The Plan!

Action Research:  Character and Bullying Education
Goal: What role can character and bullying education play in creating a safe school environment for all students?
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Meet with ILC – Instructional Leadership Council and then with the 4th and 5th grade teachers to determine if the issue of character education and bullying is a problem that needs to be addressed via action research.	Courtney Calfee	October 2010		Summarize discussions.
Conduct research of current literature regarding bullying in schools.	Courtney Calfee	October 2010/November 2010	Educational websites including but not limited to:  educationnews.org, edweek.org,ed.gov, NASSP, & NAESP.	Summarize findings from literature reviews.
Conduct research of current literature regarding character education in schools.	Courtney Calfee	October 2010/November 2010	Educational websites including but not limited to:  educationnews.org, edweek.org,ed.gov, NASSP, & NAESP	Summarize findings from literature reviews.
Conduct character and bullying education pre-assessment in the form of a survey to 4th and 5th grade students, teachers, and parents.	Courtney Calfee	December 2010	Character and Bullying Education Pre-assessment survey of students, teachers, and parents.	Summarize and/or graph/chart the results of the pre-assessment survey.
Conduct observations of student behavior during unstructured times of the school day including but not limited to recess, lunch, switch periods, PE, and bus arrival and departure	Courtney Calfee	December 2010	No resources needed, just pen and paper.	Summarize and/or graph/chart the findings from the observations.
Collect discipline referral data from the assistant principal to determine how many referrals deal with disrespectful or bullying type behavior.	Courtney Calfee and Angel Bateman	October 2010/February 2011	Discipline referral data.	Summarize and/or graph/chart discipline referral data in order to begin making correlations.
Collect data from the school counselor to determine how many students are seen as a result of disrespectful or bullying type behavior.	Courtney Calfee and Barbara Poursoltan	October 2010/February 2011	Safety Net and counselor requests	Summarize and/or graph/chart counselor visit data in order to begin making correlations.
Meet with ILC and 4th/5th grade teachers to discuss data/research, create sub-wonderings, and determine if we are ready to proceed with action plan and if the proposed plan is still appropriate.	Courtney Calfee	March 2011	Summaries of research and data collection.	Summarize discussions.
Provide character and bullying education in a whole-grade level format to 4th and 5th grade students utilizing videos, demonstrations, and the KISD definition of bullying and the consequences thereof.	Courtney Calfee	March 2011	KISD web-site, You Tube, KISD Discipline Management Plan and Student Code of Conduct	Conduct student and teacher interviews to determine effectiveness.  Summarize findings.
Following character and bullying education, have students demonstrate learned knowledge by creating video examples of how to handle bullying situations.	Courtney Calfee	March 2011	Bullying scripts
Public service announcements - Show student created videos on the morning announcements for the entire school.	Courtney Calfee	March 2011	TV Studio	Interview students to determine effectiveness of the messages and summarize findings.
Provide on-going character and bullying education through classroom teachers.	Courtney Calfee and classroom teachers	On-going	Character Counts
Provide character and bullying education for parents and community members in a variety of mediums – weekly school newsletter, PTA web-site, Enews, & PTA meeting.	Courtney Calfee	March 2011	Data from literature review, pre-assessment surveys, observations.	Interview parents to determine effectiveness and summarize findings.
Provide anti-bullying contract to be signed by parents and students.	Courtney Calfee	March 2011	Anti-bullying contract	How many were returned and feedback.
Conduct post-assessment survey of students, parents, and teachers following character and bullying education to determine effectiveness.	Courtney Calfee	April 2011	Character and Bullying Education post-assessment survey of students, teachers, and parents.	Summarize and/or graph/chart the results of the pre-assessment survey.
Compare newly collected discipline referral and counselor data to data collected in the initial phases of research.	Courtney Calfee	April 2011	Discipline referral and counselor visit data.	Summarize and/or graph/chart data.
Share findings with administration, teachers, and possibly parents.	Courtney Calfee	May 2011	Provide summary of data and all findings, including surveys and interviews with faculty and staff.	Interview staff to receive feedback.

Blogs are so useful, seriously, they are!

I became a teacher when I was 35 after spending ten years in church ministry.  As I prepared for my first interview and wondered why in the world anyone would want to hire a 35 year old first year teacher, my husband, an AP, tried to coach me through some interview questions.  He threw words at me like differentiation and collaboration.  Having no experience in the classroom or in a school setting at all, those words meant absolutely nothing to me.  Little did I know how valuable the word collaborate would become for me in the years to come.

In my opinion, collaboration is vital to the success of any organization, especially schools. Blogs allow just that, collaboration amongst educational leaders.  Talking, sharing, COLLABORATING, ultimately for one purpose, improved student achievement and success.

I'm excited to be a blogger, I've tried to get my kids to join or just follow my blog, but for reason, they aren't interested in action research. 

Til next time...

My First Blog!

Blogging has always been something that fascinated me, but I was always too afraid to do, until now that is, okay well it's not something I'm completely comfortable with, but my grade kinda depends on me overcoming any fears I may have.   Haha...

Last week I began reading about action research or administrator inquiry. Admittedly, I was not looking forward to anything having to do with research, and reluctantly sat down to read.  It didn't take long before I realized how important administrative inquiry is to campus climate, culture, and student achievement.

Administrative inquiry should play a major role in schools. Inquiry could and should be used in every aspect of the climate and culture including staff development, curriculum development, leadership, management, school performance, and others. Our campus has many committees, all of which should embrace the action research process to identify and solve problems.

I see inquiry as an invaluable tool in an administrator’s tool kit.  A principal that practices inquiry becomes the “head learner” on his/her campus and is a role model for teachers, as well as students.  While I am excited about inquiry and the benefits that it can provide to an administrator and the campus, I am afraid that the process will not be welcomed by the staff.  Something added to their already full plates.  In order for inquiry to be embraced by teachers, the benefits must not just be outlined, but the administrator must be able to show the benefits.

While I dreaded it, I learned a great deal about action research this week and I have a feeling I’m not done quite yet since this is only week one of five. 

More blogging to come…