ISLLC Standard 3: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by ensuring management of the organization, operations, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.
Creating a Safe, Effective School
Statement of Purpose: Identify the leadership that is needed to create a positive, effective and safe environment for all stakeholders
Questions the study answers:
1) How does the administrator create a safe environment for all stakeholders?
2) What is the best way to utilize the resources, both in personnel and school environment, to ensure a safe and effective school environment?
3) How can the school’s vision be improved through a positive and safe environment?
Situation: IC is one of four middle schools in the county and is an effective school which is borne out by test scores and the fact that we are the fastest growing middle school in the county. AP Black is in charge of the discipline and the school environment at IC. In response to a need, all administrators at IC determined that a variety of new committees needed to be instituted at IC. Many of the faculty members have been at the school for many years, but with an influx of 225 additional students within the first week of school, IC earned approximately 13 new teachers and had a variety of issues come about. IC began the school year with 6 portable classrooms and currently has 18 on campus as well as 3 teachers who float between regular classrooms and the instructional computer lab.
One issue that came about was the safety of the physical environment of the school. With so many portable classroom, additional outside doors were having to be left unlocked during the school day. Also, with so many new teachers, we weren’t always familiar with the new faces, so we needed a way to know who should and should not be in the building. An additional safety issue was just the sheer number of students in the hallways during class changes.
Additionally, with new teachers, we need to make them feel welcome in our school and provide them with the best possible start to their year with us. We have, in the past, been a very tight knit group. We pride ourselves on being a family. As with any family, we were experiencing growing pains. With the number of students, our workload increased; we had already started the year, so time to welcome the new teachers was difficult to find.
One other issue that came about was the restructuring of the teams due to the number of students who entered the school. We earned 4 new sixth grade teachers, 3 new seventh grade teachers, and 2 new eighth grade teachers in addition to various special education teachers and paraprofessionals. That meant that all three grade levels had to be restructured and faculty members had to be moved to ensure that the school continued to employ highly qualified teachers in all positions.
Answers to Questions:
1) How does the administrator create a safe environment for all stakeholders?
All teachers had an opportunity to sign up for membership on the committees with which they felt most aligned, including the new teachers assigned to our school. AP Black was the administrator aligned with the Safety Committee and I had signed up for it. Since I am currently in the leadership program at UGA and she is my mentor, AP Black asked me to become chairperson of the committee. We have worked together closely to address a variety of issue that have effected the school.
One of the most important ways that AP Black addresses safety in the school is through the use of grade level agenda meetings at the beginning of each school year. AP Black meets with each grade level during the first 10 days of school (depending on when the agendas arrive) and goes through the agenda with the most important of the rules, discussing what the rule means, the dispensation of the rules and how students will be addressed after continuous rule violations. The morning after each grade level meets, the students in that grade level take an agenda test to determine their understanding of the agenda. This allows the administration to use this as a means of addressing continuous disruptive behavior; students must continue to take the quiz until they pass with a score of 75. As new students are enrolled, they are administered the quiz within two weeks of entering the school. All students are aware of the correct behavior so that students, teachers, and visitors alike are safe in the building.
Teachers are required to be in the hallway during all class changes. Students are walked to and from the Connections classes either by the team teachers (on the way) or the Connections teachers (on the return trip). AP Black and an additional principal are normally in the hallway as students are moving through the building. AP Black instituted a new student dismissal schedule after noting that too many students were in the hallway at one time. Students are required to stay with their teachers in the classroom until their hallway is called. If students are in the hallway during dismissal, they must have a pass.
To address the issue of new teachers, all faculty and staff are required to wear name plates. They are not picture ID’s, as those are often similar from one school/business to another, but are actually plates with the teachers’ names and IC on them. It is easy to see if a person does or does not belong in the hallways. If a visitor is on campus, they must check in at the office for a visitor’s sticker. If someone is in the hallway without a sticker, staff members know to refer them to the office.
In addition to all the new teachers coming in after the beginning of the year, teachers had to be made aware of the emergency procedures. The committee met and communicated with the staff, determining what classrooms and/or teachers needed evacuation posters and/or emergency folders. AP Black instituted the emergency folders about three years ago with instructions for each code (fire drill, tornado drill, bomb threat, Code Red, etc.) on the front. Inside each folder is supposed to be a list of the teacher’s rosters and a green, yellow and red card. The use of the cards allows the faculty that does not have students to help determine if there are problems: green – all students present and accounted for; yellow – all students are not necessarily accounted for; red – there is a problem and an administrator is needed. Teachers without students report to the assigned administrator for that side of the building to help clear the process as quickly as possible.
We are in the process of having entry pads installed on outside doors at various locations of the building. This will leave only one set of doors unlocked during the school day, but provide access to the building through each teacher having the code to at least one of the outside doors. This is to prevent visitors entering through doors other than the front doors.
Other issues that AP Black and the committee have addressed include student ID’s, detentions and discipline referrals, safety around the trailers as students are moving about, and the physical environment of the school. Students are not required to wear their ID, but they must have it in the cafeteria and the media center to check out books. Teachers are provided support, but are given the power to control the behavior in their classrooms as much as possible through the use of silent lunch and detention. With the addition of so many trailers, paraprofessionals have been utilized to help monitor the movement of the students among the trailers. Additional chairs and desks, as well as additional custodial staff, have helped alleviate our growth problems in the physical environment of the school.
AP Black is over all of the above issues during the course of the normal year. Our committee, I hope, has been helpful in improving the safety of our school, along with AP Black.
2) What is the best way to utilize the resources, both in personnel and school environment, to ensure a safe and effective school environment?
As stated earlier, teachers had an opportunity to sign up for membership on the committees with which they felt most aligned. This helps to promote a positive environment by providing an opportunity to “make a difference”, but also by helping to involve everyone in some aspect of the school. While there is an administrator assigned to monitor each of the committees, teachers were asked to take the leadership role on each committee and to provide minutes of those meetings to the appropriate administrator. This is one way to ensure that the meetings are being held and are being productive without having to “spy” on the committee. With the work disseminated among the “masses”, no one group feels put upon to be involved in everything!
When issues arise regarding safety or communication, all the administrators at IC respond quickly. Information is disseminated as quickly as possible to prevent misinformation from reaching outside the school. When we had a student with a BB gun at school, the issue was handled quietly by AP Black and the School Resource Officer. The issue was investigated and AP Black, along with our principal, met with the Building Leadership Team the following morning to inform the teachers and a letter was sent home to the parents that afternoon through the students. By addressing the issues head on, we all feel safer that when issues do arise, they will be taken care of in a safe and timely manner.
Additional students required additional teachers. In this light, teachers had to be reassigned to different teams or classrooms to remain an effective and highly qualified school. With the reassignment of the teachers, there had to be reassignment of the students as well. This was an issue last year, as well and, unfortunately, some of the same students were involved even though they were chosen randomly. There were some issues with the reassignments that had to be dealt with by AP Black based on the randomness and the assignment of some specific students. This was handled quickly and professionally to provide the most continuous support of certain at-risk students.
There are issues out of a leader’s control. When 225 additional students begin school without school assignments, there has to be a regrouping of where they students will be housed – not just team wise, but in the physical environment. Besides the need of additional teachers, there was also the need for additional chairs, desks, and yes, even portable classrooms. AP Black was instrumental in determining what could be moved from other schools and what needed to be ordered. Of course, once these items are ordered, the delivery time is out of AP Black’s hands. Unfortunately, chairs are still being moved from the band and chorus rooms to the cafeteria each day to have enough seats for lunch. That means that chairs must be moved through the hallways while students are in the building as well as some of the chorus students must sit on the floor since the seats are in the band room. That number is now down to a minimum, but for the first full quarter of the year, approximately 30 chorus students in each of two classes had to sit on the floor due to the chairs being moved.
With the addition of teachers and classrooms, there must also be classroom materials and supplies. AP Black was not closely aligned with the assignment of the resources of materials, she is in charge of the custodial staff that was needed to help move and maintain the additional classrooms. Additional custodial staff has finally been assigned. Just last year, IC opened a new wing housing eight academic classrooms, one computer lab, and a set of restrooms. No additional custodial staff was added at that time even though they were requested. With the addition of the twelve portable classrooms, an additional custodian was requested and approved for the school. This helps to keep the physical environment cleaner and safer, especially in light of the flu season and the “outbreak” of MRSA in some schools. Custodial hours are staggered so that there is a custodian in the building from 6:30 am until 10:00 pm each school day. This allows teachers access to the building for a long portion of each day and allows for the work to be done both while students are in the building and after they are gone for the day.
3) How can the school’s vision be improved through a positive and safe environment?
The mission of IC is “to create a safe, motivating environment that meets the needs of all learners.” AP Black works hard to sure that the students, the faculty, and visitors feel safe and comfortable during the course of each day. As evidenced above, many steps have been taken to ensure that the environment is as safe as possible. If issues arise, AP Black and the SRO address it quickly and provide pertinent information to all stakeholders as needed.
Materials and resources are used as effectively as possible. It is unfortunate that any school has portable classrooms, but until the government provides snap-together schools, they will probably be around. Making the best of what you have, to me, is a positive environment. If that means that you share classrooms, you share chairs, you share paper, or you share custodians, then that may be what many schools have to do. In this situation, the outlook of all involved can help create the positive environment needed. AP Black provides that positive outlook on a daily basis through the way that she deals with the issues that come through her and by listening and helping to improve the day-to-day operation of the school.
I believe that this case study shows that AP Black is in the developing stage of leadership. She has been in administration for at least 10 years, but her initial assignment was in curriculum. She has been in charge of discipline and the facility since she came to IC five years ago. I feel that she has grown each year and will continue to grow. I feel that the development of the Safety Committee is a step in the right direction, but I would like to see at least one parent and possibly a student or two involved in this committee. I feel that we should be more aware, as a school, of the break down of discipline referrals. This information is available through the central office, but it needs to be readily available to the school. The rules posted in the agenda are adopted by the Board of Education. Many of the rules are not up for discussion and shouldn’t be, but some of the rules, such as chewing gum, are not consistently enforced. This could be one rule that we, as a school, might be able to have to opportunity to accept or reject. AP Black should meet with the BLT and discuss the need for some of the less sever rules and see how important that we, as a school, feel that relate to the school environment. As a developing leader myself, I have learned a great deal from AP Black, but since we encourage our students to be life-long learners, I hope that AP Black and I continue to grow in our quest for “a safe, motivating environment that meets the needs of all learners.”