School Improvement Team Meetings

The past two years I have had a variety of school improvement team meetings. In the virtual school, I would either initiate an online conversation about a specific feature of our school or bring up a debatable topic at a parent council or staff meeting. In the traditional face to face type meeting, it would be the same. If there was a specific feature of the school that I needed some advice about or if there was an improvement that needed to be made, I'd bring it up to the staff, students, parents, and to the community at large, hoping for insight and/or confirmation of a right choice.

For example when we first considered a pyramid of intervention for students who were not logging in to the school, informal discussions were held with regards to engaging students, what does a key parent sound like and look like, and how can staff support students. Then the discussions evolved into how can we hold our students and parents accountable to the educational choices they have made. I believe that we need to revisit this process because it seems as if the teachers are spending more time chasing students than they do preparing lessons, interacting with students educationally and assessing their learning. We will do this openly at the June staff meeting. I count my blessings every day for a staff that will discuss hard issues openly, that will argue with the students interests in mind, and not take offense when their ideas are not the "winners" just so long as the students are the "winners."

Tonight, I held a school improvement team meeting at the traditional school and only two other staff members showed. Rather than cancel, we sat for an hour and discussed two very important issues: how do we get more extra and co-curricular events for our students such as camps, retreats, and/or motivational speakers. Our school is quite small and cannot afford these things on our own. Two years ago, we had a "Joined Together" committee that met a few times a year to organize such things. Funded by grant money, this committee was able to provide for an anti-bullying campaign, several camps, field trips, and motivational speakers. This committee included representatives from staff, parent council, the local FCSS, and AADAC. We discussed the possibility of bringing this committee back and brainstormed who we would invite to be on this committee: RCMP, FCSS, AADAC, local town council and the mayor, local charitable groups such as Royal Purple and local church and youth groups. We could have a sizable group if all would send at least one representative. Not only could we benefit the students in our school, but we could also enhance the communication between school, home, parish and community by meeting a few times a year for a common goal. We felt that beginning this committee could be done at any time.

Another issue discussed was that our students and staff seemed fragmented when it comes to belief and behaviour. Although we review expectations (that we do our best work always, ask for help when we need it, and help each other do well) and rules (be safe, be respectful, and be responsible), students and staff have difficulty with the abstract concepts. We need a thing or an idea to bring it all together. We discussed a program called I.C.A.R.E. that I had asked the certified staff to read in the periodical, Education Canada. We decided that we needed something like this to tie it all together and give the students and staff a symbol that would provide the meaning that we were searching for.

One of the committee members suggested we go with the Eagle as it is a symbol of our sports teams already and the students would be familiar with this symbol. The creative juices began to flow and ideas from involving students and staff in coming up with characteristics of the eagle to how we could institute eagle awards were put forward. Imagine saying to a child, "You were such an eagle on the playground today!" and have that child take it to mean, "strong", "fair", "a leader" or one of the many other positive attributes that could be associated with the eagle. It could be that easy once everyone had a chance to discover the positive attributes that could be associated with the eagle and what that would look like and sound like on the playground. It would involve a process of educating and inviting discussion with regards to the eagle and the positive virtues and/or characteristics that can be found in people and eagles. We decided that this was a concept best mulled over and talked about with staff and began possibly in the new year.

All in all, I see the merit in school improvement team meetings. Yes, I do have to share the accolades, but it's nice to be able to share the responsibilities as well.