As you recall from the previous
entry, the district was tasked with the challenge of reducing harassment and
bullying among students. A program, Caring School Communities, had been
selected for use in the K-6 setting but a nagging feeling that this would not
prompt change continued to exist, if only implicitly.
Before implementation planning
could begin, the core issue needed to be identified. A look at limited data
provided some valuable evidence. One key was the fact that over half the
district elementary teachers perceived that harassment and bullying were either
a “large problem” or “somewhat a problem” on a survey the previous spring.
Additionally, nearly 40% of surveyed K-12 parents conveyed the same sentiment.
To complicate matters, the process that principals used to store student behavior data
varied across the district, making the collection of past data somewhat
problematic.
The general perception was that
students need stronger ability to solve social problems and demonstrate
interpersonal skills and that teachers need support to guide students in
building those skills. Improving school culture became the clear need in order
to provide a safe and supportive school learning environment.
With a more explicit
identification of the problem, the justification for the decision to adopt the
CSC program increased. Principals now had a commonly-identified rationale for
implementation that would support them as they led their staffs. We now turned
to identifying the desired outcomes and how to evaluate their presence.
Generating a variety of
options, it became clear that loss of class time was an issue due to playground
and classroom student social problems. The district has had a standing focus on
improving attendance but loss of instructional time for school day issues had
not received equal billing. And now it did! The team’s views coalesced around improving school culture
as seen by decreasing the amount of class time lost due to harassment and
bullying.
Next up, the team tackled
probably the most difficult task, identifying what data to collect and how to
store the data for reliable retrieval. As the group struggled with the topic, I
wondered if the difficulty formulating what to collect and store were
associated with an overreliance on anecdotal data in general. With perseverance, the team
crafted a process for collecting and storing the data. This aspect of the
workshop required strong teamworking skills to openly challenge and suggest
options until the best solution became apparent. The team came away with a
system for monitoring incidents as well as the utilization of specific research-based
actions. The team recognized that the CSC program must be implemented with
fidelity for its impact to be realized.
In the end, the team crafted a
plan for a district-wide, K-12 school climate and culture impact. Caring School
Communities, while the explicit change, is intended to improve school climate
by reducing lost classroom time. Since previous data was limited, a set of five SMART goals focused on
both process and outcome measures. The three of the five outcomes involved a
commitment to fidelity to implement weekly class meetings, a cross-age buddy
program involving all elementary classes, and conducting at least three
school-wide spirit-building activities during the school year for elementary,
middle and high schools. The other two goals measure the impact of such efforts
by monitoring change in the amount of incidents that involve harassment and
bullying, both with and without class time being lost, and a tri-annual school climate
survey completed by staff and students.
As teacher training is to begin
and plans shared for implementing the changes, it will be interesting to see if
the time spent focusing on problem identification, desired outcomes, and SMART
goals will be impactful. Judging from one principal’s gratitude at
participating in the process, I believe it will be.
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