Shadowing
Experience 1
On March 28, 2012, I shadowed the Dean
of Discipline, Velda Banks-Hedgespeth at Detroit Premier Academy. Her day begins at approximately 7:45 a.m. each
morning with meetings with parents and their children who have been
suspended. These are called re-entry
meetings and must be held before the student can return to class. The number of meetings varies per day so
sometimes she is done by 8:30 a.m. On
this day, all of the re-entry meetings were done by 9:00 a.m. At this time, she took time to check
messages, emails, and to take a break.
At 9:30 a.m. Mrs. Hedgespeth had a few students that had gotten in
trouble for fighting from middle school.
She spent about 10 minutes sorting out the story of each student and
then spent about 20 minutes doing peer mediation to work out the problem. At 10:00 a.m. Mrs. Hedgespeth had to meet
with the dean of k-2, Mrs. Scott to work on a couple of behavior corrective
action plans for two students that have been having behavior issues. During this time, the two of them come up
with the problems that the student is having, ways that the teacher can help to
improve the behavior, and strategies that will be used if the behavior
persists. The BCAP’s take about 2 hours
during which time, both administrators were interrupted several times about an
issue in the office or behavior issues that Mrs. Hedgespeth would have to deal
with later. At 12:00 p.m. she was
finally able to take a lunch break but only a short one because she was
responsible for lunch duty at 12:15 p.m.
I ended my observation of Mrs. Hedgespeth so that she could eat her
lunch and get ready for lunch duty. It
was a very busy morning for her and I have a lot of appreciation for what she
does on a daily basis.
Shadowing
Experience 2
On March 29,
2012, I shadowed the principal Mr. Kaczmarek at Gaudior Academy.
At 7:30 a.m., Mr. Kaczmarek was in the
main office sitting behind the counter. He
talked with a few teachers and students as they enter the building for the day.
A teacher asks him questions related to
events that are occurring at the school. At 7:45 a.m., Mr. Kaczmarek leaves the front office and goes to the
student drop-off area. He greets students, parents, and teachers as they enter
the building. He waves at parents as
they drop-off their kids. He has
conversations with a teacher, two parents, and another school administrator. After the bell rings at 8 a.m. Mr. Kaczmarek goes to his
office and does the morning announcements which included the pledge of
allegiance, and important announcements for the upcoming school day. Mr. Kaczmarek
then checks his email, signs purchase orders, makes a phone call, and
talks with the secretary and bookkeeper in the front office.
After a cup of coffee, Mr. Kaczmarek discussed a
facility issue with one of the school custodians. Next, he responded to an
email from a parent and talked with the instructional facilitator regarding an
issue with a teacher. At 10:30 a.m. a teacher brought a male student to office
for calling another student a bad name while in line. When addressing the
student, Mr. Kaczmarek made
the student stand still, come to his desk, and make eye contact with him. Mr. Kaczmarek mentioned the
student’s parent in his conversation with the student. The parent was called at 11:15 a.m. and I ended my
observation with Mr. Kaczmarek
as he was finishing his meeting with the parent and student.
Shadowing
Experience 3
On April 12,
2012, I shadowed Mrs. Rader a Director of Special Education for the
Huron Valley Schools. From 8 a.m. to
8:45 a.m. she went over her email and voicemail messages, making the return
calls and follow up emails. During this
time many interruptions took place and used up a great deal of time. Coffee break and discussion with co-workers
on some upcoming issues until 9 a.m. Between 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. conference
call with the Principal at Spring Mills Elementary in regards to a special
education allotment, conversation was very informal and only some explanation
was given for the number of allotments being changed due to a decrease of
enrollment.
From10:30
a.m.to 12 p.m. monthly budget meeting with staff to discuss the number of
para-pros and the need for , very well organized and was formal, went over the
last several months as well as last year’s budget spending up to the same time
period. She gave out this month’s budget
for special educations paraprofessional.
12p.m. to 12:45 p.m. Lunch in school cafeteria. From 12:45p.m.to 1:20 p.m. we attended a meeting
with the Educational Improvement Specialist about a parent complaint regarding
a certain teacher. They work very well
together regarding the complaint about the teacher and delegated phone calls
and emails to the counselor and parent. Also the EIS wanted to move on
procedures for a new student from out of district who’s IEP had year round
services listed.
We
took a little break from 1:20 p.m. until 1:30 p.m. After the break Mrs. Radar
had IEP meetings requested by several parents expressing concerns. Some of
these concerns: how long was the evaluation going to take, what techniques
would be used. She explained the purpose and answered several questions that
the parents had regarding what the IEP was and how it would help their children
improve. This lasted until 3:45 p.m. She walked them to their cars and said if
you have any more question feel free to drop by anytime. I thank her for her
time and the education she gave me by letting me shadow her for the entire day.
No comments:
Post a Comment