My Journey to Educational Administration

Since returning from COVID there has been an increase in fights. At first, we placed the blame on the fact that these students had not been socialized in a long time, and many schools on the west coast, in fact 34% according to the 2022 School Pulse Panel on student behavior, showed an uptick in physical attacks or fights between students in the year following the pandemic. However, it seemed to get a little better, but it was more like the calm before the storm. There were still fights on campus, but not the everyday fights we had seen when we first returned, and those fights had seemed to be mostly from our middle school population.  Right now, we are seeing another surge in fighting. This time they seem to have a racial component to them. I have only been at our school for five year, and I admit I am still learning about our population. What I mean by this is that I was unaware of the prevalence of our gang population. It is still a relatively small number, but it is significant...

What can be done to help students come to school on time?  At our school, the number of students that are late to class throughout the day is a problem.  It is greater during the first periods of the day, but it is is a problem throughout the day.  One of the things that has been tried in the past is sending the students to "tardy sweep," but all that did was keep students out of class, and they would purposely show up late, so they didn't have to go to class.  Then they realized we would let them in class no matter what time they showed up, so there needed to be something done. Now if they are more than 30 minutes late, they are sent to "tardy sweep," but they are to do work when they arrive.  Last week at my school, our tardy policy was outlined in a clear delineated process. This is in an attempt to curb the rampant tardiness of many of our students. Some of this habitual tardiness is the students' responsibility and some of it is because of the parents. ...

Over the course of my twenty-two years of teaching, the rules governing Halloween have changed with the times. When I first started teaching, rules regarding costumes seemed to be more lax. The conversations about masks had just begun, and, like the dress code, the costumes have become more restricted as needed. There didn't seem to be rules about candy and parties at all.  In my current district, the rules regarding costumes are that they cannot have masks. We have to remind the students that this is not just to be mean, but it is for their safety as we need to be able to see faces at all times to ensure that no one is on campus who does not belong there. The costumes have to be within the rules of our dress code, and they have to be appropriate: no cross-dressing, no plastic weapons, etc.  As for candy and parties, we are reminded as teachers to be cognizant of allergies. The school is not allowed to provide non-healthy options, but the students often share with each other. ...

 This summer I went to the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) Institute. The focus of AVID is to help those students who might get through the cracks without additional help get the tools to and support to be college ready. The session I attended was called Equitable Classrooms.  As a student working on my preliminary administrative credential, this session landed quite differently than it would have just going as a teacher. It forced me to think more globally about the session than just what happens in my classroom on a day to day basis.  One of the things that stuck out to me the most was the discussion around language use. The facilitator, a principal in New York, said that they have changed the term English Language Learner in her school to Multi-Language Learner. She said that this shift emphasizes the positive nature of the fact that these students are not limited.   The use of inclusive language is an important part of being inclusive in scho...