Is failure a real and regularly option and experience for kids at your school?
Failure is a large option for most of our kids. We have a poverty level of 99% and the worst SBAC scores out of all of our Elementary schools. Failure is a part of our students life every single day. As educators we have to get our students out of that losing mentality. If you expect to fail then you will. . What conditions exist that make never too late to learn and reach competency in your school? r Our school has implemented instructional coaches which are teachers who help students who don’t qualify for special education or resource. This is awesome because there are a lot of kids who are low, but don’t have any learning disabilities. Many of the students lack the home encouragement needed to be successful. What would you do, if anything, to introduce/enhance “never too late to learn” structures in you school if you were the school leader? I would use more PLC because we don’t have enough of this. We don’t have enough input in curriculum from teachers. Many of the curriculum is district mandated without input from teachers who are teaching “actual students.” . Commit to 5 things you are willing to do this semester that will make your school a increase learning opportunities:
1. What role does school play in building students’ agency and identity?
I believe a school has a lot to do with how a person becomes later in life. We hear thousands of stories about how teachers change students’ lives. These are not made up. The culture of the school is very important in order to develop habits that will later teach them how to be responsible adults. I went to an elementary school that was considered distinguished in the State of California. I consider by elementary school the base of education that helped me go farther in my education. I was in an environment where learning was important to all of the students. If I wasn’t in this environment during my younger years I don’t believe I would have graduated college. 2. How aware are you and your colleagues of the impact our choice of words have on developing students’ agency and identity? Can you give examples? I personally am very aware on how I speak to my students. I am a special ed. Teacher and lot of my students have bad home lives as it is. A lot of them don’t have very high self-esteem and are always down with poor confidence. I like to tell them on a daily basis that they can accomplish anything if they try their best. 3. What would you do, if anything, to make using choice words a more conscious and accountable school wide practice if you were the school leader? We already have these in practice at our school the only thing I would change would be that the choice words are being enforced by the teachers. At my school we are told to use appropriate language. We have a few teachers who talk very poor to the kids and you can tell they are afraid of the teacher. School shouldn’t be a place where students are afraid. 4. What could you do, if anything, to make the use of choice words a more conscious and accountable personal practice as well as one embraced by others on your site? Are those things within your sphere of influence? This can be very difficult in my opinion even if we told teachers who were talking poor to the students many of them would not listen to an administrator or other teachers. Many of the teachers have been teaching for years and are stubborn in their ways. I think a lot of people talk poor to students because this is how they were talked to when they were younger or they grew up in this environment. This behavior needs to stop in order for the next generation to act differently. 5. Commit to 5 things you are willing to do this semester that will make your school choose words wisely? 1. Be more aware of my language around students. 2. Make the students aware of their language. 3. Tell other teachers about the language they use. 4. Make a promise with the students to have a type of award system for good language. 5. Make sure is positive in my personal life. 1. When it comes to the concept of Do No Harm, I believe that school is and should be a safeguard for all students. My current site is dedicated to being a Peace Builder where we are against bullying or any type of violence. Everyone works together to achieve this goal.
2. Future sphere of influence, as the school leader, how would my beliefs be reflected in discipline policies and practices? I believe many of the discipline can be done in the class room. Many students don’t have a great support system at home and they don’t have these social norms that other children have. I am a special education teacher so I have to handle a lot of discipline without having to go to the administrators every single day. 3. Future sphere of influence, as the school leader, how would my beliefs be reflected in program practices and initiatives? I think as a school site everyone needs to be on the same page for discipline so students know their expectations. If students don’t know the expectations we can’t get upset when they don’t act accordingly. Open communication about what you want as an educator is very important. 4. Future sphere of influence, as the school leader, how would my beliefs be reflected in our professional development as a community of learners? The professional development I believe all schools should have are PLC. PLC have helped out in the development of our school culture, instruction, and collaboration. PLC’s is a great way for administrators and teachers to make up common ground rules so the school knows what to expect. 5. Is the concept of teaching students to “first do no harm” integrated into the culture of your school (or workplace)? I believe “first do no harm” is integrated in our school. I believe this system has to be a staple in our school because of the area in which our school resides. It is located in a very bad part of town where gangs, drugs and violence are witnessed on a daily basis for some of my students. Having a “first do no harm” policy is a must in order for our students to learn these fundamentals they are lacking at home. Current sphere of influence: Commit to 5 things you are willing to do this semester that will make your school a more positive restorative place: 1 Make sure I implement the rules of the school. Many times as educators we may not agree with all of the rules and we set our own rules. I will follow the rules set by the PLC team. 2 Make sure my students know my expectations as well as the schools expectations. Childrens sometimes forget the rules so they need to be reminded. 3 Be a professional at all times. I believe I need to set an example and to always show that I do what I say. 4 Be a role model. Many students don’t have a role model at school. I will try to be that person students can respect and look up to. 5 I will try to be friendly with my co-workers. Many times we tell students to get a long with others when in fact we don’t always practice what we preach. I believe my school is very welcoming. As welcoming as it can be. I work in a very bad part of town where crime is common, drugs and gangs are everywhere. Many students are poverty stricken. 99% are considered in poverty. Some students school is the only place where they find peace because their home life is very poor. We have a culture where want the students to be safe our motto is that we want to be "peace builders" we want to encourage students that using violence is a bad choice and that it should not be tolerated. Other schools may have their school platform as "everyone is going to college" or "You can do anything" where other school are focusing on life after college we are trying to have are students learn how to be decent human beings instead of being academic focused. We are very academic focused. We just have to go above and beyond by helping students learn values that may not be instilled at home. I feel like we involve parents as much as possible with Coffee and donuts and the school even provides free child care. The problem is that many of the parents are very selfish and don't want to take the time to involve in their child's academic progress. I think if we had more events involving parents then the parents would be more involved. The parents that we deal with don't have a lot of money so if there were events where they could receive meals or any type of items that would increase attendance to events. This sounds weird, but it's true. Many of these parents have a hard time feeding their families so if there was a Barbecue or a type of carnival parent involvement would be a lot higher.
As a school leader in the future I would take the following steps to improve parent involvement:
Five things I am willing to do this semester to help parents be more involved in their Child's education
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