Work Processes
Work Processes
Bret Jacobsen
Western Governors University
Work Processes
I interviewed Christine Fitzgerald, Principal at Tsebii’nidzigai Elementary School (TES). TES is K-6, with enrollment of 300 students, two thirds are English language Learners, 98% free and reduced lunch, 60% McKinney-Vento Homeless, and 99.5% Navajo. The other .5% is African American and Caucasian.
A1. Implementation: In thinking about the day-to-day implementation of work processes, Fitzgerald discussed implementation of teaching and learning in the school. The school is unique because they have a high number of beginning teachers without backgrounds in education. Looking at the day-to-day implementation, Fitzgerald said: “You must look at the administrative …show more content…
piece, are teachers showing up? Are they here on time? Do they have lessons prepared, and are they teaching to the standard? Do they have the resources and materials needed in their classrooms (March 10, 2017).” These questions also align to the school's support staff. Support staff ensures the cafeteria is ready for breakfast in the morning and lunch for the kids. All implementation flow to gaining knowledge, but faculty and staff each have a different role in meeting the requirements.
Administration must be observing classes and providing feedback to improve instruction. As part of the work process of teaching, teachers closely monitor student data to see if students really are learning the standards or not, which is a reflection of what’s being taught. In a perfect world the principal meets with each teacher once a week for twenty minutes, and talks about what was observed in the classroom providing feedback to improve instruction. Tuesdays are late start due to PLC’s, the principal rotates through the different grade level data team meetings and supports the teachers on early out Fridays with teacher planning. All of these processes ensure teachers are teaching, and students are learning.
Performance requirements are also met through the day-to-day supervision of students to ensure safety, which starts with greeting students when they get off the bus, and during breakfast in the morning. Teachers supervise in the classroom while learning, during small groups, and at recess. About the only time students are not supervised is going to the bathroom. Scheduling, staffing, and creativity are key in making sure the school has coverage throughout the day. At the end of the school day the teachers escort their classes out to the busses, some students live so far away from the school the teacher must know they got on the bus. Due to the remote location, even after the student gets dropped off, most still walk a quarter mile to a mile on a dirt road to get home. The teachers are accountable for their students, if they don’t get on the bus the teacher may have to take them home, which could take an hour or more depending on where the family lives.
A2.
Stakeholder Requirements: The fact that students are supervised all the time meets stakeholder requirements in that the school is required by law to make sure students are safe, follow health codes, and ensure supervision. The principal mentioned that supervision can be tricky at times due to some of the high need students, including students with autism, and students with emotional disturbances who will sometimes wander off. You’ve got to have a system in place so that when a student wanders off you know what to do-call the office, do an all call to support staff. Recently, they had a student crisis where they had to evacuate the classroom because a student was chucking stuff across the room and hurting kids. TES has a process in place which includes evacuating the classroom, calling on the crisis team, they all go down together and support the student until they get the necessary help. All teachers on the crisis team receive special training like Mandt hold training so that students aren’t injured if the team has to physically intervene or restrain a student. Fitzgerald believes they are doing a great job implementing work processes like positive behavior and safety to meet stakeholder …show more content…
requirements.
However, in the area of teaching and learning, the school has a lot of room for improvement. The systems that have been in place past years have not met the needs of the students so there is a long term discrepancy in learning, the school is trying to make up multiple ineffective years of learning and growth in a short amount of time so the school is constantly evaluating, and working to improve. According to the stakeholder requirement, students should be performing at or above grade level, hitting benchmarks, and the school is currently not there yet. This process is being worked on 100 percent of the time because TES is a failing school, they have an F grade in the state of Utah, the lowest 3 percent of schools in the state, are considered a focus school, and currently under the state mandate for turnaround. Thus, they are not meeting the stakeholder requirement of the federal and state guidelines for academic achievement, and are not hitting the parent requirement for students to learn and be proficient in reading, but the school does have work processes in place, and changes are being made to accomplish the requirements. Consequently, the school is seeing improvements, but they still have a long ways to go, including other things to change, and tweak.
A3. Desired Results: The administration feels like they still have a lot of work to do in the work process of training interventionists, and will continue to have crucial conversations with support staff: “this is your schedule, you show up in this class for small group during this specified time, you do what the teacher asks, then you leave whether you’re done or not, and go to the next group (Fitzgerald March 10, 20170.” In the past, interventionist worked with the principal, and they made all the decisions. In the current model the teacher makes decisions with support from the administrator, then support staff implements whatever the teacher wanted, it’s a shift of control from the way things have been done in the past, which has caused some support staff to need more administrative intervention, and additional training. Fitzgerald said it becomes tricky to find the time, and funding for the appropriate training- “do we not teach the kids because we are going to have a training?” The principal believes that if they can improve some of their work processes like training interventionists, then implement them, the school will achieve the desired results more efficiently than in the past. The school could definitely improve upon the implementation of work processes to achieve the desired results.
A4. Student Success: The processes could be improved to maximize student success by providing additional training for interventionists so they can meet their outcome goals. Furthermore, additional training for teachers, so that their teaching improves. Another process the school is planning on and budgeting for is help in improving playground behavior. A company called Playworks will be part of the playground process for next year to support recess, because TES has a lot of physical aggression, and bullying going on during outside time. The current work processes are not being done well enough to stop the poor behavior at recess, so adding this program should help improve the process to maximize student success. Playworks gets paid to come in and run a structured recess program, which is voluntary for the kids, and includes training for support staff, and student leaders who go out and run games. Playworks implements specific games, conflict resolution like rock-paper-scissors so that kids are actively participating, and having to take turns, resolve conflict, and play following rules, which will build social skills because students don’t get that in their home environment or the community.
Learning social skills at school during play will carryover into the classroom. Principal Fitzgerald is excited about the program because students are lacking the social skills that this organization teaches during play. Through this production the goal is also to improve the work process of safety at the school, including decreased bullying and other good outcomes. The principal plans to cover the cost by shifting money from At-risk to Title 1, about $10,000 for the school year. If Playworks is a good fit the school will continue to support it from year to year because TES will continue to get new students every year, some of their biggest challenges come from kindergarten. Principal Fitzgerald has a nice professional learning network of people and she reached out to some of them. The idea came from a colleague who started this program five years ago in a high-risk school with similar demographics in Layton Utah, and was very successful in helping maximize student success.
Additionally, improving instructional processes, and how the school looks at data to improve instruction. The school has already set aside time in the system for teachers to collaborate, and discuss students, it’s improving what the teachers talk about in analyzing the data. Data team meetings could stay focused on the data, not discussing a future field trip. Teachers should be asking: What assessments are we using? How are we talking about those assessments, and collaborating as teachers to improve whatever the students’ need, which will lead to maximizing student success. The school has had a lot of growth in that area this year, but they still have much work to do in that process. For example, the school's Response to Intervention process (RTI), when teachers see a student falling behind the rest of the group, teachers use a universal screening tool, which is used schoolwide, and drill down to the lowest area a student is missing or has a gap. Then teachers use a specific research based intervention, apply it to that student, and progress monitor the data to see if the intervention is working. Three data points are collected and monitored for growth, if they don’t see growth teachers change the intervention. Two other things that have helped improve the process is having a set agenda with a smart goal. When teachers meet on Tuesday morning they are very specific about what they talk about, and what teachers want the outcome to be including, recording data, and action steps from the actual meeting so that they can constantly be following up.
A final piece, because the students have a variety of needs, administration put together a calendar for when they meet with data teams-they pull in additional support like special education, where the teacher has set times she meets with different grade levels so that she can be part of the conversation. The first 30 minutes of the data team meeting will discuss only those with IEP’s, and what happens when they get pulled out or pushed in for intervention. The social worker also meets with grade level teachers in data team meetings once a month to discuss specific needs of the student like making sure the student is not coming to school in the same clothes every day. The behavioral specialist attends as well, to discuss any behavior issues in the class, and give suggestions or pointers. He can set students up on a tracker if they need additional support, when students meet the appropriate behavior for a set time, students can come collect a prize from the behavioral specialist.
The whole goal with the behavioral work process and in looking at the data from previous years is student seat time, actually being in the class and learning. Students were being suspended all the way from kindergarten to sixth grade, which accounted for multiple lost days of instruction, and lost days from kids being sent to the office and just sitting there, losing an hour at a time because they are in the office doing nothing until they calm down. Part of the behavioral specialist job is to decrease the amount of lost seat time by getting the student regulated back into emotional control, and get them back in the class working. The behavioral specialist is a local member of the community who is firm, but he builds a relationship with the students, which helps in maximizing student success.
A5.
Improvement of Process: The elementary knows the students are behind academically, and are having to make up lost time so to keep current with educational needs. Fitzgerald knows the gap will only increase because how schools are ranked by grade level is in comparison to other schools. As other schools get better and better, not only does TES have to make up for lost time, but continue above and beyond to keep up with schools that are not behind and improving every year. Therefore, specific things the school can do to improve processes is: Trauma informed practices and strategies school wide, so that every staff member that deals with kids understand trauma informed practices. Seventy Five percent of the student body has some form of trauma in their lives due to the lack of support services, education, alcoholism, drug use, and domestic violence. This summer the principal plans to put together a team, which will include a school counselor, social worker, school psychologist, and a number of teachers, who will put stuff together to implement the coming school year. The principal has a specialty in trauma training for adolescents due to her background in mental health
counseling.
Lastly, the school is focusing on John Hattie’s: Teacher and Teaching influences-doing best practices that fall within the “Zone of Desired Effects” since the school is trying to make up for lost time. Teachers are starting to focus on best practices, like providing formative evaluation, micro teaching, comprehensive interventions for learning, reciprocal teaching, and feedback to ensure the most student growth. “We need to imbed these practices more in what we are doing (Fitzgerald March 10, 2017).” Another part of this is having the students monitor their work, self-assessing-being aware of where they're at, and setting goals to improve. The school plans to implement student data folders, and student led conferences with teachers so that they’re involved in the process of their learning and responsibility. The goal is to have the process of learning more integrated into the culture to get better results and meet the student needs.
Bret Jacobsen
Western Governors University
Work Processes
I interviewed Christine Fitzgerald, Principal at Tsebii’nidzigai Elementary School (TES). TES is K-6, with enrollment of 300 students, two thirds are English language Learners, 98% free and reduced lunch, 60% McKinney-Vento Homeless, and 99.5% Navajo. The other .5% is African American and Caucasian.
A1. Implementation: In thinking about the day-to-day implementation of work processes, Fitzgerald discussed implementation of teaching and learning in the school. The school is unique because they have a high number of beginning teachers without backgrounds in education. Looking at the day-to-day implementation, Fitzgerald said: “You must look at the administrative …show more content…
piece, are teachers showing up? Are they here on time? Do they have lessons prepared, and are they teaching to the standard? Do they have the resources and materials needed in their classrooms (March 10, 2017).” These questions also align to the school's support staff. Support staff ensures the cafeteria is ready for breakfast in the morning and lunch for the kids. All implementation flow to gaining knowledge, but faculty and staff each have a different role in meeting the requirements.
Administration must be observing classes and providing feedback to improve instruction. As part of the work process of teaching, teachers closely monitor student data to see if students really are learning the standards or not, which is a reflection of what’s being taught. In a perfect world the principal meets with each teacher once a week for twenty minutes, and talks about what was observed in the classroom providing feedback to improve instruction. Tuesdays are late start due to PLC’s, the principal rotates through the different grade level data team meetings and supports the teachers on early out Fridays with teacher planning. All of these processes ensure teachers are teaching, and students are learning.
Performance requirements are also met through the day-to-day supervision of students to ensure safety, which starts with greeting students when they get off the bus, and during breakfast in the morning. Teachers supervise in the classroom while learning, during small groups, and at recess. About the only time students are not supervised is going to the bathroom. Scheduling, staffing, and creativity are key in making sure the school has coverage throughout the day. At the end of the school day the teachers escort their classes out to the busses, some students live so far away from the school the teacher must know they got on the bus. Due to the remote location, even after the student gets dropped off, most still walk a quarter mile to a mile on a dirt road to get home. The teachers are accountable for their students, if they don’t get on the bus the teacher may have to take them home, which could take an hour or more depending on where the family lives.
A2.
Stakeholder Requirements: The fact that students are supervised all the time meets stakeholder requirements in that the school is required by law to make sure students are safe, follow health codes, and ensure supervision. The principal mentioned that supervision can be tricky at times due to some of the high need students, including students with autism, and students with emotional disturbances who will sometimes wander off. You’ve got to have a system in place so that when a student wanders off you know what to do-call the office, do an all call to support staff. Recently, they had a student crisis where they had to evacuate the classroom because a student was chucking stuff across the room and hurting kids. TES has a process in place which includes evacuating the classroom, calling on the crisis team, they all go down together and support the student until they get the necessary help. All teachers on the crisis team receive special training like Mandt hold training so that students aren’t injured if the team has to physically intervene or restrain a student. Fitzgerald believes they are doing a great job implementing work processes like positive behavior and safety to meet stakeholder …show more content…
requirements.
However, in the area of teaching and learning, the school has a lot of room for improvement. The systems that have been in place past years have not met the needs of the students so there is a long term discrepancy in learning, the school is trying to make up multiple ineffective years of learning and growth in a short amount of time so the school is constantly evaluating, and working to improve. According to the stakeholder requirement, students should be performing at or above grade level, hitting benchmarks, and the school is currently not there yet. This process is being worked on 100 percent of the time because TES is a failing school, they have an F grade in the state of Utah, the lowest 3 percent of schools in the state, are considered a focus school, and currently under the state mandate for turnaround. Thus, they are not meeting the stakeholder requirement of the federal and state guidelines for academic achievement, and are not hitting the parent requirement for students to learn and be proficient in reading, but the school does have work processes in place, and changes are being made to accomplish the requirements. Consequently, the school is seeing improvements, but they still have a long ways to go, including other things to change, and tweak.
A3. Desired Results: The administration feels like they still have a lot of work to do in the work process of training interventionists, and will continue to have crucial conversations with support staff: “this is your schedule, you show up in this class for small group during this specified time, you do what the teacher asks, then you leave whether you’re done or not, and go to the next group (Fitzgerald March 10, 20170.” In the past, interventionist worked with the principal, and they made all the decisions. In the current model the teacher makes decisions with support from the administrator, then support staff implements whatever the teacher wanted, it’s a shift of control from the way things have been done in the past, which has caused some support staff to need more administrative intervention, and additional training. Fitzgerald said it becomes tricky to find the time, and funding for the appropriate training- “do we not teach the kids because we are going to have a training?” The principal believes that if they can improve some of their work processes like training interventionists, then implement them, the school will achieve the desired results more efficiently than in the past. The school could definitely improve upon the implementation of work processes to achieve the desired results.
A4. Student Success: The processes could be improved to maximize student success by providing additional training for interventionists so they can meet their outcome goals. Furthermore, additional training for teachers, so that their teaching improves. Another process the school is planning on and budgeting for is help in improving playground behavior. A company called Playworks will be part of the playground process for next year to support recess, because TES has a lot of physical aggression, and bullying going on during outside time. The current work processes are not being done well enough to stop the poor behavior at recess, so adding this program should help improve the process to maximize student success. Playworks gets paid to come in and run a structured recess program, which is voluntary for the kids, and includes training for support staff, and student leaders who go out and run games. Playworks implements specific games, conflict resolution like rock-paper-scissors so that kids are actively participating, and having to take turns, resolve conflict, and play following rules, which will build social skills because students don’t get that in their home environment or the community.
Learning social skills at school during play will carryover into the classroom. Principal Fitzgerald is excited about the program because students are lacking the social skills that this organization teaches during play. Through this production the goal is also to improve the work process of safety at the school, including decreased bullying and other good outcomes. The principal plans to cover the cost by shifting money from At-risk to Title 1, about $10,000 for the school year. If Playworks is a good fit the school will continue to support it from year to year because TES will continue to get new students every year, some of their biggest challenges come from kindergarten. Principal Fitzgerald has a nice professional learning network of people and she reached out to some of them. The idea came from a colleague who started this program five years ago in a high-risk school with similar demographics in Layton Utah, and was very successful in helping maximize student success.
Additionally, improving instructional processes, and how the school looks at data to improve instruction. The school has already set aside time in the system for teachers to collaborate, and discuss students, it’s improving what the teachers talk about in analyzing the data. Data team meetings could stay focused on the data, not discussing a future field trip. Teachers should be asking: What assessments are we using? How are we talking about those assessments, and collaborating as teachers to improve whatever the students’ need, which will lead to maximizing student success. The school has had a lot of growth in that area this year, but they still have much work to do in that process. For example, the school's Response to Intervention process (RTI), when teachers see a student falling behind the rest of the group, teachers use a universal screening tool, which is used schoolwide, and drill down to the lowest area a student is missing or has a gap. Then teachers use a specific research based intervention, apply it to that student, and progress monitor the data to see if the intervention is working. Three data points are collected and monitored for growth, if they don’t see growth teachers change the intervention. Two other things that have helped improve the process is having a set agenda with a smart goal. When teachers meet on Tuesday morning they are very specific about what they talk about, and what teachers want the outcome to be including, recording data, and action steps from the actual meeting so that they can constantly be following up.
A final piece, because the students have a variety of needs, administration put together a calendar for when they meet with data teams-they pull in additional support like special education, where the teacher has set times she meets with different grade levels so that she can be part of the conversation. The first 30 minutes of the data team meeting will discuss only those with IEP’s, and what happens when they get pulled out or pushed in for intervention. The social worker also meets with grade level teachers in data team meetings once a month to discuss specific needs of the student like making sure the student is not coming to school in the same clothes every day. The behavioral specialist attends as well, to discuss any behavior issues in the class, and give suggestions or pointers. He can set students up on a tracker if they need additional support, when students meet the appropriate behavior for a set time, students can come collect a prize from the behavioral specialist.
The whole goal with the behavioral work process and in looking at the data from previous years is student seat time, actually being in the class and learning. Students were being suspended all the way from kindergarten to sixth grade, which accounted for multiple lost days of instruction, and lost days from kids being sent to the office and just sitting there, losing an hour at a time because they are in the office doing nothing until they calm down. Part of the behavioral specialist job is to decrease the amount of lost seat time by getting the student regulated back into emotional control, and get them back in the class working. The behavioral specialist is a local member of the community who is firm, but he builds a relationship with the students, which helps in maximizing student success.
A5.
Improvement of Process: The elementary knows the students are behind academically, and are having to make up lost time so to keep current with educational needs. Fitzgerald knows the gap will only increase because how schools are ranked by grade level is in comparison to other schools. As other schools get better and better, not only does TES have to make up for lost time, but continue above and beyond to keep up with schools that are not behind and improving every year. Therefore, specific things the school can do to improve processes is: Trauma informed practices and strategies school wide, so that every staff member that deals with kids understand trauma informed practices. Seventy Five percent of the student body has some form of trauma in their lives due to the lack of support services, education, alcoholism, drug use, and domestic violence. This summer the principal plans to put together a team, which will include a school counselor, social worker, school psychologist, and a number of teachers, who will put stuff together to implement the coming school year. The principal has a specialty in trauma training for adolescents due to her background in mental health
counseling.
Lastly, the school is focusing on John Hattie’s: Teacher and Teaching influences-doing best practices that fall within the “Zone of Desired Effects” since the school is trying to make up for lost time. Teachers are starting to focus on best practices, like providing formative evaluation, micro teaching, comprehensive interventions for learning, reciprocal teaching, and feedback to ensure the most student growth. “We need to imbed these practices more in what we are doing (Fitzgerald March 10, 2017).” Another part of this is having the students monitor their work, self-assessing-being aware of where they're at, and setting goals to improve. The school plans to implement student data folders, and student led conferences with teachers so that they’re involved in the process of their learning and responsibility. The goal is to have the process of learning more integrated into the culture to get better results and meet the student needs.