JOB SHADOW #2

EOCS 7450

SUMMER 2007 COHORT

For my second job shadow, I shadowed Assistant Principal Head as she worked on a variety of activities during our fall break.   Ms. Head has been at our school for six years and is the AP in charge of discipline, custodial staff, and safety.

When I arrived, Ms. Head had just arrived at school and was pulling out the discipline referrals she had received for the first quarter of the year.  She had them separated into two piles; one pile was those that had already been entered into the SASI database and one file was those that needed to be entered into the database.  As she began entering the referrals into the program, she explained the program to me.  She worked on these for about an hour and a half and completed entering all of them.  Ms. Head is competent on the computer, but she does struggle some with it, so it took her longer than it might with some others.  As she was entering the referrals, she explained to me how the system works and the kinds of reports that can be pulled from the data.  She explained to me how important it was for the information to be accurate.  All the students who withdraw from our school and move to another one must have a copy of their discipline record, just like we require one when a student moves into our district.  This record needs to be as current as possible.   She also explained that the consequences for infractions are based on the student’s previous discipline record, so students with no discipline record may receive a different consequence than a student with a prior “record”.  She also explained that she has to present a copy of the student’s discipline record if a child is suspended to a tribunal hearing.  This record is part of the information that is considered when the tribunal members determine the future of that child in the school system. 

After entering all the referrals, she began separating the referrals to file them into individual student folders.  As each student receives their first discipline referral, the data is entered into the SASI database and then the system copy is filed into individual folders, as well as the copy returned by the student with a parent signature on it.  If a student already has a folder, each subsequent referral is placed into the folder in chronological order.  I helped her with the filing and we completed it in about an hour.  This can be very time consuming!

The next item on her agenda for the day was to look at some of the issues from the Safety Committee (of which I am the chairperson).  After discussing several of the items with her, she began working on our safety committee update.  One of the concerns was ensuring that every teacher had an evacuation route map posted inside their room with the proper information on it.  The individual maps have the evacuation routes for fire drills and tornadoes marked for each.  We walked around the school and determined which classrooms needed maps and proceeded in copying the maps and drawing out routes.  We then laminated them for posting on the walls.  These laminated copies were placed in the correct teachers’ mailboxes.  Another issue we had was that some of the teachers did not have their emergency folders from past years.  Some of the teachers had left their folder in their classrooms when they moved at the beginning of the year (even though the folders are not “room specific”) and others just had no idea where theirs were.  The emergency folders contain directions for each type of drill, including fire drills, tornado drills, and “Code Red” drills, which could include anything from an intruder to a bomb threat.  Also included in the folder is supposed to be the teacher’s rosters (for checking attendance in the event of a drill or real emergency) and three cards. The three cards have the teacher’s name on them and are red, yellow, and green.  In a drill or an emergency, if the teacher has all the students they are responsible for, they hold up the green card; if they had a student in the hallway or in the office at the time of the drill, they hold up the yellow card, and if they have someone missing and they don’t know where they are, they hold up the red card.  Administrators circulate (along with any teacher who doesn’t have students at the time) to make sure that all students are accounted for.  These folders are very important, so she and I spent the next 2 hours creating new folders for EVERY TEACHER.  Once the folders were completed, we placed them in each teacher’s mailbox.  At that point, she had me, as the committee chairperson, send an email to all the teachers explaining, once again, the evacuation routes and folders.  She had me explain in the email that the teachers would be required to turn their folders in at the end of the school year, along with their grade books and lesson plan books.  This way, new folders will only need to be created for new teachers each year.

The last item of the day was a meeting that she had scheduled with the custodians for shortly after lunch.  She asked them all to meet with her in a classroom so that they could cover a few items.  We had two new custodians that had been hired in the two weeks prior to the break, so she was taking this opportunity to meet with everyone at once, while there were no teachers or students in the building, so that everyone could focus on duties and schedules.  Ms. Head listed the names of all the custodians on the dry erase board and Mr. Jones, the head custodian, and Ms. Head wrote down the duties of each of them, along with their required hours.  Our school has one custodian come in at 6:30 and unlock the building and get the entrances ready for the day.  The next “shift” comes in from 8:00 – 5:00, and then a last shift comes in from 1:00 – 10:00.  Each person on each shift was assigned specific duties and break times to ensure that a custodian would be available at all times.  The morning custodian carries a walkie-talkie and the walkie-talkie number was verified, along with verifying the location of the charger for that walkie-talkie.  The head custodian also carries a walkie-talkie and his number was verified, along with his charger location.  Emergency procedures were discussed with the custodians, as well.  They were informed of the procedures for all three types of drills and their duties for the drills were gone over.  Ms. Head also discussed the procedure for them to follow if they had to be out for a day, either planned or unplanned.  The procedure included who to call if they needed to be out, the order in which the next person would be called to cover the shift, etc.  In addition to those items, Ms. Head covered all the jobs that needed to be completed before the students returned to school after the break and the order in which they were to be completed.  All floors were to be waxed and buffed, all carpets were to be cleaned, all restrooms were to be cleaned and sanitized, all major hallways were to be free of marks along the wall, all outside areas were to be free of debris, and all trailers (we had just received eight additional ones) were to be ready for occupation on the Monday following the break.  The custodians began covering the items that had already been completed and a plan was discussed.  In addition, the additional duties required by the new trailers were verified, based on the list that had been written on the board.  Ms. Head thanked the custodial staff for all their hard work and encouraged them to continue to work together. She also reiterated that if there were any problems, they needed to go through the head custodian first and then come to her if a resolution was not forthcoming.

At the end of the day, Ms. Head and I sat down and went over a few questions that I had written based on my observations of her for the day.

1.       In dealing with discipline, how do you keep your personal feelings regarding a student out of the “equation”?  It can be hard at times to keep your personal feelings out, whether those feelings are positive or negative.  As a disciplinarian, you have to remember that fairness does not always mean equality.  There are situations in which students who are involved in a fight will be dealt with differently.  There are also situations in which you may have to take yourself out of the equation either because of previous dealings with the student or parent or because of your own situation.  As you know, we are still a fairly rural district and I have been dealing with some of these families for almost 20 years.  There are times I have to ask a different administrator to handle a situation when I know I cannot be objective.  My job is to ensure the safety of every student in this building and to do that, there are times when some students can no longer come here.  Some students never come to my office in all three years of middle school; others have seen me by the end of their first month here.  The important thing to remember is to treat the student as a person, but to help them understand why behaviors and not acceptable and what they can do to avoid them in the future.  After all, they will be the ones providing the workforce in the future – we must prepare them to be responsible individuals.

2.       What do you feel is the most important issue concerning safety in the school?  There are several issues that you have to be constantly aware of and I don’t think you could narrow it down to any one of them.  One of the most important issues is the proper maintenance of the building to ensure that there are no loose tiles, all equipment is in operating order, in others words, that the building itself is well kept and prepared to hold the over 1350 students plus the 140 staff members that are in the building on a daily basis.  Another important issue is the proper tone that you set when you provide your expectations for behavior to the students.  One way we have done this here at IC is by meeting with the students by grade level at the beginning of each school year and covering the student handbook item by item, highlighting the major policies that are strictly enforced.  After the meetings, we have the students take a discipline test which must be passed with an 80% or higher score.  These tests are kept on file by the homeroom teacher and these tests are consulted when an office referral is made on a student, especially in terms of major infractions such as drugs, weapons, and assaults.  As new students enter the school, they are given a week to read the student handbook, have their parents sign the Parent Authorization form, and then they are give the discipline test, as well.  If it is noticed that certain behaviors are being observed that are unsatisfactory, Mrs. Strong will take time from homeroom to cover, through the use of the intercom system, the rules which are causing the most problems so that the memories of the students are refreshed.  I think we do a good job of handling “sprees” of student misbehavior.  Another important issue of school safety is the preparedness of the school.  One always hopes that nothing will ever happen, but we keep all of our faculty and staff prepared for the case of emergencies through the use of evacuation maps, emergency folders, rosters with students names and phone numbers, and our Core Response Team that will be utilized should an emergency arise.  It is much better to be prepared and never need it than to try to scramble and determine what to do in the case of the emergency.  One example of that is our evacuation for our trailers in the case of extreme inclement weather, but not necessarily a tornado. We have assigned each trailer a certain area of the school to bring their students to in the case of severe, but not tornado, weather.  I have definitely been happy to have our school safety committee active this year in helping to identify  not only the behavior issues through the use of the county office discipline report, but also in helping the secure each classroom with the safety materials that are needed.

3.       What are the qualities you look for when hiring custodial staff? As you well know, we have had some difficulty in filling our custodial positions with hard-working, stable workers over the last few years.  While we have four of our core custodial staff that have been with us for over five years, we also have four positions that have been filled on a rotating basis that have not necessarily been a good “fit” for IC.  One of the most important things I look for is their work record.  We need custodians that have a solid work record in which they are on time and hard-working when they are there.  Also important is their physical ability to do the job.  Custodial work is not an easy job and they need to be able to physically handle the duties.  These duties include things like lifting medium weight objects; using tools like brooms, mops, buckets, etc.; scrubbing, stripping, waxing, and buffing floors; moving tables, chairs, and desks; and also keeping the grounds clear of debris.  In addition to the work record and physical abilities, we look at their personality and their ability to get along with others.  When you work around students all day, you must have the right temperament to be comfortable, but not too familiar, with the students.   Custodians must be able to work near the students without getting frustrated or without making the students uncomfortable.  And last, but not least, they must also pass the background check.  Since they, like the teachers, are around students daily, the applicants must pass a state background check to ensure the safety of the students.