Graduation Speech : Principal Dialogue

On February 11th, 2016 I attended the Houston Independent School District’s (HISD) school board meeting. I received a first-hand experience of how educational decisions are made and I also witnessed all the intricacies of the process. An article entitled Understanding Your School Board states that “school boards are entrusted by the public to translate the needs of students into policies, plans, and goals that will be supported by the community” (www.tasb.org). In other words, the board and its members are responsible for making and enforcing essential decisions for the school district. They are ultimately a strong determining factor for their students’ academic success.

The purpose of exploring this phenomenon of teachers leaving their profession early in their career is to determine why it is happening and how it can be prevented in the future.

Oftentimes, new teachers are provided with little to no professional guidance, and because of that, nearly fifty percent of teachers leave the classroom within the first five years. This turnover rate not only has an impact on kids, since they lose the person they were connected with, but it also costs the nation roughly 7.4 billion dollars a year. This video, which focuses on the Hillsborough County Public School System, in Tampa, Florida, brings to light the importance of mentor teachers for first and second year teachers. Through the gathering of evidence and classroom observations, these mentor teachers provide the passion for new teachers and help to unlock their potential. Since the implementation of the mentor program their retention of new teachers has gone from 72% to 94%.

Some people have asked to read the commencement address I delivered this morning to the 2013 graduates of Butler University. So here it is.

When hiring the future educators of our school we insure that our future educators possess certain essential qualities. We look for teachers who live locally and plan on staying with us for long periods of time. When there are too many turnovers in schools there is no consistency and it can seem like each year is a practice year. The education world is constantly changing. There are always new techniques or changing standards, here at Statesboro Middle School we encourage all our teachers to pursue further degrees as well as keep their certifications up to date. Our administration highly appreciates all of the teachers who are employed at our school. We allow our teachers to dress down on Fridays as well as provide them with special lunches each Friday. Throughout the year we do special things for teachers of the month as well as our teacher of the year. Statesboro Middle School will always strive to hire highly qualified teachers. Young adolescents are going through several different physical, intellectual, emotional, and social changes and teachers

(citing Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 2003, and Ingersoll & Smith, 2003). Beginning teachers have the highest rates of turnover of any group of teachers. The attrition of beginning teachers has been widely reported since the late 1980s, but it was only a rough estimate using cross-sectional national data. Recently, using national longitudinal data, Perda (2013) was able to more accurately document rates of cumulative beginning teacher attrition. Perda found that more than 41 percent of new teachers leave teaching within 5 years of entry. Moreover, he also found that these already high levels have been going up since the late 1980’s. Rates of leaving for first year teachers rose from 9.8 to 13.1 percent from 1988 to 2008, a 34 percent increase (Perda, 2013).

According to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, almost half of teachers quit the profession after five years. I am beginning that critical fifth year mark as a teacher; however…I am not joining the ranks of teachers to leave. In fact, each passing school year confirms to me why teaching is my calling. I live for those eureka effects, “aha!” moments, tightly squeezed hugs, sparkled eyes, and much more! Every day I walk into my classroom ready to teach as if my hair is on fire!

The Great Being saith and I quote: “Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom”.

You walk in scanning the badge I gave you the night before you go up the stairs and look no one sees you . walking up to the room I told you about you go in and lock the door , in the middle of the room you see an abandon desk. in the corner is filing cabinet and there a door on the left side

To begin, I attended Borel Middle School in San Mateo, Ca. The first year was really hard because I was in sixth grade and didn’t really know anyone but my friends that I went to Elementary School with. All throughout my three years at Borel I strongly believe that I would be going to Aragon High School. My final year at Borel was the worst year of school in my life! Most of my teacher were expecting us to do a minimum of at least three hours of homework every night. I would never have time to do anything with my family, even on the weekends I would spend at least an hour of doing homework. Then I would have to study for at least three or more tests a week. I never had any time to enjoy my life. Thats when I started to hate school. I would wake up and never want to go. I would be paranoid that I did not do something or get something wrong and the teachers would yell at me. The only teacher that I loved being with my my spainish teacher, Mrs. Pietri. We had the best relationship ever! Everyday at lunch I would go to her class and help her out with anything and just hang out with her. I would tell her all of my struggles and she would try to help me through them all. So then by the end of the year, teachers started to attack us with work. On the last week of school I had to write a paper on this topic and it was worth half of my grade so I could not mess up on that project. Even during winter break and spring break I had things to do. I hated school. But then as the year

In “Why New Teachers Choose to Teach,” Wadsworth explains new teachers reasons for becoming teachers, how new teachers feel, and any problems they may face. When people question how well our school systems are achieving they look at our teachers whether it’s positive or negative comments that are being made. Some say that the young adults who want to pursue education and teaching the youth of today are in for the wrong reasons such as, summers off and pay increase. Others think differently, that they young adults today are excited about teaching and believe that they can make a difference.

Imagine that every high school senior in the United States was tested and then upon graduation assigned to a career based off of their score. Wouldn’t that be horrible? The world would be filled with people who hate their jobs. This is just a quick example of how a single test doesn’t define our future or who we are. Standardized tests like the SAT and ACT are extremely useful for college admissions officers but the tests are way too emphasized in the college process; this is why the exam makers should improve the exams so that the emphasis put on these exams matches the results it gives back.

1. I would like to enroll in the Senior Honors Program, because I think it will be an excellent way to complete my experience as a sociology undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. Since transferring to UC Berkeley in the Fall of 2015, many of the courses I have taken have focused on research and its importance to the field of sociology. The continued exposure to the diverse topics of sociological research, as well as the varied methods researchers use to collect their data, has shown me that many of questions I ask about the social world on a daily basis are potential sociological research projects. I find this fact to be inspiring as opposed to overwhelming, and I believe that the questions that I continually ask warrant further academic exploration. I want to participate in this program, because it will place me in an environment where I will be able to find academic answers to the questions that cross my mind regularly, and ultimately mold me into a more insightful and capable student.

Several years back, some of the researchers carried out analysis that proven the ability to understand that ineffective teachers leave schools than effective teachers with intention to leave schools because of low achieving and the minority students. The argument that is likely to generate from this topic is to what extent will teacher turnover be beneficial?

English class seemed to be the most dreadful to take within school. Writing essays for most of my grade in a class is not what I was looking forward too. When I entered college I knew that it would be one of many challenging classes I would have to take. Starting from the lowest English class to moving on up, the writing assignments became longer and more thought out. The time came when I got into this class that I knew more work was going to have to be put into essays and thus brought out what I had not seen before in my work progress.