Mental Health Supports and Education

This year, our site piloted a trauma program to support students with dual diagnosis of special education and mental health diagnosis. The team consists of a licensed therapist and two rehabilitation specialists and they work directly with our identified students. Most of the supports are delivered 1:1 because the nature of their mental health diagnosis (ie: depression, anxiety, bi-polar). I have had quite a few students utilize this program and have seen some great progress with their behavior, attendance, and academics in my classroom. The best part of having this on campus is the immediate access to support if there are any emergency situations. They are always willing to consult about students and offer guidance and support in how best to handle the situation. One challenge to this program is when the student gets constantly pulled out of class for therapy or a skills meeting. The consistency of support from the general education teachers vary. Some teachers allow the student to make up the work missed, others penalize the student for missing class. It is an ongoing issue that our Administration is trying to address so we can keep the program running. San Diego Unified School District. (2016). Providing Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports Project In Leadership and Learning. Retrieved from: https://www.sandi.net/staff/staff-leadership-and-learning/positive-behavioral-interventions-and-supports-project

Leadership and Test Scores

I do believe test scores can help us improve our instruction and also help guide us in making sound instructional decisions about our students. However, I do not believe that we should base any educational decisions or make any assumptions on just one low test score. I think using a variety of data is helpful in truly understanding the needs of our students. For example, are there alternative ways students can demonstrate their learning if they score low on a multiple choice test? Can we look at multiple years of test scores to see if a student scores consistently over an extended period of time? Or did the student have extenuating circumstances one particular year and that could attribute to the low test scores. I think there are so many variables that need to be considered when addressing low test scores. The easiest would be to blame it on the students that lack the skills or the teacher that might be struggling in their first year. However, I think it is an unfair practice to fire teachers if the majority of their students score low on SBAC testing. Firing a teacher or blaming it on the students’ lack of skills are just short term solutions when looking at low test scores. I think it is an Administrator’s responsibility to dig deeper into the root cause and to develop long term solutions to solve this problem.

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/01/16/462181638/solving-the-special-ed-teacher-shortage-quality-not-quantity# One of my colleagues shared an article about teacher shortages and subs procedures for her district. It sparked some interesting conversations about the subject. I share your frustrations when having to be pulled out to sub for another class! Being in special education, our front office likes to make phone calls to our rooms first because it is easiest to pull us out of a co-taught class. As painful as it is to sub for a teacher in a class that I know nothing about (I had to sub for a physics and chemistry class many times this year), I understand the legal ramifications if there was not a credentialed teacher present. I think it is a difficult situation that school sites and administrators should address and have a plan that will not burn out their own staff. My daughter attends school in the same district I teach at. Her classroom teacher has been teaching all year with a Short Term Staff Permit. I had HUGE reservations about this at the start of the year because when looking her name up on CCTC, she had no valid credentials. I thought she would just be a thirty day sub until they filled the position. When I spoke with the Principal, she said she had no plans of filling the position and wanted to keep this teacher. I felt strongly that this teacher did not have the theoretical knowledge or skills to handle my daughters class. I even filed a complaint with our quality assurance program to inquire about the legality of this issue. Our district response was that she was issued the Short term staff permit to teach for the remainder of the year and this was approved by CCTC. I feel strongly that it is the district's responsibility to continue looking for qualified teachers but they felt that this was acceptable. Long story short, this teacher has tried to do all she can to be a good teacher. However, I feel that my daughter has lost a whole year of quality education because she did not have access to a credentialed teacher in the classroom. Sorry to vent, but it has been a frustrating year for my daughter. Offering more money for substitutes sounds like a good short term plan, however, I still believe we have to uphold our substitutes to a standard and the CBEST should not be waived. As a credentialed teacher, we have so many different certifications, P.D.'s and requirements to be able to teach. Why should we lower our standards when it comes to substitutes?

Discipline that works?

My district has adopted a discipline strategy called restorative justice to help curb the expulsion and suspensions rates. This program focuses on more positive conflict resolution skills using meaningful accountability and consequences for students. Instead of suspending a student for 3 days and sending them home this strategy focuses on more positive outcomes and consequences. For example, staff and students involved in the incident try to get to the “root of the behavior” by engaging in dialogue of better choices. It is also interesting to see the increase in accountability for actions; this idea is to have the student responsible (the offender) to work positively to repair the relationship with the student or students that were affected by the incident. This program is in its third year of implementation and our district reports that expulsions have decreased nearly 60%. This looks like a remarkable decrease but it is also important to know that our school board also voted to give more discretion to school administrators for disciplinary actions. Previously 15 offenses that were mandatory expulsions were reduced down to 5. The other 10 are considered discretionary expulsions(3rd fight in a year, causing serious injury, assault or battery on school employee, possessing a knife, possessing a dangerous object, using a controlled substance, possessing controlled substance, robbery/extortion, smoking, and causing serious injury in hate incident) So in conjunction with restorative justice practices our revised expulsion and suspension policy has helped decrease discipline issues. Does your District or School Site use restorative justice practices? If not, what types of positive discipline strategies are used to keep the schools safe yet students accountable for their behavior? http://www.kpbs.org/news/2015/jun/02/year-later-san-diego-unifieds-school-discipline-ch/

I work at the high school level and have seen high numbers of students drop out or really just disappear. In the last few years, our district has concentrated efforts in reducing the numbers of these drop outs. Our district shared with us students that are at high risk and it was shocking to hear it usually starts in the early grades. For example, missing a month or more of school in the primary grades, entering 3rd grade without strong reading skills, and lack of positive school experience. I think it was shocking to me because I have always taught at the high school level and never went that far back to explain why students drop out. Our district did inform us that “the middle grades and the first two years of high school are key indicators to identify the majority of students at highest risk of dropping out (San Diego Unified School District, 2016)”.If we pay attention to the “ABC’s of dropout prevention- attendance, behavior, and course performance” we could implement a variety of prevention and intervention strategies to decrease the high numbers of dropouts. My district has implemented a variety of strategies to reconnect with these students that are at risk. One program that I have seen in action is called “Check and Connect”. These are resource teachers that work directly with at risk students. At my site, I have one student that meets with her Check and Connect teacher at least once a week. They look over her grades, attendance, and behavior and create a solid plan to address any issues. The Check and Connect teacher collaborates with all the classroom teachers, counselors, and administrators to ensure the student is successful. Just today, the Check and Connect teacher asked to take our student to meet with the Principal. She has had some significant attendance issues that were due to an unstable home life. Despite these issues, the student was able to persevere with her education and completed all the requirements needed for a high school diploma. Unfortunately, we have an attendance policy that prohibits students from walking in graduation if there is a high rate of absences. The check and connect teacher was advocating for this student’s right to walk in graduation and asked for this special meeting to explain the unusual circumstances. I know our Principal and I know he fully understands the idea of equity and fairness so I am thinking he will allow her to walk. Questions: I am curious to hear what types of programs your district offers for at risk students? Have these programs experienced success in decreasing the amount of drop out rates? San Diego Unified School District. (2016). Retrieved from: https://www.sandiegounified.org/dropout-prevention-and-attendance-initiatives

Theory X , Y, & Z

As Kaplan and Owings (2015) described McGregor’s Theory X and Y and Ouichi’s Theory Z, I see many parallels of each of the theories in regards to work motivation levels at my school site (p.41). Theory X reminded me of some colleagues that do not seem invested in improving student achievement. I think reasons behind this could be compared to what Kotter (2012) observed in the business world of having “no sense of urgency” (p.4). They attend our monthly staff and department meetings but show no signs of interest in taking on additional responsibilities. Luckily, we have more Theory Y type teachers that show a general commitment to providing a positive learning environment. Overall, I feel my current site is trying to strive towards Ouichi’s Theory Z in small successions by trying to get all teachers invested in a shared vision and creating effective professional learning communities. There seems to be a long road ahead for us to get to Ouichi’s Theory Z model. Fortunately, my first few years of teaching, I was at a site that looked more like Theory Y and strived towards reaching Theory Z. We had a phenomenal District Instructional Leader that shared the same vision and goals as our school site. We also had a highly supportive Administration that understood the importance of building leadership amongst the teachers (Kaplan and Owings, 2015). It was as close to an educational utopia, as compared to Ouchi’s Theory Z model, as I have ever experienced in my years of teaching. Kaplan, L.S. & Owings, W.A. (2015). Introduction to the principalship theory to practice. New York, NY: Routledge. Kotter, J.P. (2012). Leading change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. Using McGregor Burns Theory X and Y and Ouichi’s Theory Z model, I am interested in hearing what the school climate is like in your district.

I came across an interesting article criticizing our district’s superintendent use of power to “match principals to the right school and removing those who aren’t getting the done.” The article points out that she has exercised this power liberally. Since starting her position as Superintendent in 2013, there have been “87 principals – about half of all those in the district – have retired, transferred to other schools or moved to loosely defined “special assignments.” This article also reported statistics from a 2012 RAND report about trends with new principals. They found that ”New prinicipals– whom the study defined as principals who are new to a school, even if they had prior experience as an administrator – improve over time. But about 20 percent of them will leave schools within two years.” This concerns me as we move closer to obtaining our administrative credential. Can I handle this type of pressure that comes along with the responsibility of being a school administrator? Being in the classroom for 15 years and having that job security has always been comforting (AND necessary since my husband and I have always been a double income family). This job security goes out the door as we take on the challenge of becoming a school administrator. How are you feeling about becoming a School Administrator now that we have completed these 3 summer classes? Are you ready to leave the classroom and the comforts of job security? How will you ensure that you have longevity as a School Administrator? http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/principal-churn-highlights-a-big-tension-in-martens-tenure-as-superintendent/