Nearing the end of the first semester...

There are about 3 weeks left before the Winter Break which is the end of our Fall semester. I have been working closely with the assistant principal and attendance clerk since the beginning of school. The assistant principal has allowed me to visit with students regarding their tardiness and the reason for it, and also to issue detentions for those students who are tardy in excess of 2 times to any class during the semester. He still deals with the students who are tardy habitually, but does allow me to sit in on those meetings and see how he handles those students.

In proportion to the overall number of students we have, the number who have accumulated excess tardies is relatively small. I will total that number up at the end of the semester and share it here. The number of repeat offenders is very small. I have seen that most students realize that they are going to receive detentions for being tardy, and have realized that it is not worth the few minutes they have out of class. I had one student tell me when I visited with him that, "this is not like last year". I took that as a compliment and a sign that the action research plan I have created is having some influence on keeping students in class.

I have realized that some of the students are tardy because of their parents being late getting them to school and I feel bad that those students have to face consequences for their parents actions, but I think that this has to be done to make the system fair and equitable for all. If we made exceptions for these students, then all students would be using their parents as an excuse and take advantage of this. I am also somewhat surprised at the number of duties some of our students have in relation to taking care of siblings. Several students have told me they have to feed and clothe their little brother/sister who are below school age, and then take them to the babysitter or day care before coming to school.

I am looking forward to tabulating the data for this semester and visiting with faculty members and my administrators to see if we need to make any adjustments for the second semester. 

Action research plan under way.....

I have interviewed teachers to identify areas that they feel could be improved upon in regard to our tardy policy or the enforcement of the policy. I received good feedback from my teaching colleagues, and was able to identify 3 areas they felt were the cause of the large number of tardies we have had the last couple of years. Some felt teachers were not consistent in their enforcement, so they students felt like they could “get away with being tardy” with only sporadic consequences. To address this, I let the teachers and administrators know this was an area of concern for the faculty as a group. The second area of concern for teachers is that some of our student are brought to school by their parents and the parents are the cause of the tardiness. I have addressed this to a small degree when visiting with students about tardiness. I will explain this a little later. The third area of concern for teachers was that our lunch detention was not an effective method of deterring students from being tardy. The lunch detention was very disorganized and by the time students got their food from the cafeteria, and got to the detention room, they had about 15-20 minutes left in their lunch period. Again, teachers felt the students had the idea that the punishment was “worth it”, and they were therefore willing to be tardy in exchange for this punishment.

After getting input from my own colleagues, I researched what some schools in the area do to curb tardiness, and also looked at some schools in other areas of the state, and how they address the problem. Most of the schools I researched had a policy that was similar to ours. After a certain number of tardies, the students were assigned lunch detention, after school or before school detention, or were assigned a day of in school suspension. Some of the schools left the enforcement of tardies to individual teachers. Most had a system of tabulating tardies through the attendance office and had the principal deal with the students who accumulated too many.

I visited with my principal and AP and we kept our basic tardy policy in place. The changes we made were to the enforcement of the consequences. I am now checking tardies from a print out I receive from the attendance clerk. I then assign the appropriate punishment in accordance with our tardy policy. I am also taking the lead in the lunch detention punishment so that it is more organized, and not a social time for the students in the room. I get the students through the lunch line quickly and take them to the detention room so that they have 25 minutes of their 30 minute lunch in the detention room. There is no talking or socializing during this time. Students are not allowed to have electronic devices during this time either.

As of today – the end of our 5^th week of school, we have had 6 students who have received lunch detention out of 316 students. Three of the students received their detention after week 3 and the other three after week 4. None of the students who have received a lunch detention have had a subsequent tardy. I have visited with each student to determine the reason for their tardiness. Three of the six indicated that they were brought to school by their parents and had no control over the tardiness. All three indicated that they had younger siblings who had to be dropped off at their campus prior to them getting to the high school campus. I challenged them to develop a plan with their parents to keep from having any more tardy issues. In following up with these students, all 3 told me they had talked with their parents and that they would now be dropped off at the high school before they younger siblings were dropped off at the elementary or middle school. The other 3 students just said they don’t get up on time. I challenged them to set their alarm 10 minutes earlier and to get up when it went off. Again, as of today none have accumulated any additional tardies.

At this point I am pleased with the results we are seeing with our new consequences in place. I know it is early, and that nothing can be drawn from this data yet. However, I have informed each student who has had a lunch detention that the next step is after school detention, and that this would be strictly enforced. I am hopeful that there will be a minimal number of students who are assigned the after school detention. I am hopeful of this partly because it will indicate that the consequences are deterring the tardiness, and partly because I am the one who will be monitoring their hour long detention after school!

Researching my plan

My first step in my action research plan was to gather information from our high school faculty to ascertain what they feel the area(s) of need are in within our tardy policy at the high school. From these surveys and interviews, I determined that the teachers had 3 areas of concern. Those areas were:

1. Teachers are not consistent in assessing tardiness. Some count a student tardy if they are a second late. Other teachers give a little leniency for students getting to class. Still others do not count students tardy at all.

2. Many of the instances of tardiness occur first period and are not the fault of the student. Parents bring their children to school and the students can't help it when the parents are late in doing this.

3. Our current punishment of lunch detention is not a deterrent to being tardy. Our lunch is 30 minutes in length and by the time the student gets their lunch and reports to detention, they have about 20 minutes which is spent eating, and visiting with other students who are in the lunch detention room, which is the same thing they would be doing if they were in the cafeteria for lunch.

Based on this information, and in visiting with the assistant principal who enforces the tardy policy, and with his encouragement and blessing, I have decided to address item # 3 above. I will begin researching other alternatives to this lunch detention policy and come up with a plan to present to my assistant principal

** Adding to all of the fun of the first 2 weeks of school, our bell system has been (and still currently is) not operational. It has been "worked on" by the company that installed it, but as of today we have no bells or announcements, and students are only too eager to use the "I didn't know what time it was, since there was no bell" excuse. This has added to the issue of whether to count a student tardy or not, and the consistency with which it is being done. 

EDLD 5301 - Completed

I learned a great deal about action research in this course, and am actually ready to get started with my action research project when school starts. I am anxious to see what direction the ARP leads, and what results it produces. I am glad to have EDLD 5301 completed, and look forward to starting the new class. I am sure it will be more challenging with school starting up, and all of the added activities that entails, but I think that with proper preparation and planning, it will be manageable.

Week 4

This week was a very informative week. I took a look at my action research project and analyzed ways that I could make it better. Thanks to everyone who posted comments last week. Some pointed out things to consider. Others left encouraging comments. All were appreciated, and I feel like I am on the right track, as far as my action research plan is concerned.

The reading for this week shared different strategies to use in our ARP. I plan to use the Delphi Method to gather information regarding our tardy policy, potential problems to address, and potential ways to address the problem. This method gathers information from the stakeholders (teachers) and through a few rounds of interviews/surveys brings the focus onto one or two issues that need to be addressed. I think this method will allow me to gather potential areas to address, and narrow that focus to the one I will eventually address, while allowing the teachers on the high school campus to offer their insights. I think this will be informative for me, while giving them a say in the process. I feel like this is important since my goal is to decrease tardiness and the interruptions it causes in the classroom and learning process.

My Action Research Template

After meeting with my site supervisor, I have completed the outline of my action research plan. We agreed that I would develop a plan to address out current tardy policy and the administration of that policy. In the past I have noted that teachers are less than pleased with this policy and I will gather information from them, from administration, from published articles on tardiness and ways to decrease it, and from other school districts within the state of Texas. My plan will cover the 2013-14 school year. My template for preparing and implementing the plan is below......

Action Planning Template
Goal: to decrease student tardiness during the school day, thereby increasing instruction time, and decreasing interruptions to the learning process.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Interview teachers regarding areas of concern associated with our current tardy policy	I will conduct the interviews of core classroom teachers at the HS	First week of school.	Surveys and interviews	Review the surveys and interviews to establish a plan to address and reduce student tardiness.
Explore ways to address the concerns discovered above	Myself – reading student handbooks from other districts, emailing former colleagues and principals, and reading articles on tardiness and policies to address tardiness.	Second and third weeks of school.	Online student handbooks, emails, articles on student tardiness and solutions.	Become familiar with and evaluate various options to reduce student tardiness.
Select a strategy to address the tardy policy concerns and present the strategy to the principal and AP.	I will select a strategy to incorporate into our tardy policy. The principal and AP will review the strategy and make suggestions or changes.	Fourth and fifth weeks of school strategy will be selected and approved. ** Our first six weeks grading period is actually 5 weeks.	Strategy and plan gathered in the step above. Principal and AP input.	Principal and AP will evaluate the strategy and make suggestions or changes to make the plan suitable to our needs.
Implement the strategy to help reduce student tardiness.	I will be responsible for implementing the strategy and collecting data during the course of the study.	Beginning of the second six weeks – Sept 30, 2013 through May 30, 2014.	TBD – based on strategy selected from steps above.	Data will be analyzed and adjustments or changes to the strategy will be made as needed to reduce student tardiness.
Examine the effectiveness of the strategy implemented by comparing tardiness records from last year with this year periodically and surveying teachers.	I will evaluate the strategy implemented throughout the process. I will present information to the principal and AP periodically to keep them up to date and suggest changes or seek their input.	Sept 30, 2013 –May 30, 2014	Attendance (Tardy) records from 2012-2013 and from 2013-2014 for comparison. Teacher surveys Administrator input	Changes (if needed) will be implemented to make the strategy more effective in reducing student tardiness.
Data analysis and final evaluation	My principal, my AP, and I will evaluate the overall effectiveness of the action research plan implemented.	June 2, 2014 – June 10, 2014	Action research data gathered. Attendance (tardy) records Teacher surveys	Did the action research plan reduce student tardiness? Was the plan practical and effective for our campus, faculty, and administration?

 

Application of Action Research

In the assigned reading from the Dana text demonstrated the use of action research in 9 different areas of educational leadership:

Staff development
Curriculum development
Individual teacher(s)
Individual student(s)
School culture and community
Leadership
Management
School performance
Social justice or equity issues

The interviews for this week gave practical advice for the use of action research in education from the classroom setting, all the way to the district level. Anyone can, and should, participate in action research when there is a need or and area of improvement. It is a very useful tool which only requires a small amount of time to look at data. The data can be quantitative (numbers) or qualitative (surveys, observations, interviews, focus groups, etc.). Using action research, the information gathered can then be translated to a slightly different need area on the researcher's campus. This saves a great deal of trial and error learning, and increases the potential for success and improvement because the researcher is using a method that has been used successfully before. This method allows the researcher to select the areas of improvement that are important to them or their campus/district and find methods to achieve success.

This has proven to be a valuable lesson in the practical application of action research. It is a tool that I will put to use as I become an educational administrator. It has shown me that I do not have to reinvent the wheel or come up with my own unique solution to a situation. Someone, somewhere, has probably experience a similar situation and successfully addressed it. All I need to do is take their idea, and tweak it to fit my situation. Action research could save countless hours of stress, and frustration I might otherwise encounter by trying several different ideas before finally coming up with something that works.