Choices, choices, choices

My plans for the action research have slightly changed after watching the video and after the past week and some of the issues that presented themselves. At this point in time I feel like I need to separate the issues of parental involvement and the perception of the school in the community. Both of these would present a challenge that needs to be addressed for our school to move forward and reach the potential walking our hallways daily. If I choose the parental involvement, I will be looking at the benefits of having a greater involvement on the individual students and on the school as a whole. I will also be looking at methods of improving the rate of participation by the parents. Teachers will benefit from having parents who have a greater awareness of what goes on at school and the needs of the teachers in having parents reenforce the lessons being taught. Students will benefit from having parents that are actually modeling the importance of an education - something that will have long lasting effects on the overall quality of life of the students. PARENTS will benefit by seeing their children more involved in their education. As a principal, I expect that I will see fewer repeat offenders in my office as parents are more frequently seen in the hallways. If I choose to do the community perception of the school, I will begin by surveying everyone that will answer - students, teachers, parents, business leaders - anyone! After going through the data and coming up with the "reality" of the school situation, coming up with a plan to address the areas of concern will help us plan on ways to improve. After implementing some of the changes, I will challenge those that were surveyed to come in and take an honest look at the school and evaluate the change that has taken place. In a small community, the coffee shop talk can make or break you. We have lost students due to this talk - which ultimately has cost the district much needed funds. I believe that this project could impact students by creating a better learning environment. Teachers will be affected because the community will have a greater sense of what they are accomplishing - not what they have been told, but what they have witnessed first hand. My goal is to stop the students who are leaving and hopefully have some of those that left return home. This would impact our funding which allows us to offer more for our students. In a grand dream, I hope that an improved school perception would attract people who are relocating to the area and possibly bring in business owners looking for a place to raise a family. My third option, based off of issues from the previous week, would be to research the impact of uniforms on the school day. For a small school, we have had more than our share of bullying. Our dress code is not enforced in a consistent manner. Can something like uniforms help eliminate these two problems AND have a positive impact on student success? I can see students benefitting from greater self esteem, higher achievement scores, and hopefully a more friendly learning environment for those students that have been viewed as different. Teachers would benefit from having fewer areas of the dress code to address and more time to focus on the teaching. I would benefit GREATLY because I would not be dealing with the issues of short shorts, shirts that are too revealing, sagging... I have never felt like uniforms were an answer until last week!

Administrative uses of action research

Administrators could use action research to unite a faculty in addressing issues that are preventing a campus from reaching its potential.  When the faculty is forced to work together on a local problem and research possible solutions, they will be invested in developing and implementing the strategies.

Action Research - Paving the way for school improvement

Action research is a process used to help the learning of students while simultaneously improving the skills of the teachers.  A group of educators would come up with a problem that needs to be addressed at the classroom, campus or even district level.   Researching possible solutions and analyzing data help the group focus on the most effective solution.  Following the research the group would share their results with a wider community.  I am looking forward to following the steps involved as I try to come up with possible solutions to the issues of parent involvement and public perception of the school district.  These two issues have a detrimental effect on the performance of our school.  I intend to use studies showing the positives of parental involvement as a basis for the research project.  Surveying the parents of our students, contacting other schools for ideas to help improve parent performance, and identifying measurable goals that can help show improvement made.  Improving public perception will benefit from a more informed group of parents that will begin to happen when the parents are more involved at the school.  A part of this process will be researching ideas of improving the perceptions of different groups - seniors, parents, business leaders.  This process could have a long lasting effect on our present students and our future students.