefore, in the planning process, I would ensure that the process would prevent negative affects, such as anger or fear and create positive affects such as interest and enjoyment. This would be done by including them in the process from beginning to end and allowing multiple opportunities to provide feedback and voice their thoughts and opinions. Adults, like students, have the need to feel safe and have a sense of belonging. In addition, I would explicitly model the do no harm pillar, by choosing my words carefully, responding respectfully, presenting myself professionally, and maintaining the school environment. Recently, I’ve read several articles surrounds professional development practices in education. Many are stating that providing teachers voice and choice as to what they feel they need and have an interest in learning, is what is proving to be the most beneficial. In the past year, I have played a large role in organizing and facilitating professional development in my district. Based on the feedback and conversations from teachers that attend the professional development, they are not fully satisfied. One of the comments that was clearly mentioned many times, was the fact that it isn’t what they need at this time. At the end of last year and the beginning of this year. We changed the format of our district professional development days so that teachers had a choice. There was a significant difference in the feedback. There was a lot of compliments and words of gratitude for the change. As I school leader, I would assess ours students’ needs and listen to teacher feedback and solicit suggestions, in order to meet both the teachers’ and students’ needs and interests. As Fisher, Frey and Pumpian state in their book, How To Create a Culture of Achievement, “Most schools systems operate on a behaviorist system of rewards and punishments (46). I believe this to be true of my district. I do not see of this pillar is integrated into our discipline policies. I just reviewed the district’s discipline policy, in the process of coaching one of our new teachers. Considering the restorative practices and the do no harm pillar, our discipline policy is punitive not restorative. It outlines the categories for various behaviors and lists the consequences for each occurrence. I don’t remember seeing any type of intervention or attempt to teach appropriate behaviors or have the student reflect upon their behavior. This makes a connection to the way I hear many teachers talk about students who misbehave. Many still believe that punishing students is the only way to get students to rethink and correct their behavior. This is far from the truth. This does not sit well with me. When I was in the classroom, both of the principals allowed the teachers a lot of freedom and flexibility in our classrooms. This is why I usually was the teacher who wrote the least amount of referrals. There was two reasons. I knew the majority of my students didn’t have positive role models in their lives and that they have experienced many hardships. I also didn’t believe in the school’s discipline policy. Therefore, they were behaving the only way they knew how to behave and understood that their misbehavior wasn’t a reflection of their dislike or disrespect towards me. I don’t believe the current culture in my district recognizes these facts. I am willing to commit to do the following five things to make my school a more positive restorative place:
Although you won’t read the word, “welcome” in my district’s mission statement, it does state, “where every student is valued. The following is my district’s mission statement:
“We each take responsibility for providing a safe learning environment where every student is valued and meets or exceeds academic standards.” I believe that for a student to feel valued, they would have to be welcomed first. So I believe our challenge is our communication of this fact. One way to overcome this challenge is to communicate to all stakeholders what it means to “value” every student and how to make it happen. The communication of this information is critical to make it part of a common language. We all have different interpretations of what it means to value someone else, so creating a common language would be ideal. How do our leaders know if our stakeholders feel welcomed at our schools? This is a hard question to answer if you have not explicitly taken some course of action to purposely collect evidence. Speaking to only a few people or taking a survey isn’t enough to answer the question. I conducted my own little experiment. I spent a few minutes in the front office, 3-4 times for a few days. I was looking at the interaction between office staff/administration and students. I also walked around the buildings during passing period, in order to observe the interaction between students and to find out if and how teachers were greeting students. After gathering and interpreting my evidence, not surprising, I learned that students with limited social skills were the ones that could be more effectively welcomed. Shy students, students that spoke loudly, or students that didn’t demonstrate the best manners, were some of the students that were not welcomed in the same respectful and friendly way as other students. The adults responded in a more authoritative tone as compared to other students. Students’ response to these students was similar to bullying behaviors. In our district, many of our students don’t have positive role models who have taken the time to teach them appropriate social behaviors. Unfortunately this is true not only in our district, but throughout our nation. As the school leader, for my future sphere of influence, I would create a common language for behaviors that would be communicated and taught as needed to all stakeholders. Many times we believe that our beliefs are shared by everyone and expect the behavior that we would use. This is not true. I once asked a student to come back to class afterschool to discuss his disrespectful behavior. To my surprise, he showed up. So I explained how some of his behaviors were disrespectful to me and to the other students in my class. I then asked him, what do others have to do to earn your respect. His response was, “They have to fear me.” I will never forget his response, because it opened my eyes and forced me to realize the importance of being explicit, building relationships with students, and doing things purposefully. That is when respect became the theme in my classroom and was reinforced on a daily basis. The student did tell me that it was different for me, since I was the teacher. After that conversation, his behavior in class did improve. I’m out of the classroom, so my current sphere of influence, include staff, teachers and administrators. However, I do feel that I can take steps to communicate and model welcoming behaviors. Last year, district wide we all read and discussed A Culture of Hope written by Robert Barr and Emily L. Gibson. So, I plan to continue to build on this platform and integrate the 4 Pillars of Hope, which include creating a welcoming environment, into all my interactions with my colleagues. The following are 5 things that I am willing to commit to do this semester to make my district a more welcoming place:
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2015
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