Jennifer Armenia

EDUL 6015

            Assignment 1
            After looking at the “As-Is” and “To-Be” statements and then thinking about the governance structure at my school, I realized a few of the “To-Be” statements are true, but most of them are not true about my school.  One of the “To-Be” statements that I feel is somewhat true is, “trusts and empowers employees to contribute to decision making”.  When creating our School Improvement Plan the teachers were asked for input on what we as a school need to improve on.  The teachers’ input was then used to develop the plan.  Another way that teachers are involved in decision making is when adopting text books.  We were invited to a text book fair to look at the different programs available and give our feedback on which program we feel would be the best for our grade level.  Teachers are also invited to help make decisions when hiring new employees.  They are often asked to sit in on interviews and give their thoughts on the candidate to the principal.  There are times that the teachers input is not considered when making decisions.  One example of this would be the adoption of the Learning Focused School Program.  This program was adopted and there was no input from the teachers on this decision.

Another “To-Be” statement that I feel is true at my school is “bases all decisions on objective data”.  I have seen this when preparing our School Improvement Plan and data such as test scores and student achievement were used to help base what the school would use as a focus for the next school year.  The data that was used help to make the decision rather than just making a decision without anything to base the decision on. 

Another “To-Be” statement that I feel is somewhat true is “rewards risk-taking and creative thinking”.  I feel that this statement is only partially true because some times we are given the freedom do teach as we please, but other times we are expected to follow a specific program.  One example of this is language arts.  I mostly teach language arts along with science and social students through thematic units.  My students read books on the topics we are studying and I use these books to work on language arts skills while the students are learning the science and social studies concepts at the same time.  I am unable to do this during math since I am expected to follow the math program that our school has adopted.  I understand some of the reasoning behind this is to make sure that students have been taught all the math concepts the same way and are receiving the same instruction however, even by following the same math program teachers are still delivering the concepts differently thorough different styles of teaching. 

I feel like the “To-Be” statement “feels like a winner, with achievements creating good morale” describes my school more than the “As-Is” statement.  I feel like there is good moral at my school that is built by the high achievement of my school and the high standards that are expected of the county as a whole. The high morale at my school is shown through teachers attending extra curricular activities. In the community, my school has a very positive self-image and many people move into my school district so their students can attend a good school.

            There are many “As-Is” statements true to my school.  The one I think stands out the most is, “lets short-term problems drive and dominate work activity”.  I think this is a problem for many schools.  Schools are always looking for a “quick fix”, especially with the No Child Left Behind Act making schools accountable.  If one area of tests scores is low, schools look for a program that will quickly raise the test scores even if it doesn’t have a long term effect.  Another statement that I often see in my school is “punishes mistakes, and hides or rationalizes problems”.  I relate this to children that are struggling.  Many times teachers and parents use excuses such as low –IQ, ADD or ADHD to make an excuses for a child’s poor achievement rather than how to help the child be successful.  Many times these are also the children that do not pass the CRCT and are either retained or have to attend summer school.  Therefore the student is being “punished” rather than the school looking for a way to improve the student’s achievement so it doesn’t get to that point.

            Another “As-Is” statement that I see in education is “relies on inspection to catch mistakes before the customer receives the product”.  I relate this to all the testing that is done during the course of a child’s education.  Students are constantly being tested to find their weakness and hopefully fix it before graduating from high school.  These tests are the “inspection” the students have to pass before graduating from high school.  Many times students pass these “inspections” but still have some sort of “defect”.  Rather than improving the education system and fixing the problems before they occur, students are tested and then remediation is given to those students that did not pass “inspection” rather than looking for the root cause and trying to fix the root cause. 

            One “As-Is” statement that also is seen in my school is “has many different and often conflicting goals among its divisions and departments”.  This is easily seen when looking at different grade levels.  Teachers in first grade have completely different goals for their students than those in third grade.  This is even seen in the same grade levels when different teachers have different expectations for their students.

When thinking about my school and the “As-Is” statement “tolerate turf battlers as inevitable” I have a difficult time relating this to my school.  I don’t see a lot of “battles” in my school instead I see a lot of helpful and considerate teachers.  I often see teachers from different grades and subject areas helping each other out when it is needed.  I don’t see that teachers are rewarded for cross-functional cooperation but I don’t see that they argue and compete with each other either.  I think the best way I can relate to this statement is an experience from a previous school where teachers in the same grade level were constantly competing to see who could have the best writing, whom had the most gifted students or could do the cutest project as opposed to working together and sharing ideas.  There were feuds between several teachers and one teacher even went to the principal about it.  There was nothing done to alleviate the problem and I feel the grade level wasn’t as productive as they could have been due to the competition amongst the teachers.