Well, another week has passed and things have started to heat up, and I don't mean the weather. I have been working as a CTC for the summer's remediation program and let me tell you, this is not an easy task. We did however get a break from the 15 tests originally planned for EOC when House Bill 5 was passed. However, having to do both TAKS and STAAR rosters, cross-references, yada yada yada, has made this an experience I wouldn't want to wish on anyone. All this while still trying to maintain my classwork and other time consuming projects around the house. I'm not asking for any sympathy (unless you want to give some..hehe), rather just letting you know how demanding this administrative journey is going to be. With that being said, let me tell you a little about where I am with this research.
Many of you have given some great insight here and on the BB and I truly appreciate it. You have given me some ideas that I have already posed to my site supervisor. Websites that have many ideas and thoughts have been shared and I plan on perusing these quite regularly to help me in this venture.
I started by talking to my principal about getting the discipline committee involved, and to my surprise we did not have a discipline committee. Yep, now we know why the discipline and lack thereof could be running the climate of our campus. So, as you guessed it, I am now the new Discipline Committee Chairman! Yipee (tongue in check) I have been challenged with creating a committee to help alleviate our discipline problems. Someone mentioned to me in one of my blogs to work with our Attendance Officer. Luckily, we do have one of those and I was encouraged by my principal to include him on our discipline committee. Suggestions of some teachers were given and we discussed their involvement, however we were a little in disagreement at first over these potential members. I know them more than my principal does and in a different manner, mainly because I see how they interact with the students on a daily basis in the hallways. I did explain my hesitancy at asking them to join, because they are one way for the administration and then completely different when no one is around. Once we worked through these characteristics he explained that it is sometimes a good idea as a leader to include all these different paths in an effort to see where they are coming from. He mentioned that we are going to have different ways of handling things, but if we are on the same train we should still be able to reach our goal. I then saw that point of view as an opportunity to pick their brains and see where they are coming from. That should be really interesting.
I was able to see our tardy data over the last couple of years and I was more than astounded at how poorly it was managed, and how there was not enough deterrent factor built into the computer program used to monitor these tardies. We discussed some solutions that I have received here in the blogs and also on BB and he was really receptive. I will however need some more ideas from my classmates, because in an effort to explain the Saturday work detention, as mentioned by one of my blogging followers, my principal thought it would be a better idea to have them do an after school detention. I am a little reticent to this idea because it doesn't really make the parents an active or involved solution. Saturday detention/work duty is more of an inconvenience to the parents which in turn makes the students a little more cautious to their antics during the school day. Involving the parents in this manner would make them aware and accountable for their student's actions which then empowers the parent to be more in control of the students.
With school approaching quickly, I have a big task ahead of me to produce this start of school package to include the parents, teachers, administrators and students. Any ideas from you guys will be wonderful.
I will sign off for now, but as you can see it is going to be a JOURNEY!