Report of the Meeting with the School Board

The agenda was precise and followed routine procedures regarding presentation of information. As usual the local school board of Cullman City Schools was very clear and methodical in the presentation of the agenda and maintained a strong sense of professionalism throughout the meeting. The groups that asked questions and had concerns seemed to very pleased with the responses that they received from the school board. The information that was provided to the various groups and parents helped the various groups gain a better understanding of the school board’s position on specific topics all while providing a clear understanding of the overall outcome that the school is wishing to achieve. The announcement of another special called board meeting on October 9th, 2015, at 9:30 a.m. was made. This announcement was made to inform all individuals who wish to attend, the opportunity to once again be a part of the ongoing discussion and search for the next superintendent of Cullman City

At 1:00 p.m. I entered into Evoline C. West Elementary school on Thursday, July 12 2012 for an interview with Mrs. Yolanda Lawrence. As I entered the classroom, I was greeted by Mrs. Lawrence, the head teacher in this classroom. Mrs. Lawrence has no assistant at this present because of it being in the summer. After I entered into the classroom, the entire class welcomed me with “hello Ms. Flournoy”. It made my day to see all of those smiley faces greeting me. This was a 2nd grade classroom which consisted of 17 students of which 8 were girls and 9 were boys. This interview and observation was a total of 2

The Wilson School District Board of Directors meets on the first and third Monday of each month to guide the operations of the district through six strategic vision planks. These planks seek to: improve upon or expand Wilson’s portfolio, grow Wilson regionally and nationally, increase organizational agility and capacity, engage in creative development of new and existing infrastructure, create a flatter organizational structure, and control for fiscal accountability. The following is a summary of the meeting which occurred on September 18, 2017, along with observations and conclusions from the perspective of a future district administrator.

Simple arithmetic is not an easy task. Just like some students have difficulties with basic mathematics skills, so does the Superintendent. This is not to say that the Superintendent cannot do basic math. What this is really comparing is the challenging undertaking involved in counting four out of seven votes in favor of the Superintendent 's recommendations. Swaying back and forth for Board votes is timely and very hard to accomplish, but it is an essential part of the job. Sharp and Walter (2004) explain board members have no authority as individuals. However, together or as a majority they can be extremely powerful in making policy. Longer tenures and more efficient working

The experiment started when Karen Lott, the principal of Brennan-Rogers, chose to extend the school day by an hour and 25 minutes. Her reason, she wanted to close the gap between her low performing school and the neighboring high performing schools. The result, Brennan-Rogers School had exhausted teachers and students and the same test results. The question that begged for an answer was why would a principal extend a school day to bring up test scores? In 2010 the Katherine Brennan School merged with other neighboring schools due to federal funding. This merge brought together a low income school with high income schools. The result was devastating for the children. Student behavior was out of control, a student set another student’s hair on fire (Bailey, 2014). Behavior was determined as the cause of low test scores. Only 12 percent of third graders met state reading goals compared to the 57 percent met by the district.

As a result of the location of the school in a suburban community, the parents are very actively involved in the school. As a result of the active of the supportive parents in the community, the students arrived every day with a smile on their faces and generally prepared for learning. However, as with

272) By allowing our parents/community members to have a voice in our program, we can actually see how much we are engaging them in our program. By listening to the parents, the community members, and assessing our program we can see what we are lacking in when it comes to their involvement. As I spoke in the previous paragraph about the parents being their child’s first teacher, our community also plays a big role in the education of our children. When children have the support of their community, it shows them that their community cares about them so the children will in turn want to care about and support their

The Englewood Board of Education meeting took place at the Grieco Elementary School in Englewood, NJ. On March 17, 2016 and began promptly at 6:30 p.m. in the Cafeteria. The board is made up of nine board members all sitting at a long table with the President of the board, Mr. Devry Pazant who sat at the center of the table beside the newly appointed Superintendent, Mr. Robert Kravitz.

The teacher I interviewed for this project was a fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Keith Wolkovitz. This teacher has been teaching at East Rock Community Magnet School for his entire career of eleven years. East Rock Community Magnet School is a Title I school in the New Haven School District. The school has a very diverse population and over 90% of the students qualify for the free-reduced lunch program. As a Title I school, the school is also mandated by the state to implement certain remedial interventions to improve students’ academic scores.

I attended the IPS school board meeting on February 23, 2016 at 6pm. The meeting took place at 120 East Walnut Street. There was about 60-70 people there. There were people who was helping to conduct the meeting. They also had tables set up close to the front to where people were sitting. They also had rows for anyone who wanted to listen to the meeting. Police officers were also by the door. There were a variety of topics discussed last night. The topics that was discussed were bus tracking, increasing teacher’s salary, treatment of black kids and segregation in education, shortage of teachers and kids acting out, a group of parent’s helping improve reading scores, and a new system called naviance.

Every school district has board meetings throughout the school year. Unfortunately, many parents, community members, & school personnel do not attend such important meetings because they don’t realize or understand the importance of such board meetings or how informative they can be. According to Kankakee School District (2017), the Kankakee School District Board of Education is composed of seven elected members, who were elected by the citizens of Kankakee to serve a four-year term that do not receive no salary for they services, are committed to ensuring a quality of educational excellence that will enhance the opportunities and challenges facing today’s student and additional responsibilities that board members include are selection of the District superintendent, developing general polices according to wishes of the community and requirements of law, hiring school personnel based upon recommendation of the Superintendent and the Assistant Superintendent of Personnel, adopts salary schedules, approves funds to finance school operations, must adopt and review the annual operating budget for the District, and setting the property tax levy to produce adequate funds to meet the District’s financial needs ranks among the responsibilities of the Board of Education (Retrieved from https://www.ksd111.org/domain/68). For this paper, the Kankakee School District board meeting will be used, information learned from board meeting, use of

If there is no hope to enhance their education there is the hope that it can give the students a support system, they were lacking and decrease the chances of students forming unhealthy habits and behaviors. If the system doesn’t work in the academic sense it can still work in the behavioral aspect. Using MTSS can diminish and replace problematic behaviors, thus creating more time on task and teacher involvement to help the whole student body learn. Education continues to work on “Closing the achievement gap using multi-tiered academic supports requires best practices for universal screening and diagnostic assessment to understand youth academic needs (Benner, Kutash and Nelson)”. The key word in that sentence is focusing on student’s needs. Thus, creating more teachers who work to emphasize and understand the lives of their students and creating the “Down Teacher” that Dance describes and implores teachers to strive to be to meet the needs of their students. This is the best system that has been created yet to work with students. Placing this pedagogy in the hands of teachers and psychologists who work in urban education could change urban education for the better. Focusing on the students’ needs is at the fore front of a student-centered approach. To accommodate and adapt has and will always be a student-centered approach. Teachers who do not adapt and ignore the needs of student to teach required material fall under the teacher centered approach which doesn’t

Public school systems need to be more sensitive to their students. Parents play the major role in determining a child’s academic outcome, but the school system needs to notice children who don’t necessarily acknowledge their gift. These children need guidance -- I believe it is the schools’ responsibility to provide it to them. I have been through a situation that makes me feel strongly about the subject. My example is an indisputable case in point.

During my second preclinical experience at Westview Hills Middle School, I learned the importance of cooperation and collaboration among teachers at a school. I was able to observe team and department meetings during this experience. It became clear that it is important for teachers to work together in order to provide a positive atmosphere at a school and in a specific department. Although it became obvious that personalities and teaching styles were different throughout the school, the teachers still acted professionally and used each other as resources in

I attended a Student Focus Team Meeting (SFT) at Conewago Elementary School. This meeting was very interesting to me because all teachers in the kindergarten grade level shared one student that is having difficulties in the classroom. The teachers and other faculty members then came together to discuss ideas on how to help the student improve. Many of the faculty had important roles in the meeting and I found this meeting to be very effective and to greatly help students struggling. Also, there were a few things that surprised me in the SFT meeting and I found it to be very relevant to teachers (Student, 2015).