It has been awhile since I posted to this blog.  With the craziness of the Spring semester and then summer break, I have not had a lot of updates to post.  But we are now well into a new school year, and research and inquiry are again taking place! My assistant principal and I have begun meeting with new teachers on our campus and are sharing a variety of topics and information with them as they embark on this difficult yet rewarding career.  I will share some of these current experiences in the coming weeks, but today I want to post a draft of my dissemination paper on the topic of New Teacher Academies.  This project is in no way done, but this information will give interested parties a little insight into my thoughts and processes as I continue on this path. 

The Effect of New Teacher Academies on Teacher and Student Performance

Needs Assessment

As the campus coordinator and leader of the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports team, I spend a great deal of time analyzing discipline data.  Over time, it became apparent that the same teachers were writing the majority of the discipline referrals on our campus and that the same students were receiving discipline referrals on a regular basis.  Upon closer analysis, I discovered that our five new teachers fell at either end of the referral spectrum: three of them wrote excessive pink slips for everything from not having supplies to fighting and two of them wrote almost no pink slips for the entire year.  These discoveries led me to look more closely at the training new teachers receive and how to use this training to effect change in new teachers’ classrooms.

Objectives and Vision of the Action Research Project

After analyzing the data and observing new teachers’ classrooms, I began to ask the following questions:

• What effect do regular, weekly meetings with the new teachers on my campus have on increasing student time on-task and decreasing office referrals from these classes?  
• What effect do these meetings have on new teacher morale and retention rates?

These questions led me to discuss the extension of New Teacher Academy from a beginning-of-year event to a weekly training and discussion time.  I knew that the new teachers received many great tools, ideas, processes, and procedures in their training, but I also knew they were so overwhelmed that many of those things probably fell to the wayside very quickly.  With that in mind, my assistant principal and I wrote goals for ourselves and the new teachers with whom we wanted to effect change:

• In the 2011-12 school year, the number of discipline referrals will be reduced by 25%.
• In the 2011-12 school year, teacher time on task will be increased by 15%, as measured by administrative walk-throughs and evaluations.
• In the 2011-12 school year, student time on task will be increased by 25%, as measured by teacher observation and evaluation and administrative evaluation.

We then began writing lessons and activities geared toward the areas of concern we identified as we conducted informal walk-throughs of these classrooms.

Review of the Literature and Action Research Strategy

Articulation of the Vision

In the spring of 2011, after identifying the struggles our new teachers were facing, we determined that New Teacher Academy must begin immediately.  The main group to whom we needed to communicate our vision were the new teachers.  Because we were so far into the school year, this was not an easy subject to address without making the new teachers feel that we did not feel they could do their jobs adequately and alienating them.  In articulating our reason for creating the New Teacher Academy and our vision for the group, we stressed that we knew they were working hard and doing their best to meet the needs of their students.  We also acknowledged that we had not given them adequate support throughout the first half of the school year to increase their successes and reduces their struggles.  We then shared our goals for the second semester and how we intended to use New Teacher Academy to attain those goals.  By the end, the new teachers felt supported, appreciated, and ready to work together to improve the coming semester. 

Management of the Organization

This project has been organized and managed primarily by my assistant principal and me.  She was already meeting with the new teachers sporadically to discuss certain topics as she saw a need arise.  After analyzing the discipline data, I proposed a more consistent and structured meeting and topics to aid new teachers in developing their skills and proficiency as teachers.  She and I then worked together to observe the classrooms of our new teachers and develop a list of topics to cover each week in New Teacher Academy.  Because both of our schedules were already so busy, we divided the topics on the list between us based on our individual strengths and areas of interest and alternated the topics each week so that each of us was responsible for planning every two weeks.  We also looked to teacher leaders on our campus to lead some of the meetings to ease our load, but more importantly, to begin developing those leadership skills and promote peer teaching and learning.

Management of the Operations

Because the majority of the planning and work required for this project rested with the assistant principal and me, there were very few issues regarding consensus, communication, and conflict.  We get along very well, and I look to her constantly for advice and guidance in instructional matters, so this was a great opportunity for me to continue to learn a great deal from her.  The biggest conflict we faced throughout the project was the negative attitudes of a couple of the new teachers with whom we were working.  Even though we were very careful in our presentation of weekly New Teacher Academy meetings, there were still those that felt we considered them bad teachers that needed remediation in order to do their jobs appropriately and brought that attitude with them to our meetings.  The assistant principal led the first two meetings in order to model for me how to deal with the negativity appropriately and did a wonderful job of involving those people in the discussion and helping them to see on their own that they were good teachers but had areas that needed attention in order to make their classes run more smoothly.

Response to Community Interest and Needs

Because our campus has a much higher percentage of Special Education students than others in our district, this is always an area of concern and discussion when we implement new projects, strategies, and programs.  In this case, we looked at the discipline data for Special Education students in our new teachers’ classes.  Because these numbers were higher than we felt they probably should be, this became a primary focus of our classroom observations.  Our observations led us to determine that new teachers probably did not receive adequate training in working with Special Education students or how to properly read the paperwork related to these students in order to properly serve them.  This also led us to develop topics related to differentiating instruction and working with a variety of students and instructional levels within a single class.  We involved our diagnostician and Special Education teachers in part of the planning and discussion for these topics in order to maintain continuity and consistency throughout the building regarding how these elements have been previously implemented. 

Using the CARE Model to Address Campus Concerns

This week we studied strategies to sustain current improvements on our campuses and to identify future areas of study.  Based on my completion of the CARE model below, I feel that my topic (New Teacher Academy) is a valid topic of study for my campus and one that will help to address some current concerns.

Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools Sandra Harris, Stacey Edmonson, Julie Combs

Tool 8.1 CARE Model: Planning Tool

Identify Concerns that must change

1. Student discipline referrals must be decreased.  Too much instructional time is lost currently due to discipline.

2. Teacher efficiency and management of classroom duties and procedures must be improved.  Currently there is a great deal of down time between activities and assignments, which wastes instructional time and increases the chance for discipline issues to arise.

3. Various disciplinary consequences (ISS, lunch detention, after school detention) need to be modified to increase effectiveness.  At this time, none of these options effectively decrease inappropriate behaviors.

Identify Affirmations that must be sustained

1. Grade-level teaming within the school day needs to be sustained.  This is a time for teachers to meet and discuss both positive and negative aspects of student performance in order to increase student achievement. 

2. Professional Learning Communities within the school day need to be sustained.  This is a time for each content area to collaborate and discuss effective instructional practices in order to increase student time on-task, and in turn, learning and achievement. 

3. Progressive Discipline Sheets on students who are sent to the office need to be sustained.  This is an excellent way to easily keep track of the number of times and consequences for each trip to the office, as well as an excellent tool to use with parents of students who consistently come to the office.

SMART Recommendations that must be implemented:

1. In the 2011-12 school year, the number of discipline referrals will be reduced by 25%.

2. In the 2011-12 school year, teacher time on task will be increased by 15%, as measured by administrative walk-throughs and evaluations.

3. In the 2011-12 school year, student time on task will be increased by 25%, as measured by teacher observation and evaluation and administrative evaluation.

EVALUATE – Specifically and Often

1.  Regular monitoring of the discipline log.

2.  Regular walk throughs by the administrative team to evaluate time on task for both students and teachers.

3.  Regular evaluations by teachers of themselves and each other to evaluate student time on task.

My Action Research Plan

Based on my decision to implement a New Teacher Academy on my campus to improve classroom management and decrease discipline referrals from new teachers' classes, I have created the following Action Research Plan.

GOAL:  To examine the effect of regular weekly meetings with teachers new to the campus on discipline referrals from these classes.

Action Step(s)	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
1. Research articles and other sources for information related to new teacher performance.	Myself and other campus administrators	March-May	Professional journals and databases, Internet seach engines and other resources	Does the research support a need for regular meetings with new teachers?
2. Analyze previous year’s discipline data to determine number of referrals from new teachers.  Compare with TAKS and other testing data to establish level of student performance.	Myself, site supervisor, and data clerk	May-June	Discipline referral data, TAKS data, other testing information from Eduphoria	What percentage of discipline referrals come from new teachers?  Will regular meetings decrease this number and increase student time on-task to improve TAKS scores?
3. Survey new teachers concerning perceived areas of strength and weakness and areas that they would like more information and guidance to improve their performance.	Myself and site supervisor	May and August	Surveys for teachers to complete	In what areas do new teachers feel they need support and guidance?  Does the data support these perceptions?  Will NTA help to improve these areas?
4. Plan and implement lessons for New Teacher Academy based on results of surveys and information gathered from research on this topic.	Myself and various administrators and teacher leaders throughout the school year	Weekly throughout school year	PBS and CHAMPS information and activities, various classroom management and discipline management resources	Are teachers implementing PBS and CHAMPS strategies introduced and discussed in NTA?  Are these strategies improving classroom performance and decreasing discipline referrals?
5. Analyze discipline referral data for new teachers throughout the year.  Compare with TAKS and other testing data to determine the effect of NTA on student behavior.	Myself, site supervisor, and discipline office secretary	Once every six weeks throughout school year	Discipline referral data, TAKS data, other testing information from Eduphoria	Have discipline referral numbers improved from the previous year?  Have TAKS scores and classroom performance improved in new teachers’ classrooms?  Is this program effective, and should it be continued for future new teachers?

Week 2 Reflection

This week I finalized my plan for my action research project.  Based on my Internship Plan, I identified the following three areas as potential action research projects:

1.      Analyzing the use and effectiveness of our math intervention classes to improve student and campus TAKS passing rates.

2.      Working directly with new teachers to improve classroom management procedures and lower discipline referrals from these rooms.

3.      Analyze test scores, absences, discipline referrals, and anecdotal information from teachers to determine the highest needs students on our campus and work with teachers to come up with student-specific interventions to meet their individual needs.

In discussing these topics with my site supervisor, we agreed that these were all areas of concern on our campus.  We discussed each topic separately, identifying what elements were already in place to address the issue, to help us determine which topic should be my area of research. 

·         With the math intervention classes, we have a regular interventionist who works with our teachers and we will be getting a full-time person on our campus next year to help address this problem.

·         Our assistant principal has in the past met regularly with the new teachers to address areas of concern, but due to other obligations our of her control, has not been able to do this to the extent she would like this year.  Each new teacher has a campus mentor, but because they are teachers as well, it is difficult for the mentors to be in new teachers’ classrooms to see what areas need to be addressed.

·         Data analysis is very important on our campus.  Our teams already do a great job of looking at this information to identify areas of need with our students.  Our district has also implemented new software that makes compiling all this data quick and easy. 

After identifying these factors, we determined that working with the new teachers would be the most beneficial topic to our campus and would provide me with the most information for discussion and analysis.  The other two topics are important as well and ones that I want to be involved in, but due to the supports already in place for them, would probably not yield as much new information.  Therefore, the topic of my action research project will be, “Does conducting regular meetings with new teachers to address classroom management and discipline procedures result in an improvement in classroom performance for students and a reduction in office referrals?”  

What I've learned about action research

Action research is the process of identifying a area of concern or opportunity for  growth for either students or teachers, reviewing the literature related to this topic, collecting and analyzing data on the identified area, and formulating a soluction or action plan to implement based on the knowledge gained through the experience.  Action research can be conducted by individuals interested in improving a personal area of growth, but tends to be more beneficial when conducted in collaboration with others interested in reaching the same goal.
Action research is an important part of educational leadership.  It is through this process that both prinicpals and teachers are able to identify areas of concern and collaborate, research, and analyze ways to improve those areas.  I think that if you were to interview any principal, they would say that they were committed to improving student learning and success in the classroom.  However, many prinicpals spend the majority of their day, and ultimately their school year, dealing with requirements and requests from upper administration, completing paperwork, and putting out the fires that arise daily on any campus.  While these campuses continue to function, I don't believe there is any true sense of purpose or collaboration among staff members.  The truly great campuses are the ones led by a principal committed to action research and committed to collaborating with the staff in this process.