Motivation

My major project, Together Ownership & Responsibility at Collins Hill (TORCH) is designed to help first year 9th graders who are at risk. This program offers peer tutoring, teacher tutoring, and support every day of the week. The first semester was very successful with almost 90% of the students passing and on track with their cohort. We were so excited about the progress. This semester looks much different!! With 9 weeks remaining in the school year, we are seeing more and more students failing classes. Some of the students who past all classes 1st semester are now failing 3. A lot of students are failing 2. I have met with all students over the past 2 weeks. There is little to no motivation Students are telling me they are tired, do not care, or there is no reply/reaction at all. I feel that we as a school care more about their success than they do. I know it is our responsibility to push these students, to stay on them, to help them see the importance of education and I feel that we do. We want so much for these students. How do we motivate them? How do we get them to understand the importance of education? How do we get them to truly envision what could be? We give them rewards when they are successful. We recognize their successes. We praise them for successes. We tutor them. We bring in motivational speakers. We are active with these students every single day. But right now, we are frustrated with where some of these students are with their academics. The phrase 'meet me half way' doesn't apply here. I feel we are meeting them way more than half way and we are expecting them to do their part. What do we do? What are other schools doing to help students be successful? I need suggestions as we head into these last 9 weeks!!  Any help is appreciated.

AWOL Students

We are experiencing mass amounts of students leaving campus each day, and/or are skipping classes.  Many of these classes are their Guided Study class which is in combination with their lunch period.  First, we are struggling to get students to attend GS because they see no value and often say that class is pointless.  To an extent, I see their point.  They explain they don't receive a grade so why should they have to go.  We have students walk out the doors, go to lunch, and try to come back on campus.  They leave for periods at a time.  We are the largest school in the state of Georgia.  We have 35 trailers and too many places for students to exit the building.  Many of our students leave out the side door where are trailers are located and keep walking.  Some leave out the back doors and walk around to the front of the school.  On a daily basis we are catching up to 10 students at a minimum walking back on campus to catch the bus.  The majority of these students are not engaged in school and we are working to fix that next year when it comes to instruction.  However, we can't teach the relationship piece.  If students have a teacher that engages them and that they have a good relationship with, they attend that class.  It has been the fault of the administration team to not keep track of these students since the beginning of the year.  Because we are so large and have so many different issues, the students who are AWOL has fallen to the side.  Attendance is a huge issues at our school and next year we are looking to make this top priority.

Over Testing Students

March is a stressful year for most educators and students.  Schools are preparing for the "Big Test". Students are in the "March Madness" mode.   I am struggling with the fact that I have been mandated to test the kids weekly for three consecutive weeks, 2 days a week, in order to prepare them for testing.   Although, I disagree with this method of preparing students, I have to comply.   My concern is how must testing is too much testing.  What constitutes preparation vs "over kill", because at this point I am sure if the data gathered from the students is reliable and really shows what they do or do not know.

Handling a Crisis

Two weeks ago a very close coworker passed away. I have worked with her for several years. This school term, I was paired with her to teach our social emotional advisement class. We developed a close bond and shared personal story with the students. The day she passed was the most difficult day in my teaching career. My principal called me in to inform me about my coworker's death around midday. I was informed that a crisis team from the district was on the way to the school. The principal inform me that the students will know near the end of the school day. My principal informed that I should get my bearings together and be strong for my students. I was assigned to the grief room as the crisis team went from room to room. A senses to sadness and quiet covered the once vibrant halls. Once the students started to come to the grief room crying, it became really hard for me to manage my emotions. I had never had to comfort children in a situation like this before. I had no idea what to say. The only thing I could do was hug them. This experience helped me to relaize that leadership takes on different forms. This includes the ability to relate and connect emotionally with others. Sometime words are not enough, but having an emotional connections is very important.

Sustaining Beyond the SIG

Much work and success has been attributed to the School Improvement Grant that my school received three years ago. The school has gone from a 25% graduation rate to 49.5% graduation (GaDOE) and a completion rate of 80%. This grant has funded the following positions: A school improvement specialist, a reading coach, a math coach, half-time graduation coach, half-time social worker, an attendance specialist and a parent liaison, all of whom were extremely instrumental in the gains that we experienced. The instructional coaches provided much needed support for teachers to become more effective in order to increase student achievement. Through this grant, we have been able to fund a SIG week where teachers are paid to return to work a week before teacher pre-planning to receive training, instructional support and to plan for the upcoming school year. Collaboratively, the graduation coach, attendance specialist, social and the parent liaison all track attendance. The social worker makes home visits based on their recommendation. Of course our teachers have also personalized the learning experience for our students.
In addition, this grant allowed us to fund a mobile health van to provide on-site medical services to our students and counseling services as well. This grant has allowed us to truly provide a circle of support around every student that matriculates in our building. With the grant ending in September and even though, we have been working on a sustainability plan to transfer the instructional coaching duties to the department chairpersons, and request funding for some of our other positions and services, I am afraid that we might lose the momentum that we gained with the grant.

Department Chair Meetings and 2016-2017 SY

I am currently in the process of determining sections for the 2016-2017 SY. In other words, determining teacher needs based on student requests, part year teacher hires, teachers' transfer requests to and from our school and finalizing the 2016-2017 Master schedule with department chairs, department APs and my principal. I am trying to leverage the leadership skills of the department chairs while building their capacity by including them in the process. Interestingly enough, this is the time of the year that some teachers are starting to "become more endearing" towards me hoping to determine early what they will be teaching during the next school year.

Death of a Teacher

Teaching programs prepare us for teaching  students and provides us with the content knowledge to be a successful teacher.  However,  what these  programs cannot prepare is life.  Last week, my school lost a teacher and I lost a friend.  We received the news around noon on Monday. I along with other staff members met with the principal to discuss a plan.  My principal asked us to set our feelings aside to support the staff and students. This was not going to being an easy task.  However, we proceeded with the plan, which consisted of being visual and releasing teachers as need be.  Once we delivered the news to the teachers, we proceeded to meet with individual classrooms to discuss with students.   We called upon the school district crisis team to assist.  I held one of the crisis rooms that students could come to discuss their feelings or perhaps sit in silence to gather their thoughts.   We relocated the teacher's classroom to help ease those the students grieving process. We made it through the week, by going into survival mode and allowing students to grieve.  On Friday, we the students shared moments they had with the teacher and released balloons in honor of her memory.  As a staff, we traveled out of state to her funeral during the  weekend.  Reflecting on the week and this week,  I've realized as a leader, there are things that you deal with that may appear to be in sensitive and seem harsh to some. However, I do not think if we had remained in our feelings rather than focusing on the students and the staff, the transition through this ordeal would have been as smooth.  As a leader, there will be times, where difficult times, will require a mindset not clouded by feelings in order to work for the betterment of all.  As we discussed school crisis, I noticed that school crisis teams normally do not think of the death of a faculty member  as a crisis that a school may need to address.  Hopefully, this blog will serve as a reflection for school leaders to consider as you plan for crisis.