School Conflict

School Conflict A few years ago I worked as a Support Teacher for our Special Education Program Office. My primary role was to work directly with Site SPED Departments to support the team in providing effective services as the district moved towards more inclusive practices. One of the sites I was assigned to had a very dysfunctional team dynamic amongst the department members as well as with the School Administrators. Looking back, I think the conflict was a combination of incompatible preferences and activities amongst themselves and with the School Administration. More specifically, because the district was moving towards inclusive practices (providing more push in services vs. pull out). Many veteran special education teachers were resistant to the change in philosophy. They were very upset with the School Administration reorganizing the master schedule for more co-taught classes/push in services. It also seemed like the resistant staff took things personally because it affected their daily schedule and routine and forced to collaborate with general education teachers. How did School Administrators respond and how was it resolved? When I met with the School Administrators to discuss the new changes, it was apparent they were well aware of the teachers that were resistant to the change. It was interesting to see the different leadership styles amongst the Administrators’. The Principal and a newer V.P. wanted to figure out a way to address the teachers concerns to get their buy in and support for the changes. The other V.P. had prior conflict with the same resistant staff for many years, felt that this was an inevitable change and trying to work with the staff was pointless. How I was personally affected? I felt like I was caught in between the School Administrators and the SPED department. It was a very uncomfortable situation. One of the V.P.’s would roll their eyes when I would mention the certain staff that were upset. I could tell there was a history of frustration that was much bigger than just the change for more inclusive practices. The Principal assigned the newer V.P. to oversee the SPED department and she came in with some great strategies to resolve some of the frustrations. Her first step was having the department meet with her and discuss their concerns. She then invited myself and some district SPED Administrators to come in and share the thought process about the new changes. How did staff members react? The resistant staff members still seemed frustrated but at the end of the meeting the team agreed to be respectful to each other and agreed upon a common goal for the students to be successful. It was a rough year for that team because conflict consistently surfaced amongst the staff members and Administrators.

Best Practice and Limited Time for Administrators

As a special education teacher, facilitating IEP meetings throughout the school year is one of the many responsibilities. I enjoy these meetings because we get to sit down as a team with the student, family/parent, Administrator, School Counselor, and teachers to discuss how best to provide supports and services for the student to improve. I am also a parent of a student with an IEP and was horrified to hear the Administrator, say at the start of my child’s meeting, that the IEP team has limited time (1 hour) because they scheduled back to back IEP meetings. My first thought was that she could have approached this in a more positive tone “I really want to focus on addressing your child’s needs and IEP program. We have scheduled 1 hour for today’s meeting so when it gets close to the end, let’s reassess and determine if we need to reconvene in order to ensure we addressed all areas of the IEP?” She really did not need to let me know that they scheduled back to back meetings. The meeting felt very rushed and I was not impressed with how they handled the limited time. I did not sign the IEP and asked to review all the changes discussed. The team was not willing to sit an additional 10-15 minutes to do this and that really made me more frustrated. They were literally trying to wrap things up ready so they could get ready for the following meeting. Walking away from this meeting, I felt the Administrator put her needs (time constraints for back to back meetings) above my child’s needs. As a future administrator, I know I will NEVER convey to my staff, parents, families, or community members that “I was too busy to call you back or to find time to address your concerns or needs”. To hear this from my child’s IEP team made me feel that my child’s needs were insignificant and not the priority. I will always ensure families feel their student is the priority, whether it is in an IEP meeting or just running into the parent at a school function. I will always make the effort make that parent feel that they are heard and if time is limited, I will offer to schedule a better time to meet free of distractions.

Incorporating New Technology as a Future Administrator

Always open to learning new software programs and utilizing it in the classroom, I have viewed myself as somewhat technology proficient. The technology component (earning tech badges) that the Brandman University Administrative program requires has really challenged my skill set as a future administrator. I have found myself intrigued by the options of technology use to incorporate as a future administrator for data(e-posters), presentations(Prezi), and promoting our school vision. At the same time, I have also found it overwhelming trying to learn the new software programs and creating quality assignments. I really enjoyed using the Prezi program to create my Clinical Practice 3 assignment. I will be honest though, it took longer than expected to create my presentation. As an avid PowerPoint user, I am able to create and format my presentations quickly. So, in trying to create a Prezi presentation, I spent the majority of the time trying to figure out how to format and make the presentation clear and concise. I know I still have a long way to go in learning about Prezi and all its functions. However, Prezi is definitely a program that I think I would want to use as a future administrator. Also, it made me realize the importance of promoting and providing the support of technology use for my future staff. I think it will be an important piece to emphasize in our efforts for school improvement. My current Principal is very good at “showcasing” some great technology in our staff meetings. He also offers additional support by providing online help/instructions/examples of how to incorporate into our teaching practice.

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/