Social Issues in the Schools

   In general, I believe that social issues such as harassment, bullying and teasing are definitely issues that our schools need to address.  I have worked at schools where there were bullying and teasing issues, boy and girl fights daily, and teacher's that took advantage of students inappropriately.  In any case, it caused a high level of tension and stress amongst the staff and students.

   As a Health Teacher in CMS, I see firsthand what these issues can do to students; mentally, academically, physically, emotionally and socially.  I have seen students afraid to go to class because of other students' teasing and bullying.  I can even use my experiences to relate  to the first video about sexual orientation.  I had a student who went into a suicidal watch and counseling because his parents found out about is alternative lifestyle.  He was a perfectly happy child one day to a severely depressed one the next just because another student decided to make a prank phone to his parents to "let" them know of Johnny's behaviors.  I even experienced  a student who skipped class because the "teacher" consistently humiliated her in front of the class daily. The fact remains that these issues were finally addressed by several teachers at that school that created prompt actions by the administrative team and school leadership team to step in to reduce the frequency of these issues.

     In fact, due to the increased cases of teasing, bullying, harassment and fighting on North Carolina campuses in 2006 at the middle and high school levels, the NCSCOS included a lesson on bullying and teasing along with coping with diversity.  CMS took further action in 2008 and integrated a pilot program, which is in full force today with the 9th grade Healthy Living Curriculum.  This program is called "Souls of our Students" and specifically deals with the issue of diversity.   CMS has also revised a system wide Anti-Bullying Campaign that prohibits bullying to take place on our campuses and buses.  The fact that CMS identified a major problem with violence in the schools was a huge step to develop a plan and strategies that are currently in progress.

  In sum, the goal for the principal is to establish a school climate where all stakeholders are involved with school safety and the deterring of student bullying and teasing, fighting,and harassment.  They also need to communicate to teacher's in direct manner what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior with students.  This is called professionalism.  Another words what our infamous leader quoted to us the first day of class "Will this end up on the 6o'clock news."  Furthermore, we are educator's that need to provide a safe environment for ALL students to learn and interact no matter what type of diversity is acknowledged or not in our schools.  We need to enable students to feel empowered and comfortable to come to us to share these issues with us  so we can help.  I believe that every school needs to have school safety in their SIP.

Prinipal Decisions

I interviewed my Principal about 2 major decisions so far in his career.  Prior to being named Principal at Ardrey Kell, He was the Principal at North East Middle School.  When he was promoted to Principal at NE MS he was faced with the decision of his administrative staff whether or not he wanted to create his own staff or keep the one that was handed to him.  Mr. Switzer decided that due to poor job performance of the 3 AP's he was going to create his own administrative team.  He discussed this decision with the Area Superintendent and spoke with other principals on how to go about this decision.  The 1st year he kept the original staff and the 2nd year he made some changes.   Fortunately, the Area Superintendent helped him with this decision.   One AP was displaced to another school, 1 was given to him and the other Mr. Switzer hired.  As of today , NEMS still does not have a principal and the Administrative Staff is leading the school in a positive manner. 

Mr. Switzer used the "Levels of Involvement" Model.  He used gather input from team and decide along with consensus.  He felt that his decision was well needed and really enhanced his leadership ability at NEMS.

The second decision that my principal made was focusing on teamwork and culture of his current school.  He utilized collaboration with administrative staff and school leadership team.  He also, talked with stakeholders; PTSO and Booster Clubs.  During one of our staff meeting he used input from the staff by having each staff member write on a card "If I was principal of AK I would change..."  this gave Mr Switzer ideas on how the staff felt about the culture of the school.  Once again, I think he used the levels of involvement model to help him with this decision making process.  He gathered information from AP's, school staff, teachers,students, and parents and then decided what the next course of action would be.  He also used Gather input from different "Teams" at AK to make larger school decisions.