I just finished my Reflective Practitioner Journal Entry 1 for EDAD 616, one of our last courses before we graduate and wanted to correct my quote from Einstein. I did not quote him exactly in my journal and said once we stop learning we pretty much die...but had to go back and find the exact quote just clarify. I think being a classroom teacher for 16 years has helped me understand the importance of being a life long learner. I hope to contribute to our cohort by sharing this core value in our class discussions and reflecting on my many years of different administrators, both positive and negative approaches to Professional growth and learning.

School Growth Plan Board Presentation

Still trying to improve my technology skills! This is a presentation for EDAD 614 that outlines my current school growth plan, budget expenditures, and monitoring. I used the software program, Powtoons and really enjoyed putting the presentation together with graphics and music.

School Growth Plan

Testing and Accountability

I think only using standardized high stakes testing to determine merit pay, ineffectiveness of schools/teachers, or student performance is an unfair practice. In addition, making assumption based on results from one standardized test does not accurately reflect a student’s true academic capabilities. I believe standardized high stakes testing provides only a small snapshot of how that student is performing for that particular day or hour it was given. It is important to understand the many factors that can skew the outcome. For example, the student might not be a great test taker or the conditions for testing (large room, excess noise, etc) could negatively influence performance. There also seems to be a huge discrepancy amongst schools that chose to spend a significant amount of hours on test prep versus focusing on content area instruction. I think this practice can greatly affect equity and access for students and plays a huge role in increasing the learning gap between higher and lower performing subgroups (Cimarusti, 2015). According to the Washington Post (2014), standardized testing “highly underestimates the achievement and college readiness” for English language learners, special education, minority and low-income children. To ensure equity and access for all students, I think it is important to incorporate standardized testing as one of the many pieces of data to accurately assess or evaluate school/ teacher effectiveness or student performance. Incorporating multiple measures of data such as graduation rates, discipline outcomes, demographic information, and teacher-created assessments can provide a more accurate determination of effectiveness. Another important aspect to look at is the non-academic measures of motivation and perseverance (Strauss, 2014). These social emotional qualities can also be an important indicator for teacher effectiveness and student success. Using these types of additional data, to include high stakes standardized testing, can ensure equity and access for all students. Cimarusti, D. (2015). The network for public education. Resistance to High Stakes Tests Serves the Cause of Equity in Education: A Reply to “We Oppose Anti-Testing Efforts” Retrieved on June 4, 2017 from: https://networkforpubliceducation.org/2015/05/resistance-to-high-stakes-tests-serves-the-cause-of-equity-in-education/ Strauss, V. (2014) Washington Post. The myth of Common Core equity. Retrieved on June 5, 2017 from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/10/the-myth-of-common-core-equity/?utm_term=.fab4c60cf86b

HR & Finance Department Relations

My district is the second largest district in California that serves approximately 130,000 students and employs close to 6,000 teachers. When I interviewed my HR director, she confirmed that many years ago she experienced huge challenges managing such large numbers of employees and school budget allocations in both the HR department and finance department. She said only a handful of employees worked for each department and was constantly overwhelmed with the amount of responsibilities. This caused much stress for both departments and there was a lot of finger pointing and accusations of mismanagement on both parts. The business department accused HR of spending frivolous amounts of the budget on hiring unqualified teachers that leave the district after only a few months and ineffective retention support programs. The HR department felt the business department only saw them as numbers and not people. When it came down to budget reductions, HR always felt they would receive the brunt of the cuts. As I researched the amount of money that is spent on staffing and instruction, I found an article from the American Association of School Administrators that found approximately 61% of a school budget is allocated to staffing and instructional needs. This is a huge portion of the school budget that is necessary but does not leave much money for any of the other functions/departments of a school site or district. I can see how the HR department might get some negative press for always taking a majority of a school's budget. My HR director did report that relations between both departments have improved with our current superintendent. The district went through a huge re-organizational process to determine the needs of each department. In the last few years, there has been an increase in the numbers of employees’ for each of the departments to alleviate any undue stress and ensure effectiveness of both programs. The business/finance department responsibilities were divided up into smaller departments to ensure accountability. These changes align with our districts focus on departmental collaboration when working on the district budget. More importantly, the finance and HR departments are vital in creating and maintaining balanced school budgets. By combining the number crunching, aspect of the finance department and the face-to-face integration and relationships built from the HR department, my HR director feels that this has made such a huge difference in productivity and effectiveness of each department. American Association of School Administrators. (2012). School Budget 101. Retrieved on 7/7/2017 from: https://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Policy_and_Advocacy/files/SchoolBudgetBriefFINAL.pdf.

After researching about characteristics of a systems thinker and education, I saw many similar qualities of my district’s previous Executive Director of Special Education. With the movement of inclusive practices in our district, she demonstrated great leadership in the area of shared thinking within her district team, school administrators, teachers, and related staff. In her first year of leadership, she developed three long-term goals that were aligned with special education policies, best practices, and district goals. I think this was a great example of acknowledging the current challenges of our district and special education programs. At the same time, she kept us moving towards a reorganization of structures, thinking and beliefs that ultimately benefited the students. She challenged our district to always keep the big picture in sight yet she worked tirelessly with each of the interconnected parts and programs to help us make progress towards the long-term goals. She had a great understanding that transformational change was not going to happen overnight and was honest about the challenges we were about to face. She constantly reminded us that this change was an ongoing and continuous process (American Association of School Administrators, 2008). More importantly, she provided our district with the motivation and tools to lead the change by providing direct district personnel support and training to the school site teams. She also identified the importance of being transparent with the goals to the community and made it a priority to include families and community members in the process of change. She consistently attended our Community Advisory Committee that comprised of parents, community members, and families and shared the goals and proposed changes. She lead our district for 3 years and we were able to make great strides. Unfortunately, she retired but made sure the transition went smoothly by having an administrator that served with her during this time of change that had similar energy, experience and knowledge to continue working towards our long term goals. American Association of School Administrators. (2008). Systems thinking for school system leaders. Retrieved July 1, 2017 from: https://www.aasa.org/privateAssets/0/76/380/05888f8b-88aa-4290-b260-5a36b7cc54b1.pdf

Making Ethical Decisions

During my first years of teaching, I had a female student come in with a black eye. She was reluctant to tell me what happened. After some intensive prodding and questioning, she finally broke down and said her father had hit her. She was insistent that it was an accident because he had been drinking. As a beginning teacher, I understood my responsibility as a mandated reporter. I went to our Head Counselor to discuss the incident and seek guidance in how to report it to CPS. His reaction was disturbing, he said he knew this family well and worked with other siblings. He had filed reports before and it only made things worse for the whole family. I was completely blindsided by his answer. Although I could see how things could get worse, I knew ethically that the right thing to do was to follow the law and file the report. I walked away from that counselor’s office feeling strongly that reporting it was the right thing to do even if the parent would become more upset. Although I felt, bad that I could possibly be making things worse for the family, I think not reporting would be negligent on my part. I also think I could not live with myself if I chose to ignore it and the abuse continued in intensity. After filing the report, I felt strange when talking with that student and knowing that I might cause additional issues. However, I knew it was the right thing to do. After a few months, I received a response that the report was unfounded. This is when I realized that my only responsibility is to report was disclosed. It was not my job to investigate the incident. It is the role of CPS to investigate and determine next steps. I think I would ask myself what are my legal responsibilities as a mandated reporter. I would also reiterate that my responsibility as a mandated reporter is only to report the disclosure. The responsibility for CPS is to investigate and determine if there needs to be further action. Deviating from my responsibility would be breaking the law and much more harmful for the student if it was ignored. I think this is a great example of what Josephson (2005) identified in his six pillars of character as “having the courage to do the right thing.” I filed the CPS report despite the ill advice from a school counselor about making things worse for the family. Josephson, M. (2005). Making ethical decisions: The six pillars of character. Retrieved January 19, 2017, from http://www.josephsoninstitute.org/MED/MD-2sixpillars.html.