The first couple of months in this new position have been a
challenge. I am currently teaching three classes and doing IB work. Working
with the students and familiarizing with IB materials are the easy part of my
work load. The most challenging part of my job is working with the parents and
community stakeholders. I was unaware of how negative perception about the
school would make my work difficult. I was under the assumption that I would be
working only with my current students and parents. However, my interactions
with the community reveal that I have plenty of work to do to change the
negative perception of the school. I have to rebrand. I attended my first
community association meeting a month ago. I was met with hostility from a few
attendees. To those hostile individuals, I was a representation of the school
district. And they had issues with the school district. Fortunately, I had a
veteran colleague with me to answer concerns and de-escalate the situation. My
takeaway from this situation is to be empathetic but relegate my answer to the
things that I have knowledge of. If I don’t have an answer I can state that and
request to help find an answer or direct them to the appropriate person.
IMHO education is under fire by the media which then influences the mindset of the public. Just out of curiosity, was the hostility towards the IB program? I have always heard positive remarks regarding IB programs and what it offers students.
ReplyDeleteOmar, I totally understand having to rebrand your program. My school had to do that very same thing 3 years ago. We have gone from a school where everyone wants to drop off students that they do want in their buildings to students fighting to get into our school. Maybe something you might want to start sending out positive information about your school, and your program. Invite parents to come visit your school. The one thing my school did that totally changed the community's perception of us, we started hosting Student-Led conferences and we invited the parents to come and also community events such as health fairs, career fairs that was open to the public. My principal also created a twitter account and he posted positive things that were happening in the school.
ReplyDeleteNegative perception has been one of our biggest challenges. Because of our students' low SES, we've been called all types of derogatory names. Some of our new parents even by into the negativity. I think that's because we have allowed others to define who we are. One thing that my principal did as part of the school improvement process when we were first designated as a "Priority School" was commissioned a committee to come of with branding ideas. It has been two years and we have seen our image go from positive websites, refurbish facilities, up-dated classrooms, to local businesses run by our students. We have spend a lot of resources on the project. But we are also seeing the benefits
ReplyDelete