Blog # 16 - Raising Student Morale

As staff at a middle school, we have been talking about how low our staff morale is. Teachers are complaining about all the meetings, the new curriculum that is is not working the way they thought it would be, the new curriculum is great but it takes much more time to prep for a lesson everyday, and the lack of support by our administration. We don't listen to how the students are feeling.

As winter started to approach, I heard more 8th graders complaining about teachers, homework, tests/quizzes, and activities; my room is located at the mouth of one of the 8th grade pods and all of them pass by my room. I never started to think that when I am getting stressed and overloaded that the students might also be more stressed and overloaded. The more I thought of when the teachers started to voice their opinion's about things, so did the students.

It seems that the district is very concerned with poor teacher morale and how to improve it but do not seemed very concerned with poor student morale and ways to improve it. For us teachers, our administrators will buy us lunch during school PD's/conferences, promote teacher games (i.e. staff basket ball games played before the students), and give us different treats within the day. But what is done for the students to help improve their morale with their school.

My school has taken some baby steps to get their students to participate within their own pods, improve their morale, and improve their achievement of their students. This last month our students leadership has created a contests with each house to see who can decorate it the best for the holidays. The winner will get a pizza party. Everyday after school, you see students working together to create winter wonderlands. They are laughing and having a good time. The next day, you get to see them admire their work and grin when the teachers tell them how good it looks. In each DT (Discovery Time) classes within the pods students were able to voice their opinions on a field trip or activity that they are going to participate in next week. One pod had a pancake breakfast for their students one morning. It was amazing, that day all 150 students were there for breakfast. Since they started to do some of these little things, I do not hear as much grumbling between the students and the staff. It has made some of these cold days more bearable.

I am wondering what your schools do to help student improve their morale?

Blog #15

When I just went to my Blogs, my number 15 was not there. I have had some difficulty with my computer the last few weeks. So here is my 15.

My brother was the student in high school 20+ years ago who would have a learning difficultly in reading. He always struggled when it came to reading any material; he was a slow reader and would struggle with all the rules of the English lang. He did enroll at NDSU and completed 3.5 years of college but dropped out (he never declared a major). When he was there, his grades were A-C's. I asked him why he would drop out, he had decent grades. His response was, I struggled everyday at class and could not keep up; Michelle (his girlfriend at the time) would do the work in a few classes for him. My brother works in the construction field and is great at what he does. He is a hands on learner and when he learns something, he never forgets it. Eric never had a teacher in elementary, junior high, or high school take time to figure out the best way he learned; he struggled in school. Eric is taking a three week course at a community college for three different certification for construction (one week is wind, one week is solar, one week is something else) He is worried that even though he has these certificates, it will not be enough for him to get the better job without a college degree. I tired to re-assure him that it is not just a college degree that people do look for, but how you "sell" yourself in an interview, and your portfolio. He is stressed that he is doing this for nothing that employers will not consider him for a job because he does not have that paper that says he completed a degree.

My question for you as educators is how do we get those students ready for the "real" world who are college bound or even community college bound. We tell our students that they should go to college, that they need that degree to get a job, but what about those students like my brother? College is not for all. Some students need to go straight to work for different reason; some because they need to make money for their family and other like my brother, college was not for them. Should these people be punished of not being able to move up at their job, or apply for and hired for a job that they can do but don't have a degree in? Some of the my friends are extremely intelligent and do not have a degree while other who do have degree are not as smart as they think they are. Degree's (in my opinion) do not equal brains.

Student led conferences Blog #14

I know that most of us are past conferences, but we read about student led conferences that week. I have never done conferences this way and wanted to find a little more about it. I understand that it is more beneficial to the student, parent, and the teacher when the student takes a led in their conference. It does make the student more accountable for what they learned knowing that they will be presenting it and talking about it with their parents. At my school, we do not practice student led conferences, we do have our students involved with conferences; they will show parents were to go, answer questions, and be greeters when parents come into school. The students who do this volunteer to do it, they do not have to help out. It seems to me that the students who volunteer to help out on conference night are the students who volunteer for everything (i.e. different clubs/organizations) and have very good grades. Similarly, we always have parents come whose child are getting good grades, while those students who are struggling at school do not show up. It is frustrating when we want to talk with their parents about our concerns with their child's struggles and they do not show up or return our calls. How would we get them (meaning both the student and their parent) to be involved with student led conference.

A few years ago, my sister-in-law told me that he son led his conference. She was really impressed with how confident he was telling about how he was doing in all of his classes he had in middle school. The conference lasted a half and hour and he told her what he was doing wellin each class and what he needed to work on in each class. She also could not believe how honest he was when he told her that in his math class he tended to talk more because there was a girl that he liked. She walked away from that conference with more information about her son than she ever had and felt that he had been harder on himself than the teacher would have been. The next year, the school went back to the old/traditional way of conferences. When she asked why, she was told that the conferences the year before took to long and they could not see every parent that was there.

As I said before, I have never done student led conference and wanted to find out how mcuch more time it took to prepare for them. It was interesting that it really only takes a little mroe preparation time at the start of the year and it seems that it is recommended to do follow ups with the parents afterwards, but other than that, it seems about the same. At our school, we do not always have parents come to conferences, by doing student led, will this increase parents coming to conferences? While doing some research, I could find a lot of positives about doing conferences this way, but I could not find anything negative. Has anyone had a negative experience with student led conference?

School Improvment Blog # 13

Yesterday in our PLC's we took a school improvement survey. We were asked questions about communication, working with our peers, what things we would like to see, etc. In the end, it was a morale survey. Before taking the survey, I felt that I had a positive view on things, but when I was done, I was quite depressed about it. My school morale was not that good. When I looked at each questions, I was shocked at some of my answers that I put. Like all surveys, people were talking about it. I was surprised to hear people feeling the same way that I was; not enough time in the day to teach what we need to, burnt out on meetings that cut into our teaching, burnt out on committees, and an overwhelming feeling of being swamped. I am glad that I did take it, I made a list of things that I needed to do to make me feel better, how to reduce the stress, and how to be more effective within my own day. I know that it will take me a while to get through the list and there are some things on it that I know that I cannot change (i.e. staff meetings etc). I feel better having a list. During our PLC, we talked about what we thought would improve our morale. We all said less meetings, less committees, more time with our students, and more time to plan. Even with all of that, I don't think things would change. I feel that our administration (both building and district) does not seem to appreciate what we all do for our students. I don't want someone to come and tell me that I did a great job daily, just once in a while. I would like them to notice and recognize that I am doing a good job and not just notice if our students did not make AYP.

What do your schools do to boost the staff morale?

Cutting in Sports Blog #12

This blog is not directly related to education. My 5th grade son plays hockey on Moorhead. He is a second year squirt. Moorhead has both in-house squirts and travel squirts. Moorhead is a huge hockey town and many of our hockey players have had success in the NHL as well as college. This year it was decided (by who, I don't know) that like every year, our children will try out for their travel teams. BUT, this year, they will be cutting players from travel teams. All players can still do in-house squirts. As a parent and a teacher I have a problem with this. Children experience enough pressure to be their best, have the best things, and look the best at such a young age, do they really need be told in 5th grade that they not good enough to play hockey? There is enough competition and pressure on children in sports when they start middle school, do we need to put that on them in elementary school? I feel that for those students who do get cut, their self esteem will drop also and that could carry over into the classroom for some. I know that if I would have been cut from basketball in 5th grade, I would have been so embarrassed to face anyone a school. I'm not saying that for all those children who are cut from sports that it will effect them negatively, but it will for some. For some, it is there only time they feel a part of something or feel accepted. If children are worried about try out and if they made the team, how does that affect them socially, emotionally, and physically. I know what I was like in high school when we had tryouts our freshman year for basketball. I did not sleep, eat, or wanted to be in school until it was done. I was very nervous; I did make the team and all was fine after the fact.

For my son, I am not worried that he will not make the travel team. He is a player that skates to his line and bounces back between the first and second lines. He has made comments to me about how they are cutting this year and I can tell he is a little upset with the whole thing. He is worried that he may not make the team or one of his friends does not make the team. My son is very sensitive and I worry what this will do for his self esteem. I don't want him to feel that he is a failure if he is cut from the travel team. We have been working with him to believe that he is smart and a good athlete; at times, he will say that he is the dumbest one in his class even though he is very smart (I'm not saying that because he is my son, he has always been in the higher classes and his MAPs and Standards test fit that). I asked him why he feels that he is dumb (I tell both my children that they are smart and to believe in themselves like I do), he said that a boy in his class has been telling him every year that he is so dumb.

OK. here is my question. At work, I drafted a e-mail to one of the main coaches about how I feel about cutting. In a nut shell, I stated that I think that it is wrong to cut our children from sports at such a young age and if they are going to cut, what are they going to do for those players. Are they going to offer clinics that they could attend to help them improve or just let them feel as a failure. I don't want to be "that" parent and have them look at my son and treat him differently, but I don't want our children to feel that they are failures in hockey either.

School Levy #11

As I blogged about a few weeks ago, we voted yesterday for a school levy to provide $850 per child. The vote came in last night and the levy was defeated. As a parent of two elementary school age children, I am disappointed, but as a member of the community, I am not surprised. When you look at the break down of the wards, I unfortunately live in ward 1. Of the 1,556 voters 967 of them voted no that is 12% of the vote. I understand why our area voted no. It is mainly older residents who do not have children at home who are in school. Our superintendent today stated that they will have to look at what/where to cut. I know that they are talking about teachers and programs. How can they say that one program is a lesser program than another. Our district offers Spanish Immersion (K-5). It is one of the most expensive programs that they offer. Parents have a choice if they want to put their child into it (I did not put my children into it). This program has not taken a hit at all. They did not lose any teachers due to cuts while the rest of the district did. Their class sizes are significantly lower then the regular classrooms. With teachers and programs being cut, I feel that our Spanish Immersion should also. It is a privilege not a right. It is a right for an appropriate education; I guess a class size of 30 is appropriate in elementary and up to 45 in the high school. Is it fair that music, arts, and other electives take a hit while Spanish Immersion does not?

I do feel that if the district administrators would have been honest with how the money was used the last time the levy passed (where did the money go, how it was spent etc), and had a detailed plan on how the money would be used this time, I think that it could have passed. I do feel that if they would have let the students have a voice (many that I have talked to today are very upset that it did not pass) in the public it would help to pass the levy, it is the students that it really hurts.

So how does one or two people say that one program is more benefical than another. How has other districts made cuts without cutting everything to the bare bone?

NDSA - before, during, after #10

Our school just finished up 2 1/2 days of NDSA (North Dakota State Assessment). For my students they do not take the same North Dakota Assessment as the rest of the population. My students take the NDAA (North Dakota Alternative Assessment). The window for administering the NDSA is from Oct. 16th to Nov. 13th. The window for administering the NDAA is from Nov. 16th to Dec. 22nd for the NDAA 2 and Jan. 16th for NDAA 1. As a department, we group the students who are taking NDSA with accommodations in specific rooms with certain teachers and para to help administer the test. For the students who are taking the NDAA, they grouped into two different rooms with different activities.

OK. now I am going to vent. At our school, for the two and a half days we did not have any classes and I had my students and some other special ed. teachers students in my room doing different activities (watching movies, playing games, on the computer, reading, and some caught up on their work) with a paraprofessional. When we first started to get ready for the test, the plan was I was going to start doing my alternative assessments. Then we got our dates that our window was going to be open and of course they do not match. So my students just had two and a half days of not learning and when my window opens, I will have to pull my students one at a time to administer the test. Not only they miss a class that I am teaching, I am too. I either have to have them have a free day or my para's have to do my instruction (they do not get us a sub for us). I have half of my caseload doing the NDAA 1 and the rest doing the NDAA 2. With 6th-8th graders, I will be administering (NDAA 2) 5 math tests, 5 reading/language arts, and 3 science test, all individually. Each student has as long as they need to take the each test, on average it will take over an hour to compete each section. So over 5 hours for math, 5 hours for reading/language arts, and 3 hours for science. To me, that is a lot of instructional time wasted.

I do not understand why the North Dakota Department of Instruction did not have the NDSA and the NDAA at the same time. We want to give our students the best education and losing at least 4 1/2 days of instruction is wrong.