Cultural Change: Does implementing
programs that empower students to be proactive in their decision making create
positive cultural change on the middle school campus?
Introduction /
Background
Middle School ages are
hard enough as it is, now add in the Urban setting along with Title I status to
the culture of these students. The label of “At Risk” is also placed on these
students based on their economic needs. Many of these student’s parents have
speratic work schedules which places the older siblings taking care of the
younger ones after school hours. Many of our students interact with each other
based on other situations they have seen taking place outside of our school
walls.
The community places a
large impact on our student body. Changes have been occurring in the community
the last year and a half due to newly established community business pouring
money and resources to insight positive change. Many of our students
demonstrate what they know while they are at school. To some extent this is not
always positive. There are many unwanted behaviors that take place on campus
and are directed at other students and faculty. This causes students to be out
of the class setting and disrupting other student’s academic studies.
My action research will
be working with Safe School Ambassadors on campus and gathering data that is
recorded by these students. These students have been given specific training
and the tools needed to be able to reflect on certain actions taking place on
the middle school campus. I will also be looking at data related to our
ambassadors to see if a positive impact is being made on our campus by the use
of this program or if adjustments need to be made.
This program will also
empower the students in making decisions related to their overall experience in
the middle school setting. The overall goal is to create an atmosphere that
supports every student to be academically successful without the undue
pressures of unwanted mistreatment taking place on the middle school campus.
Our Assistant Principals
are overwhelmed with student discipline issues on campus along with the
abundance of student tardiness to classes. This has caused a decrease in our
student’s academic standing and an increase in their social issues on campus.
The traditional methods do not seem to be working with the students on this
middle school campus so we need to assess the problem areas and look to other
means to create a more conducive learning atmosphere. Looking at this age group
they need to feel that the decisions are coming from them, so the research will
be based on empowering the students to make decisions and change with some
limitations.
In conducting my
research I want to delve into the minds of our students to find the areas they
feel are of most concern on the campus and to see where the biggest
mistreatments on campus end up being amongst our student body. From the
information gathered the goal is to help implement change on the campus to see
if a redirection of focus can be made from social issues to academic successes.
In conducting my
research I will be working closely with my Assistant Principals and counselor
on my campus. My research should help in the decrease of discipline and
counselor referrals so our administrators can spend more time on academic issues
instead of social issues on campus. The student body should also benefit in a
more productive atmosphere on campus with the empowerment of the student’s
decision making processes being put into place. By incorporating some of our
surrounding businesses the community should also benefit from the outcome of
the research by building the community relationship with our campus.
Please refer to the
following terms which will be used throughout the research paper.
- Middle
School ages are typically considered as a child between the ages of eleven
and fifteen. Sometimes this is not always consistent. There are sometimes
children age sixteen or seventeen in the middle school based on being held
back a year or two in elementary.
- Community
is any of the surrounding families or businesses which have contact in
some way with the school campus.
- Safe
School Ambassadors (SSA) are students who have gone through the Safe
School Ambassador two day training which took place on campus. The
training gave these students the tools needed to redirect situations on
campus or to get help when needed.
- Family
Group Facilitator runs the bi-weekly meetings with a group of SSA
students. They record the meetings and collect the action logs from the
SSA students.
- Action
Logs are the SSA student’s reflections and reports of their usage of the
skill taught to them through the SSA training. These logs will reflect
types of mistreatment going on along with date, time and location of the
mistreatment. It will also reflect the actions they took during the
situations.
Literature Review
The following
references are the sights I have looked at to draw information for my inquiry.
Many of these sights reflect on the prevention of bullying in the school
setting. Bullying has become a huge issue in schools and is being looked at
very closely by the legislature. Many laws are being passed and updated and
states are being scrutinized if they do not have something in place to protect
our children from the unnecessary pressures put upon them by their peers.
Community Matters is a group who promotes the SSA program and looks to empower
students with the strategies and tools to make smarter and safer choices and to
work on creating a new culture in their school that they are proud to be a part
of.
The government puts measures into
place to help the public schools in areas of need dealing with school
improvement. “(g) ASSISTANCE FOR LOCAL SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT- (1) PROGRAM
AUTHORIZED- The Secretary shall award grants to States to enable the States to
provide sub-grants to local educational agencies for the purpose of providing
assistance for school improvement consistent with section 1116.” This has
allowed my campus to get a grant which helped fund our SSA program on our
campus provided through Community Matters.
Title I
— Improving The Academic Achievement Of The Disadvantaged http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg1.html
Safe School Ambassadors http://www.community-matters.org/safe-school-ambassadors/
Texas Anti-Bullying laws do not
oversee the districts and what they are doing about it in their districts yet
but they are starting to provide ways to increase awareness and start
prevention on the campuses. These laws and policies are creating awareness in
the different types of mistreatments that students are placing on their peers.
Some are more apparent than others and these policies are placing certain
strategies into place to make the campuses more aware.
Texas Anti-Bullying Laws & Policies “Analysis of
State Bullying Laws and Policies – December 2011” (U.S. Department
of Education). http://www.stopbullying.gov/laws/texas.html
Action research is an area that I needed more study in to help me in my
research. These guides helped to give some pertinent information on how to
organize my research to get the most out of it. It helped me in looking into
the actual issues I was concerned about and how to organize my thoughts and
place them into a qualitative inquiry to get the most out of my research. These
resources also gave me some insight as to how to present my research to the
people who can make a difference on the campus.
Herr, K. G., & Anderson, G. L.
(2005). The action research dissertation: A guide for students and faculty.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Meyers, E., & Rust, F. (Eds.). (2003). Taking action with teachers
research. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Kincheloe, J. L. (1991). Teachers as researchers: Qualitative inquiry as a
path to empowerment. New York: Falmer Press.
Our Texas Schools, lawmakers are
tackling the issues of bullying in our public schools. This group is working to
create laws that will need to be incorporated into our school systems. It has
not passed yet but they are in the process of making some major changes in the future
of education.
Texas School Business May 2012 http://issuu.com/parkplacepubs/docs/tsb_oct_2011_final
Action Research Design
Subjects
Reflecting on the
hallways in the school and how many students were still in the hallways after
the class bell had rung was overwhelming. I then started to reflect on how many
students were in the assistant principal’s office and the numbers were growing
in our In-School Suspension (ISS) class each day. Looking at who the students
were sitting in the assistant principal’s office was starting to become déjà
vu. I started looking into the discipline problems on campus and relating it to
the student’s tardiness to class.
My research started to
take shape when I looked into our Safe School Ambassadors (SSA) program. I knew
I could use these SSA students to help gather data and maybe pinpoint some of
the issues on campus and where they are taking place. This data will help to
shed some light on the issues we are facing but also give a better
understanding of what it taking place on our campus with our students. There
are 63 SSA students on campus and they are a combination of all three grade
levels. This should produce a well rounded amount of feedback for data.
Middle school students
between the average ages of eleven and fifteen will be my target population for
this research. My sample will consist of the data collected by the 63 SSA
students on the campus. These students will go through training on detecting a
range of mistreatment happening on the campus and strategies to defuse this
mistreatment with the understanding of strict confidentiality. Discipline and
tardiness to classes are easily acquired for all students, the mistreatment
that takes place on campus is harder to document. The students are normally the
first responders to issues on campus so it is only reasonable to use them to
gain data.
Procedures
My action research will
be working with Safe School Ambassadors on campus and gathering data that is
recorded by these students. These students have been given specific training
and the tools needed to be able to reflect on certain actions taking place on
the middle school campus. I will also be looking at data related to our
ambassadors to see if a positive impact is being made on our campus by the use
of this program or if adjustments need to be made.
There is another
program that will be introduced in the second portion of this research to see
if it will have any impact on the culture and climate of the middle school
students and faculty. This program will also empower the students in making
decisions related to their overall experience in the middle school setting. The
overall goal is to create an atmosphere that supports every student to be academically
successful without the undue pressures of unwanted mistreatment taking place on
the middle school campus.
Changing the culture of
our campus would end up benefiting not only the students but the faculty as
well. Trying to make this happen would need the help of my administration,
counselor and some of the faculty on campus. In a meeting with the counselor
and the Family Group Facilitators I will discuss the objectives of my research.
I also will ask for feedback and insight that could help to reach the vision to
create positive cultural change on our campus.
I will also elicit their help in collecting the data from their SSA
students throughout the semester to use in the research.
The program is funded
by a grant which the school counselor will have control of the funds. There
will be a two day training that will take place with all of the Safe School
Ambassador (SSA) students and the Family Group Facilitators. Each Family Group
Facilitator will conduct a meeting every two weeks with their SSA students.
During these meetings there will be discussions addressing the strategies they
have been given and to keep “safety of self” as the most important. Discussions
will also include mistreatments the students have seen and the locations of
concern. The Family Group Facilitator will keep records of the meetings and
discussions as well as collecting the student’s action logs.
The school counselor
will help to maintain the data that is turned in by each Family Group
Facilitator until turned in to be disaggregated. Monthly meetings will take
place with the Family Group Facilitators, counselor and an administrator to
update any new strategies or concerns that have arisen. All students on campus
will be introduced to the new program in a grade level assembly, but on a less
detailed venue than the SSA students and Family Group Facilitators. Student and
faculty safety is our number one priority to promote successful academic
learning.
Keeping organization
within the groups is left up to the Family Group Facilitators to run their
bi-weekly meetings. Tools and strategies for these meetings are provided in the
SSA handbook along with any documentation paperwork. Activities are to be
conducted at these meetings to stress the importance of this program and what
the students feel needs to be done to increase all student safety and awareness
on campus.
The school counselor
makes sure that the monthly meeting schedule is put out and attended along with
getting the passes out to the SSA students to attend their bi-weekly meetings.
Any concerns that come up are brought to the school counselor or brought to the
monthly meetings to be discussed. If action is serious enough to need immediate
action an administrator will step in. All documentation will need to be turned
in by the beginning of May before the end of the year SSA gathering.
Data
Collection
Focusing on the needs
of our students means learning what those needs are. The SSA program will help
to empower our students with the tools needed to redirect unwanted behavior or
to seek help without being put into an unwanted situation with their peers.
These students will also be trained to reflect on the situations they partake
in, on and off campus. Our students will be asked to record information
pertaining to any situation that requires their SSA training and to turn in the
documentation to be collected by a Family Group Facilitator. This documentation
will be disaggregated by location and types of mistreatment taking place.
Data will also be taken
on the SSA students to show if they are part of the positive culture change or
part of the issues taking place on campus. Tardiness to classes and discipline
will be looked at for each of the 63 SSA students. The objective of this
research is to empower the students in their decision making for the betterment
of all the students on campus. The vision of this research is to see if
empowering our students will help to create positive cultural change on the
middle school campus for all our students and faculty.
The following are the
types of mistreatments recorded by our SSA students along with the locations of
the mistreatments taking place. These findings have been collected by the
family group facilitator in charge of each group and then turned in to be
desegregated and placed into a readable report to be presented to the campus leadership
team during the summer summit to aide in making decisions to continuing the SSA
program on our campus for the following year. The information provided will
also help in making any changes in campus policies that are necessary for our
students and staff for the next school year.
 SSA REPORTED DATA
2012 (20 Weeks) |
||||||||||
|
Types of Mistreatment
|
# REPORTED
|
|||||||||
|
1
|
Act Against Campus
|
6
|
||||||||
|
2
|
Other (self inflicted, stealing, yelling, depression)
|
9
|
||||||||
|
3
|
Exclusion
|
21
|
||||||||
|
4
|
Bullying (Threatening/Fear)
|
49
|
||||||||
|
5
|
Physical (Push/Hit/Etc.)
|
79
|
||||||||
|
6
|
Put Downs (Hurt Feelings)
|
134
|
TOTAL MISTREATMENTS REPORTED = 298
|
|||||||
|
SSA REPORTED DATA 2012 (20 Weeks)
|
||||||||||
|
Location
|
# Issues Reported
|
LOCATION & % OF ISSUES REPORTED
|
||||||||
|
1
|
Counselor Office
|
1
|
 |
|||||||
|
2
|
Stairs
|
2
|
||||||||
|
3
|
After School Sports
|
3
|
||||||||
|
4
|
Bathroom
|
3
|
||||||||
|
5
|
Library
|
5
|
||||||||
|
6
|
Patio
|
7
|
||||||||
|
7
|
Bus
|
8
|
||||||||
|
8
|
Locker Room
|
8
|
||||||||
|
9
|
Outside
|
12
|
||||||||
|
10
|
Home
|
13
|
||||||||
|
11
|
Gym
|
17
|
||||||||
|
12
|
Lunch Room
|
17
|
||||||||
|
13
|
Neighborhood
|
21
|
||||||||
|
14
|
Hallways
|
66
|
||||||||
|
15
|
Classroom
|
86
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
TOTAL ACTION LOGS
|
269
|
|||||||||
|
REPORTED FOR 2012
|
||||||||||
There are more
mistreatments documented than locations due to their being multiple
mistreatments taking place in the same location with the same situation. The
students were directed to fill out the action logs based on everything that
took place.
Findings
The two surveys given,
one at the beginning and one at the end of the year, gave a lot of feedback on
what the biggest concerns of mistreatment are and the locations they felt the
mistreatment was taking place on campus. The survey at the beginning of the
year gave a good starting point for our SSA students to begin their action
logs. This also kick started the vision to work on creating a cultural change
on our campus starting with the students.
Taking all the students
action logs and breaking down the data we found the highest mistreatment on
campus was putdowns. This data also stated the second highest mistreatment was
physical altercations. This took up 72% of the mistreatments taking place on
campus. Breaking down the data even further we found that the largest
mistreatments were actually taking place right inside the classrooms (32%) with
the next highest being in the hallways (25%) during passing periods. It was
kind of interesting how many actually were taking place off campus. In the
neighborhood it was 8% of the mistreatments. This shows that the training that
was given to these students gave them the tools they needed to help them in the
community and not just on the campus.
The findings in this
research helped to spark some of the conversation that took place during summer
summit discussing the changes needing to be implemented the next year. Training
for teachers on increasing their classroom management skills along with
revamping the hallway passing procedures to get from class to class became a
huge topic of discussion. The research gave a better picture of the situations
taking place on our campus that need to be addressed for the betterment of all
our students and faculty. A new program, Restorative Justice, which will piggy
back off of the SSA program when implemented in the following year to help aid
the SSA program. This program will also help to empower our students in making
decisions that will be in their best interest and the best interest for all our
students on campus. This new program has not been tried in Texas and will be a
work in progress to keep an eye on.
Conclusions and
Recommendations
After reviewing the
data that had been collected, it showed a significant decrease in tardiness
from August to May. We started the SSA program in January so in five months the
tardy sweep and our SSA’s dropped the tardy count from around five hundred
tardy students a period to around five hundred tardy students a day. This is a
huge decrease and putting our students back into the classes for instruction. This
also accounts for the reasons the mistreatments were higher in the classroom
and hallways than any other place on campus. The difference this makes to our
campus is we are now relying on the teacher to be present as the first
responders to situations instead of having to rely on our students as the first
responders when it takes place in other areas of the campus like the patios.
This also presents the feeling of a safer school environment to our students on
our campus.
I recommend continuing
the SSA program with our students but also monitor their own actions on campus
as well. We need to make sure our SSA students are making a positive impact on
our campus instead of adding to the issues. The data shows that as our SSA
students move through the program from sixth to seventh and on to eighth grade
but tend to slack on their responsibilities and join in on the tardiness to
classes as well as end up in the assistant principal’s office for various
situations. Our eighth graders had the most problems out of our SSA students.
This is an area that the family group facilitators need to focus on when
conducting their bi-weekly meetings. They will follow up on their SSA students
in-between meeting times to make sure everyone is on the right track. We need
to make sure we are meeting the needs of our SSA students as well ensuring they
are doing a great service for our school and community.
The SSA program gave
students on campus the tools and strategies needed to make a safe and positive
impact on campus. The students are normally the first responders to any
situation that takes place on campus. This program utilizes this factor to
create a positive impact on student activity and promote positive distractions
from mistreatment that may possible occur otherwise. When one person stands up
for the betterment of others it becomes contagious. This is what we are looking
for on our campus. We are empowering our students to create the type of
atmosphere they want to be in which is positive and beneficial to all our
students. We are working to help our students see beyond the right now and make
decision that will impact them to be successful learners.
References
ELEMENTARY & SECONDARY
EDUCATION
Title I — Improving The Academic Achievement Of The Disadvantaged
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg1.html
Title I — Improving The Academic Achievement Of The Disadvantaged
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg1.html
Texas Anti-Bullying Laws &
Policies “Analysis of
State Bullying Laws and Policies – December 2011” (U.S. Department
of Education).
Texas School Buisness May 2012 http://issuu.com/parkplacepubs/docs/tsb_oct_2011_final
Safe School Ambassadors
Herr, K. G., & Anderson, G.
L. (2005). The action research dissertation: A guide for students and faculty.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Meyers, E., & Rust, F.
(Eds.). (2003). Taking action with teachers research. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Kincheloe, J. L. (1991). Teachers
as researchers: Qualitative inquiry as a path to empowerment. New York: Falmer
Press.
