Action Research Plan/Sharing My Inquiry

Action Research Plan

Building School Culture ~ Anita Byrd

I am wondering will a weekly school-wide gathering with the implementation of a character-building program, activities that build school culture, recognition of academic performance, and recognition of superior behavior prove to be a great motivation method for enriching our school/community culture, as well as our students’ learning performance?

Goal: Building School Culture Implementing a weekly school-wide gathering, which includes a character-building program, activities to build school culture, and the recognition of academic performance and superior behavior to prove this implementation to be a great motivation method for enriching our school/community culture, as well as our students’ learning performance.
Action Step(s)	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Incorporating a Character-Building Program. This will take 6 of 30 minutes of our weekly gathering time.	Principals: K. Shumaker and K. Ivey Anita Byrd Shumaker’s Stars Team Leaders (Lead Teachers) As the school year progresses and we see character building taking place, other teachers and students will share the benefit of, or an action that was a direct result of, implementing specific character traits within the school week.	Weekly Gathering Start: Beginning of School August 2011 End: End of School May 2012 30-minute school-wide gathering: 3 minutes – opening, pledges, speaker, and school song. 6 minutes – character building (someone expound on last weeks word/intro this weeks new word) 12 minutes – recognition of academic performances and superior behavior 6 minutes – building school character: (examples) H.S. baseball team, “battle cry” 3 minutes – closing statements.	Character program Character “word” banners (will be borrowed from the high school to be hung up in the hallways reminding students of the character word of the week. Shumaker’s Stars Committee (this committee of teachers will be responsible for organizing the awards to be presented to the student from each class who displayed great character during the week. Team Leaders (lead teachers) will encourage a positive atmosphere and attitude of their grade level coworkers and all students.	On going assessment of teacher reports (verbal and questionnaire), and of student reports of praises of good behaviors and deeds displayed by themselves and their peers. GT students will publish all students’ recognition in the Paw Prints newspaper. (This is a new GT activity also being implemented by my Action Research Plan) Students’ and stakeholders’ interview data.
Activities for Building School Culture. Another 6 of 30 minutes of the gathering will be (for example,) having the high school baseball team come to the Elem campus and sign autographs and have our students (lil’ bulldogs) be adopted by the baseball boys. During a game or two, these Lil’ Bulldogs will run onto the field with their adopted big brother and be recognized. Also, all students and staff wearing the same school t-shirt at each weekly gathering.	Principals: K. Shumaker K. Ivey Anita Byrd Student Council Team Leaders D. Allen (H.S.) H.S. Coach Baseball Players Parent Involvement Committee (this committee will be made up of staff and community leaders with a passion to build school/community) culture). Fundraising committee	TBA - When the 2011-2012 baseball schedule is complete, we will decide on a date.	The support of school administrators, baseball players, parents of Lil’ Bulldogs, and community stakeholders coming out and supporting our students! Parent Involvement Committee will encourage the community to take part in this activity in support of our students. Team Leaders (lead teachers) will encourage positive moral of their grade level coworkers and all students. Student Council members will be the “helpers”. Fundraising Committee will be responsible for selling these shirts to the students, staff, and community.	All feedback from Lil’ Bulldogs and their parents, baseball players and their parents, school administration, coaches, and staff. Students’ and stakeholders’ interview data.
Recognition of Academic Performance. This will be 12 of 30 minutes of our weekly gathering. (Recognizing academic performance and superior behavior will be conducted at the same time)	Principals: K. Shumaker K. Ivey Anita Byrd Honor Roll Com Student Council	Weekly Meetings Weekly Gathering Start: Beginning of School August 2011 End: End of School May 2012	Honor Roll Committee (This committee will be made up of staff leaders with a passion to build school/community) culture, and enrich students’ learning performance and will be responsible for organizing the awards to be presented to the students from each class who demonstrated great efforts towards learning performances during the week). Student Council members will be the “helpers”.	Check end of the year grades from previous year, and compare them to this year’s grades at each 9-week interval. Assess the percentage of students in Intervention classes, to evaluate if that percentage is falling. Compare TAKS scores of all students from previous year to the present year. Students’ and stakeholders’ interview data.
Recognition of Superior Behavior. This will be 12 of 30 minutes of our weekly gathering (Recognizing academic performance and superior behavior will be conducted at the same time)	Principals: K. Shumaker K. Ivey Anita Byrd Conduct Committee Attendance Committee	Weekly Gathering Start: Beginning of School August 2011 End: End of School May 2012	Conduct Committee & Attendance Committee (These committees will be made up of staff leaders with a passion to build school/community culture, and enrich students’ superior behavior. They will be responsible for organizing the awards to be presented to the students from each class who demonstrated great efforts towards superior behavior during the week). Student Council members will be the “helpers”.	Compare last year’s office referrals this year. Also, compare office referrals at each 9-week interval to see if the percentage of office referrals is falling. On going feedback from teachers, staff, and students of the over all attitude and atmosphere of the school. Check end of the year bus referrals from previous year, and compare them to this year’s bus referrals at each 9-week interval. Students’ and stakeholders’ interview data.

Sharing My Inquiry

What led to my choosing “Building School Culture” as my Action Research is the school where I am presently teaching is the same school from which I graduated. At the time I attended school, our community was a thriving area of community stakeholders with pride and enthusiasm concerning any and all endeavors of our students. Almost 25 years later, I find our school and community have no pride or enthusiasm concerning people in general. It is a very sad state in which we find ourselves. As I wondered how this downfall in community “attitude and atmosphere” has taken place, I began to realize there are no community leaders whose dream and desire is to rebuild our school/community culture. I began to come to the realization with the lack of impressionable community leaders, it is going to take the school leaders in and off itself to build school culture, and therefore outflow to the community and parents.

I will conduct my action research plan through means of our “Campus Improvement Plan”. (Our staff in a long time probably has not understood per say that the CIP was to help implement our vision; and honestly, no one probably ever cared what our campus vision has been from year to year. Therefore,) I want to utilize the “Campus Improvement Plan” to conduct my action research upon a “foundation” (CIP) to build school culture that should have already been implemented, utilized, and shared in such a way to empower our teachers to take ownership of our vision; taking part of building one of the most important structures of our school success – school culture. After my wondering, I discovered the lack of sharing our vision, which caused a lack of empowerment of teachers with tools, passion, and drive to build school culture is the reason for this downfall in school/community culture. Therefore, these are my plans for conducting my action research for building school culture:

CAMPUT IMPROVEMENT PLAN ~ Implementing our Vision!

CURRICULUM

What drives our Instruction!

•CScope

•Intervention

•Vertical Alignment

•Reading Counts

•Red Ribbon

These bullets represent areas on my Internship Plan in which I will take part integrating CScope with our present curriculum. I will be responsible for organizing Vertical Alignment meetings for math, ELA, and science. Reading Counts is a reading incentive program with rewards, and Red Ribbon consists of learning to be drug free.

CAMPUS CULTURE

Our Attitude and Atmosphere!

•Team Leaders (our K-5 grade level/team leaders)

•Character Awareness (character building program – one character trait weekly)

•Parent Involvement (PTO, Room Moms, Community leaders, etc)

•Student Council/GT (fundraisers for the needy of the community/Paw Prints School Newspaper)

•Shumaker's Stars (a great display of character from a student within every classroom)

•Conduct – (superior behavior – zero office referrals)

•Attendance – (perfect attendance)

•Honor Roll – (academic performance A/B honor roll)

•Safety & Health – (Shelter in place, campus evacuation, tornado plan, etc)

•Hospitality/Fundraisers – (staff recognition, various fundraisers, etc.)

These bullets under Campus Culture will actually be committees in which teachers will voluntarily sign up to be a part of this motivating process of instilling “campus culture”. This empowers teachers to take ownership of “campus culture” and feel as if they have contributed and taken part of this building up of pride, great attitudes, and a positive atmosphere for our school community. During the last week of May 2011 during an OFYP day, I will present the Elementary campus with an energy packed, motivational statement of explanation of these committees; explaining the connection with the CIP, being connected to the our vision, therefore building school culture. Once teachers are signed up for the committee where they can best serve with passion, I will empower them with motivating thoughts giving them ideas of collaboration of how they will contribute to our first weekly gathering when school starts next August 2011.

During our weekly gatherings, these committees will contribute to (1) character awareness (2) activities that build school culture, (3) the recognition of students’ academic performance, and (4) the recognition of superior behavior.

This will be a 30-minute all school weekly gathering:

3 minutes – opening, pledges, speaker, and school song.

6 minutes – character building (someone expound on last weeks word/intro this weeks new word)

12 minutes – recognition of academic performances and superior behavior

6 minutes – building school character: (examples) H.S. baseball team, “battle cry”

3 minutes – closing statements.

Each week for an activity to build school culture I will ask, for example, the high school cheerleaders to come to our campus and do a battle cry (pep rally) for our students, or the high school baseball boys to sign autographs for our elementary students and adopt “lil’ bulldogs” and during a baseball game have the lil’ bulldog run out on the field with their big bulldog brother (this being a way of involving parents and children to be supportive of our other campuses, thus giving a “role model” position to these older students to have a reason to live up to a higher standard of conduct knowing a younger student is watching their actions).

As the year progresses, on going students’ and parents’ interview data will be used to state our learning and support our statement of building school culture.  Other relevant data such as benchmark scores and grades will also be used to state our learning and enriching academic performance. Classroom behavioral management analysis, along with office and bus referrals will support our statement of empowering students to display superior behavior and character awareness.

Positive interview data from students, staff, and parents will be published in the school newsletter, Paw Prints, displaying positive growth and excitement concerning our building together of school/community culture. My principals are most excited about this action research! They have high hopes of this being the driving force to a turning point within our community of Pollok, Texas!