Monday, November 28, 2011

Student Office Referrals----->Who Gets Punished?! (Part One)

A significant percentage of students who get in trouble at school are not frequent flyers!  They may get in trouble once or twice a school year.  When they do get referred to the office, the dynamics can be rather sticky.

Over the decades, deference traditionally shown by the public to school administrators has waned.  Every action is open to careful scrutiny in the court of public (parent) opinion.  Parents have always been protective of their children, but it seems like there are many more "damned if you do; damned if you don't" scenarios playing out in discipline decisions these days.

When a referral is submitted at school, it is typically in response to either a pattern of behavior that has escalated to the point of warranting office intervention---or---an incident that was significant enough in and of itself to warrant the escalation. 

There are also occasions when the student body is made aware of a "point of emphasis"...a rule or policy that will be more aggressively enforced until improvement in that area is met.  So, for instance, if gum is not allowed in the auditorium it might be enforced less aggressively than it will be once chewed gum has been found on the seats and floor of that auditorium.  When it becomes a substantial problem, the student body is notified that this problem warrants more aggressive monitoring and the consequences for breaking the rule will be greater until further notice.  Then, the matter is considered "disobedience/disrespect" rather than merely "chewing gum in the Auditorium."  I've seen this applied to everything from fighting to not turning in homework... a full range of issues.

Once a discipline matter becomes an office matter, students are typically assigned a consequence for their misbehavior.  Sometimes consequences assigned are the same regardless of which particular student broke the rule.  At other times, students' overall discipline records are considered a factor warranting different consequences.  These matters get particularly sticky when some students receive consequences, but others in trouble for the same thing get no consequence.  Furthermore, educators get frustrated with the school office quickly when they feel like their referrals are in vain.

Accordingly, it is very common for students to receive consequences for being referred to the office in a properly run school.  Furthermore, many administrators feel that if any student receives a consequence for a particular behavior, so too should the others...even if there is some difference in exactly what the consequence is.  The proverbial "slap on the wrist" is considered appropriate for even our most angelic rule breakers.  They are young people and, as such, their development requires reminders of boundaries and limits.  Beyond that, it becomes a "for the good of the order" consideration.

We all know the traditional office consequences--- detentions, Saturday school, in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, and more.  Most of these are management headaches for schools.  There are many reasons why this is so.

I will expand on these facts in my next post as a way of introducing a new consequence option for school discipline.  This is a discipline consequence that is more of a "slap on the wrist."  It is both easy to manage and more progressive in design.  In particular, it is a more appropriate, tangible starting point for addressing both rare and more episodic misbehavior...like that many of our non-"frequent flyers" are referred to the office for.

Posted at 6:12 PM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Discipline

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Schools Are Expected To Eliminate All Animosity Between Students...Or Prove They Tried To!

• documenting their efforts to investigate reported incidents? 
  
• documenting interventions used to diffuse the situation? 
• documenting efforts to contact parents and guardians?
• documenting initiatives to prevent the behavior in the first place?

It sounds easy.  School personnel know it is not.  It may seem unnecessary.  It definitely is not.  Nonetheless, proper documentation is professional behavior.

We all know that students are often in conflict of one sort or another.  School personnel, especially in middle school, spend a significant chunk of time investigating and resolving all sorts of student disputes---including bullying. 

Consider a case like that below.  A student tries to kill herself.  She had reported bullying.  The family claims that nothing was done.  It goes on and on.  It is a we-said, they-said.

The school should have documentation to refute her claims.  It sounds like this case was prolonged enough that they may.  Often, there would be little to no documentation.  The story below is repeated often...across our country.  This headline isn't new and we are seeing it more frequently.  Is your school ready to prove your due diligence when students are being pushed to the edge like this?  Many schools are doing most everything they can to prevent incidents like it. They should do themselves the service of documenting their efforts!

See a video story here.

The full written story can be accessed from the South Florida Times by clicking the article below.

EdClick can facilitate your school's documentation efforts!

Posted at 8:27 PM (permalink) 1 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Discipline, Parent Communication, Documentation, Bullying, Lawsuit

Thursday, November 24, 2011

My Thanks Go Out To...

Posted at 9:08 AM (permalink) 3 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Thanksgiving, Brian Stephens, Seth Stephens, Patrick Cates, Dr. Harry Tennant, Dr. Gary Gindt

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Let's Start Another War...Against Underfunding Education!

• Our military budget is 10x that of China and 6x that of Russia.

• Total military spending in the world= $1.5 trillion a year

• The U.S. spends more on our military than does the next 16 highest spending countries---> combined.

Can we also find money to
help our states educate our youth
to match our increasing expectations for achievement
as measured against the rest of the world? 
[We can call it a "war" if we must!]

Posted at 3:42 PM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, School Funding, Military Spending, Military Budgets, Government Spending

Monday, November 21, 2011

Chump Change! Everything Is Relative.

The failure of our government's "Super" Committee---announced today---could trigger automatic federal budget cuts beginning in 2013.  Included would be $600 billion of defense spending over 10 years.  That is, of course, $60 billion a year.

Lest you be concerned about the hyperbole our "honorable" leaders in Washington are already spewing about the U.S. military becoming a "paper tiger," the two artifacts below are offered for consideration:

First, an overview of increases since 9/11:

Click below to see more details of the 2012 Military Budget:

Posted at 6:04 PM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Military Spending, Military Budgets, Government Spending

Friday, November 18, 2011

Giving Thanks To The Great Elder Educator Set!

My daughter "Silver Heart" and her...eh, tribe...
wish all educators a restful nine days away from campus!

Posted at 5:37 PM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Teacher Appreciation

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Trash In, Trash Out? Would You Like A Pizza With That Vegetable?

Posted at 10:35 AM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Child Nutrition, Parent Involvement, School Lunches

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Looking Through The Night For The Light!

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Posted at 6:31 PM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: Pass It On Education Tools, Science, NASA, Teaching Tools, Space, Science, Geography, Meterology, Earth, Earth At Night

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

(Dirty) Birds Of A Feather?

Read the remainder of this story at The Daily here.

Posted at 11:28 AM (permalink) 1 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Parental Involvement, Child Safety, School Security

Monday, November 14, 2011

Nice Neighbors Aren't Always Nice

Yes, that is his home she is pointing to...right beyond the swing set.

Stay vigilant.  Protect young people!

credit: TODAYSTHV

Posted at 2:55 PM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Parental Involvement, Child Safety, School Security

Monday, November 14, 2011

School Accountability: Playing With Numbers To Meet Perceptions Of Expectations

The accountability movement in American education has had both positive and negative ramifications.  In fact, there has been so much change in American education over the past two decades, it is easy to oversimplify most any analysis of it.  As an educator, for many reasons, I am thankful for the increased expectations and scrutiny this accountability movement has ushered in. 

For nearly as many reasons, however, the increased accountability politicians often trumpet smacks as underfunded mandates, stacked one upon another, such that the proverbial turnip is being squeezed hard in hopes it will yield blood.  An example was the expectation under NCLB that 100% of students (regardless of the degree of their qualifying condition) would pass high stakes, grade-level assessments (without modifications) by 2014.  So, a student with an IQ sub-75 was expected to pass standardized assessments that were also designed to "test" the top percentage of our students.  It screamed flawed accountability so loud that it is almost disturbing politicians had schools making decisions for years based upon the fear that this would sting us by 2014 if we didn't reach the 100% bar.  We all kind of knew the expectation was unreasonable and had to change, but for years school administrators were charged with speaking and making decisions as if it wouldn't.

Many Americans are convinced that education spending has increased dramatically since the 1980s.  While recent tough economic times have somewhat moderated this perception (after all, how can we ignore recent dramatic education cuts in many states across our country....like Texas cutting $4 billion dollars in its most recent two-year budget, despite adding 68,000 new students over that time), it is important to understand that even before this wave of cuts the bulk of increases to school funding have been in the growth of special programs---> read, special education.

My personal experience as a public school student in the 70s and 80s was that I could pass without doing much of anything by virtue of possessing some intellectual capacity combined with a willingness to play the game.  School was a series of short hurdles.  Rigor was minimal.  It was easy to float along with the mass in the middle.  The school knew we'd pass the (then) low-stakes accountability assessments.  That was just about enough.

Now that accountability assessments carry so much higher-stakes, one would think that a focus on the individual student has increased---and it has.  However, my experience tells me this is a misleading fact.  It is true that schools tend to be much more deliberate about studying data on each child and educators are getting better at disaggregating the data to provide students with targeted remediation in areas where they have a need.  That is a positive development.

This positive development has been tempered by the realities of a country that prizes its military over its educational system.  Increased accountability without increased resources results in a system where the appearance of success is almost important as the true measure of success.  For example, schools in Texas are almost all consumed with meeting the marks.  In particular, pass rates.  Texas holds schools accountable by "sub-pops".  If even one sub-population (Hispanic, African-American, Low SES, etc.) underperforms, the school rating can drop a level.  Nevermind that some Texas schools are lily-white and wealthy, with no real sub-pops to worry about, while others are represented in each sub-pop and have a much greater exposure for "underperformance."

I would go as far as to say, at least at the bureaucratic level, meeting pass rates on standardized assessments drives Texas education these days.  Principals and other campus personnel must allocate their tight resources in ways that maximize overall pass rates (especially of sub-pops) even at the expense of marginalizing students who either "can't" pass (read---> aren't projected to pass) or---on the other end of the spectrum---are very likely to pass.  The "bubble kids", they are often called. 

In the current system, a school better have good data on who their bubble kids are and how to get them to pass the assessment.  Often, it can be a mere handful of students...or even a single student...who makes the difference between receiving one school rating versus the next lower one.  Beyond knowing who these bubble students are, the school must have a sense of how many fall into which sub-pop...or even sub-pops.  Because students are often part of more than one sub-pop (for instance an African-American who also happens to be low-SES and special education), it becomes even more of an imperative to address the needs of these students over those of a student who will only count for or against you in one category.

The result is often a much more targeted effort to remediate the academic gaps of some students over others.  Schools are forced into this necessity by the mismatch of resources versus expectations in the context of a gotcha accountability system.  It is self-preservation.  In this context it is understandable.  In the context of the continuous improvement of our schools for all students, it is an abomination.

I've barely scratched the surface on this topic
and will further develop this analysis in upcoming posts.

Posted at 11:02 AM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Continuous Improvement, Assessments, Accountability, School Funding

Friday, November 11, 2011

What If We Were All Veterans?

Earlier today, I read in USA Today that 22% of those currently representing us in Congress have served in the armed forces.

Interesting concept for a novel: it is 2015.  Dramatic events have rocked our country like never before.  We are in a national crisis.  U.S. leaders are considering two-years of mandatory national service for every young person.  Imagine the implications.  Imagine the drama.  Imagine.

Posted at 3:34 PM (permalink) 1 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, DanClick, National Service, Armed Services

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Is Your School Still Using The Computer Equivalent Of The Yellow Pages?

One significant challenge teachers and other educators face when attempting to contact parents is accessing the correct contact information to do so.  Phone numbers, emails, and other contact information change throughout each year.  In most school computer systems, teachers cannot edit or add contact information as they become aware of it.  They can only access a student management system that was populated with data at the beginning of the year and is rarely updated through the year.  On any given campus, typically only one (or at most a handful) of staff are authorized to update this information.  Consequently, the information is as often wrong, incomplete, or out-dated as it is correct.  What an inefficient system!

Imagine too that you are a teacher who has to address email to 20-100 students and/or parents per week.  What a pain!  Of course, a teacher could build a group in their email program, but then the challenge is keeping up with those groups and making sure the email addresses of group members stay up-to-date.  There are better ways to tackle this challenge!

Instead, if you use a web-based communication solution like EdClick's Collaboration Manager, all staff members are empowered to update student and parent contact information dynamically, as they become aware of changes.  At school, from home, or wherever else they are connected to the internet, staff members can access student contact information that is as fresh as the last communication any staff member had with that parent.  When they learn of new contact information, within a minute they can update it for the benefit of all.  It is a dynamic, decentralized process that is efficient, collaborative, and promotes enhanced communication and cooperation between home and school.

Consider this form:

This function is called "Flash Messages."  When teachers log on, they can view and edit their students by section or however they'd like them organized.  Above, you can see Mary Armey's Period 2 Biology section.  The students listed are in this section.  The teacher can easily add or drop students with a few clicks.  They don't even have to type the student's name! 

Beyond their sections, teachers and other staff members can create groups in any way they care to.  Science Club, Football Team, Tutoring Group, or whatever.  Again, it is a matter of clicking links and check boxes.  All of this can be done by teachers with a 30-second learning curve!!!

With this tool, educators in the school can more easily batch send emails out to select students, groups of students, whole grade levels, and even the whole school.  They simply use the form shown above.  Messages can be sent to student email addresses, parent email addresses, or both.  Where the student/parent doesn't have an email address, the symbol of a phone identifies them as requiring another method of contact.

Finally, the system archives all outgoing messages.  In so many ways, this tool tightens the communication loop and further professionalizes a school's parent involvement efforts.   It is a steady stepping stone on the path to continuous improvement in schools! 

You are a call or email away from a personalized demo
right from the comfort of your computer!

Posted at 10:14 PM (permalink) 2 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Collaboration Manager, Parent Involvement, Parent Communication, Continuous Improvement, Discipline, RTI, Special Education

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Education Is Full Of Contradictions!

Posted at 10:35 AM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Special Education, Discipline, Bi-Polar

Monday, November 7, 2011

Why Start All Over Each Communication?

Posted at 9:26 PM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Collaboration Manager, Discipline, Parent Communication, Documentation

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Technology In Perspective!

Posted at 8:22 PM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Principal Rider, Dan S. Martin

Friday, November 4, 2011

If They Just Would Have Called Me! Now I'm Mad!

When I received a call today from a parent I know who was frustrated by the stack of failing papers she had just received from her daughter's teachers, I was reminded yet again how important it is for the teachers of struggling students to reach out to parents.  The earlier the better. 

Each attempt should be documented.  Beyond the C.Y.A. factor, this is valuable information.  Written communication to/from parents should be archived.  Verbal conversations should be documented in notes. Not merely that the conversation occurred, but the notes should also include a brief summary of some sort. 

When this type of documentation exists, professional staff members with a need to know can readily refer to a "file cabinet" (of sorts) where these notes are stored.  They can easily access these notes and other documents before making a call, so they gain insights that help them build on prior conversations colleagues have already had with the parent.  They should enter conversations with parents as informed and prepared as possible.  And, those conversations should be as focused and constructive as possible.

The file cabinet I am referring to is not two-drawer, nor is it four-drawer.  In fact, it is not really a cabinet at all...unless you're stuck in the 20th century.  Instead, it is a database on the internet that makes the process I outlined above a snap for all personnel.  Easy.  Accessible from anywhere.  A series of check boxes, pull-downs, and text-fields. 

EdClick's Collaboration Manager is the collaborative "file cabinet" your school can use to enhance and document parent communication--->cheaply, easily, and in a manner that improves your school's performance!  You can see it work in an online demo, right from the convenience of your computer!

In a coming post I'll share other ways Collaboration Manager
can improve communication between school and home.

Posted at 8:21 PM (permalink) 3 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: EdClick, Collaboration Manager, Discipline, Parent Communication, Documentation

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Stop Driving While InTEXTicated!

Posted at 11:27 PM (permalink) 1 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: Cycle of Education, EdClick, DanClick, Travel, Texting