Celebration of Light

With the upcoming change in our Presidency, there were fears from our district students and families about possible deportation. A few weeks ago, my School Board adopted a resolution to continue to protect undocumented students from deportation. “As part of the resolution, the board directed the district general counsel’s office to issue a legal memorandum to all students and staff affirming the protections for immigrant students and their families under a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding the rights of students in the country without legal permission to attend public schools.” In addition, we have a District Family and Community Engagement Office that is organizing an event to support the rights of all students to be educated in an “environment free from fear, violence and intimidation”. The event will have immigration advice, health care information, and other resources and support for our diverse community. I definitely saw some fear in some of my students about the idea of not being able to attend school and being deported. I think public schools have always been a safe place for students to attend. Now that policies are changing, the fear and anticipation of what will happen next is growing. It is a potential conflict that can have some devastating consequences. I do like how my district has taken action to ensure the safety and well-being of our students and families by adopting the resolution and offering supports and resources for families through the district office.

Resisting Change: Reasons and Research

What are the reasons that cause people to resist change? As individuals, we all have our boundaries and comfort zones. When faced with organizational change, I think there are a variety of reasons that cause people to resist change. From my experience, I have seen fear play a huge role in resisting change. Teachers can be fearful of a new strategy or procedure because it is outside of their comfort zone. We can also be fearful of taking risks, if we are in survival mode of just getting through the school year, to take a risk in changing up the norm can be frightening. I think another factor that plays into resisting change is the overall belief in the change. For example, if the change does not fit into our core values or we do not understand the rationale behind the change then we are more likely to resist. In the reading you have been doing for this class what does the research say about resistance to change? The responsibilities of a school administrator can be stressful and overwhelming when faced with staff that are resistant to change. Overall, approaching resistance in a systematic manner can play a huge factor in the success of a school (Lunenberg, 2010). Lunenberg identifies uncertainty, concern over personal loss, group resistance, dependence, trust in administration, and awareness of weaknesses in the change as primary issues when facing staff resistant to change. Worrying about the unknown and how their work life will be affected causes resistance. In addition, some teachers resist change because they see it as a loss of power, prestige, or other benefits. To overcome change, Lunenberg found the most frequent approaches used to include education and communication, participation and involvement, facilitation and support, negotiation and agreement, manipulation and cooptation, explicit and implicit coercion. Understanding these approaches can help administrators gain the momentum needed for a positive change.

What am I Thankful for? My love/hate relationship with my SPED Department...it's mostly love!

My special education department is truly special to me! We laugh, we fight, we disagree, we talk about each others weaknesses, but at the end of the day we have each others back. We work together as a team to ensure we provide the most appropriate supports and services to our students and families! If a teacher comes in upset about one of our students, our department members make sure to support each other in making the right decisions and letting the school staff know that we are working in the best interest of students! We have the courage to disagree with each other but we also have the ability to laugh at ourselves and how passionate we each can be over such small issues. When I think of collaboration and teamwork, I feel this has been the strongest team I have worked with in during my 15 years of teaching. Could it be that we are all wise and have learned from our mistakes? Or that we all share a common vision and make sure to enjoy ourselves along the way? What ever the exact reasons, I am happy to be part of such a great department that truly enjoys coming to work everyday...and even if we are not feeling so great...we have each other to lean on!

Force Field Analysis Brainstorm

This was my second chance to use Prezi as a platform to conduct the Force Field Analysis. I feel my technology skills continue to develop and refine as I keep using a variety of programs! As a future administrator, this experience of facilitating a force field analysis has positively impacted my confidence and ability to lead a team through a challenging decision making process and reach a positive outcome. By utilizing a variety of decision making strategies such as Drucker’s systematic approach for decision making and Lewin’s force field analysis, I was able to engage our school growth team in meaningful conversations that developed into action steps. Our school growth team reached consensus and made the appropriate revisions to the school growth plan to maximize our efforts in improving student achievement. Utilizing my leadership skills with my school growth team provided me the opportunity to practice and refine my leadership style. As a future administrator, this experience will be the starting point for my knowledge base when facing difficult decisions and eliciting momentum from my staff to be a part of the change process.

In completing Clinical Practice 1, I found an interesting text called The Leadership Challenge that discusses similar decision making and core values addressed by McLaughlin (2015). The authors of The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes and Posner (2002) described the importance of values serving as “a guide to action…they inform our decision as to what to do and what not to do…and really understand why we meant it (p.41)”. They take it one step further and believe that effective leaders must clearly articulate their values and demonstrate their deep commitment by modeling the way. As I completed my Principal interview, he was able to articulate his core beliefs and “lead from what is believed (Kouzes & Posner, 2002)”. One of his core values shared in our interview was ensuring equity and fairness amongst our staff and students. We have seen many examples of his decision making process that have earned great respect and trust from our staff. References: Kouzes, J. & Posner, B. (2002). The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. McLaughlin, D. (2015). Insights: how expert principals make difficult decisions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Administrative Decision Making: Is it a Team Sport?

I agree with Edwin Bridges ideas on how to involve staff in decision making. I think he offers a systematic approach for administrators to determine when and how to include staff in the decision making process. It seems like common sense to me that if a decision is going to affect how I am going to teach in the classroom, that I would be more invested in participating in the decision. This group decision process can also establish “teacher buy-in” because they were active participants in the decision. There are many decisions that can be made without involving teachers yet some teachers or staff might have a strong opinion that they still want to have heard. Bridges offers a platform to voice these solutions/opinions to consider in the process yet the final decision is made by the administrator. I think it can be a challenging balancing act for administrators to move fluidly from individual decision making to group decision making. It is also important to know the motives of the group and if they have the students best interest in mind.

My Core Values