Principal Fellows Annual Conference

Yesterday, Nov. 12, 2010, I went to the NCPF annual fall conference in Chapel Hill.  It was at the Chapel Hill Center for School Leadership Development.  Bill Bonds, the guest speaker was dynamic.  He was the ex-principal of the high school in Paducah, Kentucky were there was a school shooting that left eight students dead.  Mr. Bonds is no longer a principal, but a consultant for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, (NASSP).  He is a specialist for school Safety.  I learned so much about school safety from listening to this man, that is not written in the textbooks.  Mr. Bonds, is highly sought after by school districts when there is a crisis, however, he spends most of his time conducting workshops that train principals on what to do in a crisis situation before it happens.  The program began at 9:30 and lasted until 3:30.  I am certain that it cost NCPF a pretty penny to get this man but his presentation was well worth the money.  I considered it a good investment.  Mr. Bonds taught three separate workshops.  They were Lessons Learned from Dealing with School Crisis, Safe, Supportive, and Effective Schools, and Words that Hurt the Heart.  Together, they made a great recipe on how to keep your school safe.  It outlined some very important things that principals should do in the event of a crisis.  In the first session, Mr. Bonds told the story of the Paducah, Kentucky school shooting, where a student walked into the building and opened-fire on a group of students, leaving eight students dead.  He said the shooting lasted only a total of 11 seconds, but what he did afterwards was critical to how his school survived.  He related those steps to us in a very calm and matter-of-factly way, but it was good advice.  I learned that all school buildings are not created equal.  Bill said, "When you become a principal, you need to get a structural engineer to come into your building to identify weak and strong halls, ceilings, and walls.  DO NOT put children in weak areas."  In weak areas, whole slabs of concrete have been known to fall on students, crushing and killing them instantly.  Most schools have what it known as a tornado drill.  In this drill students are brought out of the classrooms into the hallways and told to face the wall, bend on their knees and stay down in this position until the drill is over.  Mr. Bonds said students often don't follow these instructions because they don't understand why are being told to do this.  Mr. Bonds stated, "Tell them why you are asking them to do this.  Teenage boys and girls do not fear death, so telling them this will prevent them from dying won't work.  A teenage girl fears getting her face cut up, smashed or injured.  A teenage boy fears, being crippled or in a wheelchair.  Tell them what could happen in winds of 200 miles per hour."  He showed a power point of pictures of the tornado that destroyed Enterprise High School.  The photos were unbelievable to see how quickly a school can be destroyed and left devastated.  Mr. Bonds stated that all schools need to have a supply of blankets to warm students and to prevent them from going into shock if they are injured.  Bonds talked about the importance of teachers during such times.  "When it gets bad, students are looking for a teacher to take care of them."  After a crisis it is important to have school the next day if at all possible.  "15 minutes after my students and teacher left, I began planning for the next day.  Communication is the key!"  Mr. Bonds also talked about Bullying and Cyber-bullying which is having a devastating effect on students today because of their access to the Internet.  Often it's hard for teachers to tell if it's bullying or just simply joking around.  He listed the four criteria for bullying.  They are 1) imbalance of power, 2) repeated often, 3) one student is humiliated by the behavior, 4) the other student enjoys the humiliation. All four of these criteria must be met to constitute bullying.  Bonds went over NC's bullying policy, which is NC Senate Bill 256, Article 29B, of the School Violence Prevention policy, 115-C 407.5, Bullying and Harassing Behavior.   Mr. Bonds noted that there is a difference in the way males and females bully.  "Males bully though use of physical size.  Females bully by social position." Bonds stated that "The reason cyber-bullying is so popular is because students get no negative feedback from this and they feel no remorse."  He also addressed the issue of school metal detectors.  "Metal detectors, DO NOT make anyone feel safer; they are an outward sign of fear.  Teachers, APs and principals make students feel safer."  "The most important part of my day is when students come into the building, I need to be where they are.  Nothing makes a student feel safer than seeing the Principal and AP in the hall.".  Much of what Bill Bonds shared with us was negative and depressing, but in the end he told how his school survived.  Teachers, parents and the community all  pulled together to form strong bonds which turned into extreme school support.   He was quick to relate how other circumstances he faced later did not go as well but developed into extreme distrust among staff and the community.  Bonds had so much good information to share with our audience that we literally ran out of time.  This was the best workshop that I have attended since becoming a Principal Fellow.  My prayer is that I will never forget these invaluable lesson learned and that I may also never have to use them.  In my opinion, every school district should have Bill Bonds speak their their administrators before disaster strikes. 

Missing Ingredients

Last week I suspended a student I will call him Student A.  He got into a pushing and shoving fighting match with Student B.  The teacher wrote up Student A, but did not write up Student B.  I called Student A into my office and listened to his side of story.  He immediately admitted his guilt and accepted his fate, which resulted in a one day suspension. He also stated that student B hit him first.  In most cases this is a typical response, however I told him that I didn't have a D-1 with Student Bs name on it.  Still I went back to the teacher and asked her to reiterate what happened.  She told the same story.  Then I asked her did she witness Student B hitting Studetn A.  She said no and stated that her two volunteers could attest to the same thing.  For me that summed things up and I conluded the matter by calling Studetn A's parent and informed her of his suspension.  Today the school guidance counselor said she needed to talk with me about two students.  I went to her office and she began to tell me about the incident that happened last week between Student A and Student B.  I told her it had already been taken care of but she said I should listen further, so I did.  She went onto say tht she learned of Student A's suspension and was going to have to put him off the Leadership Team because that is a violation of the rules  When she asked Student A to tell her what happened, he recounted the story he had told me.  Then she called in Student B, who admitted he had hit Student A first, but said it was an accident.  Then he said they hit each other a few times and finally it ended in a shoving match.  Student B said he didn't know why he didn't get suspended becasue he was guilty of passing the first lick.  With this information, I felt horrible, but went back to my principal whom I had made aware of all the facts.  I told her that Student B "admitted" hitting Student A first and that the teacher probably had not witnessed the whole incident.  She only reported Student A because that was all she saw, which gets me to my point.  Teachers don't see everything, all the time.  We need each other to be one another's eyes and ears.  We have to work together to resolve student issues.  I can't be in all places, at all times, so I have to trust the teachers and they have to trust me to be able to come forth with information.  If I didn't have a good rapport with the guidance counselor, I may have missed this valuable information.  I went back to my principal with the new information because I was concerned that I had done something wrong.  My principal assured me that based on the infromation I had been given I did what was right.  I had also followed up with the teacher and got the same story twice.  Still I felt bad.  I asked my principal should I take some action against Student B and was told yes.  I called both boys into my office but this time I let Student B tell his side of the story.  Again he admitted hitting Student A first because he was mad.  He concluded by saying he didn't understand why Student A was the only one who got suspended.  I informed that that by his own admission, he too was being suspended for one day and had him call his parent.  I spoke with the parent and she said she understood because her son had come home and told her about what had happened.  Both boys apologized to each other and were sent back to class.  Afterward I went to the gudance counselor's office to tell her how much I appreciated what she did and I explained to her how much I respect her.  I also told her that I value her and need her to help me be the best AP and one day a principal that I can be.  It's time we as educators realize this.  "It does take a village to raise a child."  If we will work together and pool our collaborative efforts, we can get the job well done. 

Culturally Relevant

Today a consultant visited our school to demonstrate to us what implementation of Imagine It! should look like in the classroom.  We toured each grade level and she atught each class for a brief period of time.  This was very exciting for us because we wanted to make sure we weere doing it right and if not correct what we are not doing.  We also viewed her visit as a plus for our school because our teachers would be able to glean little tips and tricks that could help them in their facilitation of the program.  After visiting a few classes I was really  impressed with the way the lessons flowed for the consultant, but I noticed in one class the program is not culutrally relevant.  The consulstant was going over the vocabularly and came to the word "mist."  The students thought she said "miss" so they got excited and raised their little hands.  "You're a miss", they chimed, but it was not the correct word.  She had pronouced it correctly but they didn't hear it correctely which often happens with vocabularly.  However, when she attempted to explain the word, she gave the denifintion saying, "You know how your momma sometimes mist her plants."  I almost fell over because little did she know or realize that the children she was instructing were 100% minority and 100%  on free and reduced lunch.  These children have no plants at home to mist.  Some of them live in shelters and don't even have homes. The consultant seemed totally oblivious to this.  She taught as if she were teaching affluent white students.  I was offended, because I felt like all my life we have been left out of the textbooks, and now in the year 2010 we are still left out.  Isn't there anyone who will see us or are we still the invisible man?  You can't properly and effectively teach students if you pretend not to notice their cultural differences.  There seems to be no Black program developers who will write programs for our children that will embrace their culture.  I know where this is going.  Somebody's got to do it Janet.  Why not you?  I'm working on it.  Really I am.  But until then, I think it is a crying shame that school systems pay million of dollars on reading programs that are not sentive to the culture of the populations they serve especially in the year of 2010.  What a low down dirty shame.

Lock Down

Last week I experienced a district wide lock down because of a tornado watch.  My principal immeidately put the school into tornado drill effect.  It was right before dismissal but we were instructed not to let the students board the buses.  Everyone had to remain at school until we were offically relased from lock down.  The lock down last until 3:45.  Parents were frantic and wanted to come and take their children home.  I guess they felt better knowing that their child was with them.  They probably didn't know that our building which is made of cinderblock was probably the safest place for them.  The students were then dismissed to go home.  A little boy's mother called the school.  She was very upset because her child di not get off the bus at his stop.  She was screaming "Where is my son?"  She caught a cab to the school and was ranting and raving.  We called the bus supervisor who informed us that the child had been taken to the nearest school, which was Spease elementary.  This school was way across town.  The mother was livid because she was in a cab and she did not know the location of the school.  I assured her she would not have to take a cab to the school  and that I would personally take her in my car to pick up her son and take them both home.  This calmed the mother down some and we immedately set off to get the student.  The mother was worried that her son had been oput off the bus in the rain and he was somewhere walking around lost and in the rain and cold.  I assured the mother that this was not protocol and we would never do such a thing.  The child was safe, but the mother was not hearing it.  I drove the mother to the school and she picked up her son and I took them both home.  She apologized to me for being in such a rage and I assured her that I being a mother also, understood completely.  I learned a lot that day.  I leanred how to remain calm in a bad situation.  I could've escalated the situation by getting emeitonal or I could de-escalate it by focusing on alleviateing the mother's fears, which were not totally unfounded. 

Field Trip

On Thursday, Oct. 28th, we took the afterschool tutorial and enrichment program students on a feild trip to Wake Forest University for Project Pumpkin.  We took 102 students, but I was terrified because we went in conjuction with Communities In Schools also known as CIS.  We collected the permission slip applications and turned them all over to CIS and they in turn gave them to Wake Forest; however, they did not compile a listing of the names of the students so at the very last minute we were scrambling trying to find out who had parental permission to go and who did not.  Finally we got a listing 84 names and were told there were 14 others to be added.  We compiled out listing so we could inform the parents of the itme to pick up their children.  We were supposed to leavet at 3 pm but actually boarded the buses at 3:45.  We finally arrived at WFU at 4pm and took a head count.  We had 102 students on board.  We had groupsed our kids a specific way, but the moment we got of the buses, WFU regrouped our students into smaller groups to start the tour.  I was terrified becasue there were other schools and childcare organizations there.  To be exact there were over 700 kids on this field trip.  We had name tags but no real means of identifying our kids.  I was so afraid we were going to lose a child and end up on the six o'clock news.  Our students were so excited becasue they gave out free candy and got to visit each booth where there were a variety of activities going on.  The kids had so much fund but they kept running from one station to the other becasue we were on a time schedule and they didn't want to miss anything.  I had an assistant but he kept stepping off to the side usign his cell phone.  I forgot to bring my cell phone which I surely needed in case of an emergency.  Finally, we ported back to the central location and a head count was taken repeatedly before we got an accurate count.  I was so glad when we arrived back at our school and the parents were there watiing for their children. I have always enjoyed taking students on field trips, but never in this kind of chaos.  The students had so much fun, becasue of all the candy they received, but for me it was a nightmare.  I think it could have been better organized.