Dr. Kent D. Peterson (2002) defines school culture as “the set of norms, values and beliefs, rituals and ceremonies, symbols and stories that make up the 'persona' of the school.”
1. Three areas of concern to be addressed during the upcoming school year
School Administrators have the responsibility to preserve a positive and health culture and climate within their schools. Based on the data collected from 2014-2015 School-wide Positive Behavior Support (SwBPS) and the annual school progress report Professional Development was an area of weakness that has been affecting the climate within the school. The current status of Professional Development could benefit from an approach that will intensify the structure to improve and strengthen educators
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It begins with shared norms, beliefs, values, and goals and results in agreed upon processes and procedures that produce consistency in practice (Avossa, pp. 2). Though many schools have a single school culture in place, the issue falls within being consistent. The Single School Culture is supposed to be a uniform set of practices and procedures. Not implying that all classrooms and schools are running like robots. More like practices and procedures are known and used by everyone on campus, fluctuating by different locations on campus. In order for the Single School Culture to be effective within our schools, Administration needs to hold the staff accountable for implementing procedures and discipline in the same fair manner. For instance, tardy policy between classes. Administration should have a universal procedure that is known by staff and students. Staff’s accountability should be consistent with the procedures, and Administration should follow up with documentation. Along with being consistent with behaviors and discipline, Single School Culture should also reflect conscience with academics. If a student is not progressing within a teacher’s classroom, Single School Culture (Eassa) stresses the belief that it is not about the student’s ability, it is about needing new strategies or a better delivery of the strategies. Administration and staff are to …show more content…
Traditional punishing approaches are inadequate and inconsistent. As previously mentioned, many schools do have a Single School Culture in place for behaviors, but the current climate of my school has a shortage of positive instructional practices for disciplines. In-School Suspensions (ISS) and afterschool detentions, should have a primary objective that will meet the needs of the student’s misbehaviors. Similarly, the way we teach our students new content and supply remedial practices for academic areas, the same should be applied to behaviors. Instead of having students sit in a room for an hour, the Behavior Intervention Assistant (BIA) or the Crisis Intervention Teacher (CIT) should be teaching students a proactive, positive, and instructional disciplinary lesson. Administration has the responsibility to assure that if a student misbehaves, staff will be consistent and positive in their approach. Sprick (1993) refers to consistency in correcting misbehavior as a critical point in working together to help students achieve
As a student, I am often troubled by the rigid routines of the school day, despite the fact that I am actually a very habitual person. The constant ringing of bells, lectures, bellwork, classwork, homework, each a daily practice throughout the school year. Although all of these components promote conformity, which will ultimately support the balance of school and societal norms, they also tend to threaten each student’s own unique characteristics. This then poses the question; to what degree should schools encourage conformity versus individuality? Certainly, a level of conformity is required to achieve a balanced society however, the overall structure of the school day and class, including the methods used to teach and mandatory classes, is depriving students of their sense of independence by not allowing them to think for themselves and destroying their natural curiosity; therefore I believe schools need to place more emphasis on the individuality of students.
I can guarantee that punishment is not the answer. Punishment is a suggestion made by reformers (Postman, 311), but it is the absolute worst decision that can be made in our schools. When students get out of school suspension (OSS), they treat it as a vacation day and most of them use it to play video games, and they still get to make up the work they missed. A countless amount of kids in my high school did exactly that. On another side of that, punishment is giving a student attention. Not a great kind of attention, but attention nonetheless. If a student really wants attention, it won’t matter to them what kind. If something is awry in the classroom, it should be ignored. Usually in situations where students are causing a disturbance, it is because they crave the attention. Punishing them is falling right into their
Special education includes addressing students’ academic needs as well as their behavioral needs. A student with a disability is not exempt from disciplinary measures, as students with can suspended and even expelled from the school environment. More specifically, students with emotional disturbance can display maladaptive behaviors. These maladaptive behaviors can generate unsafe learning environments. More importantly, the creation of an effective behavior intervention plan (BIP) is imperative. The development of a BIP can aid in the reduction of maladaptive behaviors, thus decrease the likelihood of a suspension or expulsion. My current role as a special education program specialist permits the
A Single Youth Culture Youth culture and youth subcultures have been a subject of research since the early 1930s. It is most certainly true today that there is not one singular youth culture but a variety of different youth subcultures. The 90's can not be described as the same as the 60's or 70's or even the 80's. There are many reasons put forward by sociologists for this such as there are more styles available today, media influences us more and there is a higher disposable income per household to spend on fashions. This paper will explore the reasons behind the existence of youth cultures in previous years and why the same format has not occured in the 1990's.
In the 21st century, teachers experience many behavioral issues with students in the classroom and face challenges that are very difficult to resolve. School districts have different expectations about how students must behave during school and teachers have their own expectations about how students must behave in their classroom. Every educator has different classroom expectations and students must follow specific standards; therefore, the responsibility of the teacher is to discuss the standards with all students and make sure those expectations are clear. According to Jones and Jones (2016), teachers whose students made greater achievement gains were observed establishing rules and procedures, and carefully monitoring student’s work. In
It takes a while to change any behavior. Part of the plan should be effective consequence strategies. Planned consequences reinforce the acquisition and use of alternative skills and reduce the effectiveness of problem behavior should it continue to occur. Having planned consequences should help teach the student that his/her use of alternative skills is a better way to bring about the desired result. Because it does take a while for a behavior intervention plan to change a student 's behavior, it is important that the IEP team decide what will happen when the problem behavior still occurs. If it is a manageable behavior, it is important to come up with responses that discourage the problem behavior and do not provide the function or desired result of the behavior. In some cases the behavior may be extreme. The IEP team should develop a crisis plan to address those situations. First the group needs to define what is a crisis. Then they should describe the intervention procedures to be put into place including who will be involved. They must identify the resources needed to implement the plan and agree on the procedures for documenting the use of the crisis
Schools are in great need of systems, processes, and personnel who are able to support the needs of students with problem behavior. Research indicates, however, that (while I am a big, fat cheater) information has not been made available to teachers and other professionals in a format that allows these strategies to become common practice. Many teachers choose isolated behavioral strategies that are not applied immediately after the problem behavior has occurred.
time for student misbehavior. By meeting the basic needs of my students mutual respect will
Building administration should implement “a schoolwide adoption of consistent and fluent model(Vaughn & Bos, 2015, p. 76)” concerning rules, procedures, and discipline. Simply put, there has to be a change of culture within the school. Faculty and administration have to hold each other accountable in implementing the culture change because hard decisions will have to made and examples will have to be set. Recently, “positive behavioral intervention and supports(PBIS) model has been developed to focus on individualized interventions that stress prevention of problem behaviors through effective educational programming to improve an individual’s quality of life(Vaughn & Bos, 2015, p. 76)”. 10.
As a teacher managing problem behavior in your classroom can be one of the most challenging tasks. Behavior problems can range from disruption of lessons to acts of violence against fellow students and teachers. Children’s emotional setbacks and life challenges can also contribute to behavior issues at school. A study done by the Justice Center and the Public Policy Research Institute found that six out of ten students suffered from an “emotional disturbance” and were expelled or suspended between seventh and twelfth grade (Firke, 2011). This same study showed that discipline varied greatly between schools. This report also revealed the urgent need for a more thoughtful technique in school discipline policies. In many cases teachers have exhausted their classroom management strategies without success. Behavior Modification is aimed at improving school and classroom behavior, and can give teachers additional tools to help them to deal proactively and effectively with behaviors that are disruptive to students and teachers in the classroom. When children are disruptive in the classroom it can cause a lot of problems for their classmates and their teacher. Yet, in the long run, it's the disruptive child themselves who is most impacted, on both a social and educational level (Epstein, Atkins, Cullinan, Kutash, & Weaver, 2008). Behavior modification techniques should be used in school, to change the negative behaviors, and increase the positive behaviors seen in these children.
Taylor Lydotta M, the importance of school culture in the advancement f 21st century learning environment:a qualitative study,2011,Morangtown,westVirginia.
Before such things can be implemented, there is some specific ground work and strategies that must be done within the schools before situations or dealt with and handled. In this groundwork, principals are vital in the success of the program they implement in their schools (Ballard, Argus & Remley, 1999). They are the conductors of each category needed in a successful program. Principals must hold students and staff accountable for their roles in changing the climate of the school and they must allow for the time and manpower implementing a new program will take. Gil (2002, p. 73) explains that first a solid code of conduct must be in place and operating smoothly. These clearly stated rules are to be communicated to all students and staff what the expectation is for behavior and they must be “enforced without
Based on the inquiry of empowering professional development, many findings come into play. At times we feel as though professional development is worthless and a waste of time. Gusky also, addresses that at times why so many professional developments are inadequate. There are reasons why we feel that way and reasons of which we should not have if we were actually getting something out the workshops. A common goal must first be set in the mind of the participants thus leading to the building of professionalism of the school system. In this review we will look at some aids and guides to successful professional development.
The National Staff Development Council (2009) shed more light on professional development in education. The definition put out by the NSDC (2015) in a proposed modification to the elementary and secondary education act, states that professional development is “a comprehensive, sustained and intensive approach to improving
My school does not have an agreed-upon approach to classroom management or discipline program to be upheld throughout the school. The principal and I are new this year. He has a philosophy of not micromanaging individual classroom rules or grading practices. The only request he has is to have clear and concise classroom rules and individually hold students accountable for those rules. They need to be clearly posted and discussed at the beginning of the semester, so there is no further discussion or questioning of classroom procedure. When a teacher is clear and consistent, students get into the routine. I personally really enjoy being able to manage my individual classroom as I see fit.