Action Research Project Update

            My action research project was designed to track the progress of our new discipline policy at my high school.  At the close of last school year, all of the school’s stakeholders participated in a PRIDE survey to assess the climate and culture of the school.  From the results it was evident that teachers did not have much faith in our school’s discipline policies and students did not seem to have any respect for them.  Because of this, the administration decided to form a discipline committee to oversee the creation and implementation of a new discipline policy.  Much has been accomplished so far on this project, although the preliminary official results of its effectiveness will not be in until the end of the first grading period this year and the formal overall results will not be in until the end of the this school year after the PRIDE survey is given again.  

            So far, a discipline committee has been formed made up of one administrator and approximately ten teachers.  These teachers began meeting last year in April and met every week until the end of the school year in order to discuss and create a new discipline policy.  Once all of the discipline policies were reviewed and their effectiveness evaluated, a draft of the new discipline policy was created.  This draft was then reviewed by the principal, the administration team, and me over the summer and revisions were made according to the feasibleness and logistics of the plan.  Three weeks before school started the discipline committee met to look over the new and finalized plan in order to discuss details of implementation, etc.  Then, two weeks before school parents came to registration and were given a copy of the discipline plan and signed that they had read and understood it. When faculty came back for in-service week, we all attended a discipline meeting where the details of the plan were communicated to teachers, and during the second week of school all students attended discipline meetings by class where the administration went over all details of the plan so that students knew what was expected of them.

            Overall, it seems that the new discipline plan is successful and that teachers are feeling more confident in it and students are respecting it.  For example, one of the school rules is that all students wear their IDs at all times.  Last year, it was a constant battle to get students to wear their IDS, but this year, due to the clear expectations and consistent enforcement, over 90% of students are wearing their IDs on a regular basis and the other 10% have their IDs and put them on when directed.  Another example is that there are many less dress code violations because our new female APs are serious about enforcing the new policy and teachers are helping out more as well.  The true first test will be at the end of the first grading period when the discipline report is run so that it can be compared to last year’s.  

            

Action Research Plan-New Discipline Policy

Action Research Plan-New Discipline Policy
Goal: To implement a new discipline policy in order to prevent student misbehavior and to increase student performance and teacher morale.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Form a discipline committee and meet to assess the current situation for strengths & weaknesses & areas for improvement in the current discipline policy	Mr. Hutchinson, Assistant Principal	4/2/12 to 4/27/12	Teacher experiences with discipline on campus, Discipline referral & tardy report from eSchool, PRIDE survey results as they relate to discipline	Minutes of meeting, review of current discipline & tardy report so far for this school year as well as the Pride Survey
Draft a new discipline policy created by representative teachers from each department and an administrator to be approved by the principal	Teacher Representatives, Mr. Hutchinson, Dr. Hodgkinson	4/30/12 to 6/1/12	Example discipline plans from other schools/districts with similar demographics, our current discipline policy, our district guidelines regarding discipline policies, literature related to creating & implementing sound discipline policies	Review the draft to make sure all areas of concern voiced by teachers are considered and part of the plan
Meet with ALL faculty & staff to communicate the new policies in detail	All faculty & staff, Mr. Hutchinson, Dr. Hodgkinson, Leigh Barrington	8/20/12 to 8/24/12	Copy (hard & electronic) of new discipline policies for ALL faculty & staff, power point of new discipline policies	Listen to and address faculty and staff comments & concerns related to the new discipline policy, meeting minutes
Meet with ALL students to communicate the new policies in detail and for them to sign stating they understand the new discipline policies	All students, Mr. Hutchinson, Dr. Hodgkinson, Leigh Barrington, teachers of students	8/27/12 to 8/31/12	Copy (hard & electronic) of new discipline policies for ALL students, power point of new discipline policies	Ensure that all students receive this information by collecting the signed forms; track students down who were absent to make sure they understand the new policy, meeting minutes
Communicate the new discipline policies to parents, have them sign saying they understand, and request any comments or concerns about the new discipline policy	Mr. Hutchinson, Dr. Hodgkinson, Beverly Frayne, Jessica Garcia, office staff	8/6/12 to 8/31/12	Hard copy of new discipline policies for ALL parents when they register their child for them to sign and return stating they understand the policies, electronic copy & power point of new discipline policies on school website	Ensure that all information is easily accessible to parents, record any possible concerns from parent comments
Enforce new discipline policies	ALL faculty & staff, administration team	8/27/12 to 5/31/12	SAC room with monitors, after school detention room with monitors, Saturday school detention with monitors, administrator & teacher cooperation & feedback	Use survey monkey each quarter throughout the year to survey teachers and students about the effectiveness of the new policies
Compare 2011-2012 discipline report and PRIDE survey to the 2012-2013 discipline report and PRIDE survey	Discipline committee, Mr. Hutchinson, Dr. Hodgkinson, Leigh Barrington	5/27/12 to 6/7/12	2011-2012 & 2012-2013 discipline reports & PRIDE survey results	Analyze the data in order to see if student referrals decreased and teacher morale increased

New Action Research Project

After much consideration over the past few weeks, I have decided to change my action research project for several reasons.  First, my original idea included a type of remediation plan for 9th graders who failed the EOC Reading and/or Writing test; however, due to master scheduling issues, this might not be feasible for next year.  Secondly, I have decided to implement an action research project that is relevant and useful for a current school issue and that will be easier to analyze the data in order to guide our school policy in the right direction.

The following is my new action research question: In what ways will the new discipline policy to be implemented at the start of the 2012-2013 school year, created by the discipline committee made up of representative teachers from each department and an administrator, increase student compliance with school discipline policy in order to decrease student referrals, increase student performance, and increase teacher morale? 


The new topic for my action research plan will be to analyze our discipline program.  As part of the discipline committee, I have access to how many referrals were submitted this year and access to our PRIDE survey results that revealed our teachers’ disappointment with our current discipline policies and methods of enforcement of these policies.  The discipline committee will meet once a week from now until school is out to come up with new policies.  I will compare the discipline data from the end of this school year to the data from the end of next year.  I will also compare the PRIDE survey results from this year regarding discipline to next year’s results. The outcome that I am hoping for is that the new discipline policies and methods of enforcement will reduce the number of referrals and boost our teachers’ approval of the discipline polices at our school. 

Action Research as Effective Professional Development

Professional development is extremely important for our administrators and teachers in order to combat the challenges that we, as educators, face on a daily basis.  Our world is changing at a high rate, and I believe it is our responsibility to try and keep up for our students’ sake.  Our number one priority in a learning community should be to promote student learning and success.  That being said, many of us are letting our students down in a major way.  Not that we don’t WANT to do what is best for our students, but we often don’t have the tools necessary to help them learn and be successful. 

However, professional development in general is not effective enough to help administrators and teachers help their students.  Action research as professional development is.  Action research is geared toward to helping a specific set of administrators and/or teachers in a specific problem area that deals with specific students in a specific learning community.  The key word here is ‘specific.’  Too often we try to grow professionally by going to workshops, seminars, conferences, and/or taking courses to improve our teaching and to find new ways to help our students.  This is great, but it is not enough.  In order to truly help our students, we need to engage in action research by identifying a problem area for our students, attending professional development or reviewing literature relevant to the problem, finding possible solutions that are unique to our students, implementing them in our classrooms and schools, and if the proposed solution doesn’t work, then try, try again!  When we find something that does work, we need to share with our colleagues so that more and more students will benefit from administrators’and teachers’ action research.  Most importantly, this should be an on-going, never-ending process of professional growth in order to keep up with our ever-changing world and students. 

Personally as a high school English teacher, my first step in using action research is going to be identifying a specific set of students who failed the 9^th Grade Reading and Writing EOC, grouping them together in one class, and putting them in small groups with students that have difficulty in the same areas. At this point I would like to focus their curriculum on those specific problem areas in order to improve their scores.  More detail and research for this action research plan will be required in order to effectively implement it, and I will be working closely with my site supervisor, the dean of instruction, to come up with the specifics.  Stay tuned to read about the actual research action plan and the results!  

Educational Leaders & Blogs

The use of blogs for educational leaders is no doubt an incredibly innovative and effective way to continuously grow and learn professionally.  All across the nation, educational leaders are faced with similar problems in student learning and achievement, and blogs offer a way to stay connected and combat the problem of feeling and being isolated from other educational leaders.  Blogging allows administrators and teachers to keep track of each other’s thinking processes and new ideas and solutions on a regular basis.