Action Research Plan

SCHOOL VISION: Empower all students to reach their highest academic, social, and physical potential through a rigorous and motivating curriculum.

GOAL: Reduce the amount of tardies each day at our campus.

OUTCOMES	ACTIVITIES	RESOURCES/ RESEARCH TOOLS NEEDED	RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS ACTIVITIES	TIME LINE	Benchmarks/ ASSESSMENT	Revisions to SIP/PIP based on monitoring and assessments
Determine what our average tardy rate is.	Monitor teacher attendance reports and office sign in sheet.	Access to Eschool attendance records Office sign in sheets	Brooke Kalnbach     Office Aide/ Attendance Clerk	Begin immediately and monitor for 2 weeks, 10 school days.	Use the data obtained to determine what percentage of our students are tardy each day.
Determine on average how late our tardy students are.	Gather data from office sign in sheet and classroom sign in sheets to determine how late students are.	Computer w/ spreadsheet software to tally data. Access to classroom/office sign in sheets	Brooke Kalnbach     All teachers	Begin immediately and gather data for one week, 5 school days.	Use the data to determine how many minutes on average a tardy student is late.
What category do tardy students fall in? Neighborhood kids, transfer students, or kids coming from the barrio.	Use the data from attendance reports and student information cards to group students. Maybe there is a pattern in where the tardy students live.	Computer w/ spreadsheet software to tally data.     Access to Eschool attendance records	Brooke Kalnbach     Office Aide/ Attendance Clerk	Begin immediately and monitor for 2 weeks, 10 school days.	Use the data to see which group of our population is having the most issues with tardies.	This category was added per meeting w/ site supervisor
Implement a consistent model for monitoring student tardies.	Require all tardy students to check in at the office as opposed to requiring teachers to monitor student tardies.	All office personnel to be available to check in students	2 Office Aides     Principal's Secretary	Begin immediately and continue as a new school policy	Evaluate effectiveness of procedure after one month. Is it reducing tardies? Is it too much for office staff?
Compare our situation to other elementary schools.	Complete a Google search     Interview staff from other campuses	Computer with internet access	Brooke Kalnbach	To be completed in first month.
Do the notification letters that we mail out cause a decline in the student's tardies?	Track which students have received tardy notification letters, and see if that has caused a decline in their tardies.	Interview attendance clerk and examine her records.	Brooke Kalnbach	Conduct this audit monthly.	If there is a decline in tardies after the letters are sent, then parent communication is the key to our success.
Implement a positive incentive for students having no tardies	Put together a "No Tardy Party"	Resources to cover costs Inflatables Snacks Music	Brooke Kalnbach Campus Principal All teachers	One party every six weeks	Track tardies after the party to see if they decline

Blogging and the Educational Leader

Blogging is a great tool that can be used by educational leaders. Blogging ia a great reflection tool that can be used by administrators. Also, by following others' blogs you can gain great insight from your peers. Blogging can help prevent an administrator from becoming a "lone inquirer." (Dana, 2009, p.19)

Action Research

I find the idea of action research or inquiry to be intriguing. It makes so much sense! As a teacher I have been encouraged to reflect on my teaching, but I don’t believe that I’ve been challenged to seek out the research to better myself. I think that in my reflection I just sought how I could make improvements with my current knowledge and skill set, or perhaps I followed the traditional model of waiting for the “experts” to impart their knowledge to me. Now that I have done some reading on action research I feel that I have been letting myself down. Why didn’t I seek to be the problem solver and visionary? I believe the concept of action research will revolutionize the way that I do my job. I look forward to the opportunity to guide our campus PLC groups toward more action research. In our current PLC meetings we do a great job of discussing students and their learning, but how valuable it would be to add in the component of research and inquiry. We need to become more comfortable with “wondering.” As Senge said, “Unless teams can learn, the organization cannot learn.” (Senge, 1990)

Christmas Card

Stationery card

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Twelve Days of Christmas Project

We just finished up our latest writing project, the 12 days of Christmas songs. Check out the video to here us explain the process, and listen to our songs. Click here to watch the video.

Christmas Fun

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Thankfulness

We have so much to be thankful for.  We spent some time last week writing about it.  Our writing is hanging in the hallway, but I know that many of you aren't able to stop by and read it.  So, we decided to make a video of us reading our Thanksgiving compositions.  Click here to enjoy the video. 

I hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!