Bullying-enough! Cause for concern for administrators

Perhaps one of the hottest topics in education today is that of bullying. Bullying has become its own ugly beast on a list of educators’ concerns of teaching 21st Century learners. Surrounded by cyber world and technology, students are faced with an inescapable situation when they become victims. As an administrator, especially in a secondary school setting, I would be relentless in taking accusations and rumors seriously. Too often people take bullying lightly or they turn their heads assuming kids will be kids. Although with suicides and court cases on the rise for our young aspiring adults, that is changing, as it should.
According to Shaheen Shariff (2004), in answer to the question regarding school’s reluctance to act on potential bullying incidents, she provides several reasons, none of which can justify why a situation is ignored such as hoping the problem will go away in due time. Claims include: 1. It is assumed the victim invited the abuse. 2. The problem is blown out of proportion. 3. Even worse, anti-bullying policies absolved the school from doing more to protect victims. This was due to fear of litigation, insufficient knowledge or lack of clarity on the legal issues regarding students, and the unwanted reactive responses when they really need to be proactive from the onset. Administrators are pressured between a rock and a hard place…that of keeping students safe and that of some stakeholders’ vested interest in keeping litigation out of schools on such issues.
According to Stop Bullying Now!, one of over 16.5 million websites on bullying, it can mess up a kid's future. Young people who bully are more likely than those who don't bully to skip school and drop out of school. They are also more likely to smoke, drink alcohol and get into fights. Furthermore, the site reports that as many as 160,000 students may stay home on any given day because they are afraid of being bullied. These statistics along with the number of incidents of school aged children taking their own lives due to incessant bullying, is a valid reason to stay abreast of issues of this nature and to incorporate it into professional development, onsite support groups, and even a “crime stopper” team similar to the neighborhood crime stopper groups whose mission is to stay proactive.
References:
Shariff, S. (2004). Keeping schools out of court: Legally defensible model of leadership. The Education Forum, 68(3).
http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/kids/effects-of-bullying.aspx

Ready! Set!! Action!!!

By utilizing the tool Action Planning Template (Harris et al, 2009), I put my own inquiry into a preliminary action research agenda:
Action step: attend workshops on topic, report outline of program to principal
Person responsible: facilitator, Bev Wright-intern and 5th grade teacher
Timeline: Sep. 2010
Resources: Workshop (T.O.T.) and bully prevention professional development
Evaluation: Proposal for monitoring effectiveness

Action step: introduce program to team then students/parents
Person responsible: facilitator with support from principal, team, counselor
Timeline: Sep. – Oct. 2010
Resources: awareness bracelets and t-shirts w/ motto Hear it! See it! STOP IT!
Evaluation: questionnaire and survey of parents, staff and students

Action step: show video and implement additional sources such as interactive internet sites, handouts, role playing
Person responsible: facilitator with support from team and counselor
Timeline: Nov. – Dec. 2010
Resources: Internet, t-shirts and bracelets, handouts from workshops
Evaluation: survey and feedback

Now, as the beginning of the year unfolds, it will become my practice to put this action item on my daily agenda in hopes that each day will bring its own reflective consideration as the project moves forward. Continual contact with the principal and communication with the supporters will ensure collaboration. Further study and additional professional development will provide the means for moving forward and making changes as needed. By spring of 2011, I hope to feel improvements in the area of bully prevention and with a comprehensive evaluation at the end of the year, I hope to see improvements. The process would then continue for the 2011-12 school year.

CARE Model review

The CARE Model review from Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools by Sandra Harris, et al.
Tool 8.1 CARE Model: Planning Tool (p. 99)

Identify Concerns that must change (look to the future)
1. Stop suicides due to bullying
2. Stop poor performance in school and personal life due to bullying
3. Educate on the problems of bullying so that even the bystander has tools to tackle situations

Identify Affirmations that must be sustained (look to the present)
1. Sustain character counts integration in the classroom
2. Continue counselor programs on respect
3. Sustain nurse’s program on health and basic needs

SMART Recommendations that must be implemented (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely):
1. Specific topic of bullying is relevant and timely due to statistics reported; beginning of the school year is best time to launch
2. Goal of preventing bullying is attainable if addressed and dealt with regularly and not just when the problem arises
3. Though challenging, measurability is possible by starting with data from previous year on campus, or if non-existent, begin data using questionnaires returned from staff, students and parents and compare semiannually and on into the following year, etc. Following students into sixth grade would be challenging but possible if presented to and coordinated with sixth grade staff/counselors

EVALUATE – Specifically and Often (Identify the best ways to evaluate the implemented recommendations.)
1. Surveys/questionnaires
2. Reflective conversations with staff and counselor
3. Reflective conversations with students either individually or independently

No Little Bullies Either

Since the Jan. 14 death of Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old in South Hadley, Mass., who committed suicide after being bullied by fellow students, many onlookers have meditated on whether the circumstances that led to her after-school hanging might have been avoided.

Could teachers have stepped in and stopped the bullying? Could parents have done more to curtail bad behavior? Or could preventive measures have been started years ago, in early childhood, long before bullies emerged and started heaping abuse on their peers?

Increasingly, neuroscientists, psychologists and educators believe that bullying and other kinds of violence can indeed be reduced by encouraging empathy at an early age. Over the past decade, research in empathy — the ability to put ourselves in another person's shoes — has suggested that it is key, if not the key, to all human social interaction and morality.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1982190,00.html#ixzz0vCozlA4D

After learning of the death of a friend's freshman son in a small town high school in which harassment caused him to take his own life, and then hearing similar stories, I too am on a quest like my friend's to prevent bullying in schools. Reports show 1 out of 4 students are bullied. These students are mentally tortured to the point of losing self esteem, not being able to be successful at school and even ending their own lives. Can we help even if we don't know someone who is bullying or being bullied? The answer is yes. We can prevent it from ever happening through awareness and interventions. I wonder if our victim students could be more successful if they had the tools to deal with bullying, face to face or online, at an early age?

Action Research items for consideration:

1. How can an outreach program designed to prevent bullying help our fifth grade students be better prepared to handle social challenges of middle school?
2. In what ways can implementing a buddy program support the school’s reading initiative for low performing students?
3. What can we do to minimize cafeteria problems with a revised lunchroom atmosphere?

Although each area constitutes wondering, the No Bully Zone issue is at the forefront of my action research. As more and more stories are told regarding mean behaviors amongst our youth, I feel strides can be made by educating our students before they reach the middle school years, which are some of the toughest. The program would be a proactive resource for providing tools for the bullied, awareness for the bullies and educating those who are not aware of the problem's ugly presence.

Implementing Action Research and the Benefits

There are many hot topics worth researching through action including stopping bullying, consequences of cell phone usage during school, new and improved professional development opportunities, increasing technology through integration, and positive effects of after school clubs in elementary schools. The benefits of using an inquiry based system are essential for inevitable and necessary changes in educating our learners today. By using a practical and focused program such as the action research model, collaboration along with practice constitute relevant ideas for individual schools and are situation specific. The goal is to work towards a better understanding of the issue so that a positive change results and then sustaining the improvements for continued success.

Research through Action

Action research may be considered a 21st century administrator’s learner-centered model. The term, coined by Carr and Kemmis (1986), refers to a methodology whereby the administrator conducts a specific inquiry with the intention of actively seeking change for improvement. In essence, according to Dana (2009), the school administrator is the leading learner. Dana also described the process as starting with a wondering situation, collecting data on that wonder, then analyzing the data and finally operating proactively on it for change. She added that it is a component of the overall professional development of the school principal. As John Elliott says, action research is “the study of a social situation with a view to improving the quality of action within it.” Harris et al. (2009) defined inquiry as an investigation which is done in a systematic way.
Unlike in times past, the focus of an inquiry is more specific to a need rather than a universal problem that needs further study. Not that universal issues lack importance, but rather the inquiry would focus on a need, presumably a need that constitutes change or at least improvement at a specific location, or campus. Also action research or administrative inquiry is a collaborative undertaking by the stakeholders who hold a vested interest, and therefore it is not done by outside sources who have conducted a general study, for example, who then pass on the findings expecting the recipient to take action.
PLCs, or Professional Learning Communities, come to mind as an example teachers use after an inquiry has been conducted and instructional needs have been identified. By meeting collaboratively with a focus on instructional improvement, these groups together can devise plans of action under the leadership of their principal who has also drawn conclusions based on data analyses.

Carr, W., & Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming critical. Lewes: Falmer Press.

Dana, N.F. (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Elliott, J. (1991). Action research for educational change. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Harris, S., Edmonson, S., & Combs, J. (2009). Examining what we do to improve our schools: 9 steps from analysis to action. Larchmont, N.Y.: Eye on Education.

Mark Wills - Don't Laugh At Me

See It Hear It STOP IT!

Please stop by the following link and consider committing to an awareness of bullying. It could save a life!
http://www.facebook.com/bevwright1228?v=feed#!/group.php?gid=54280331956

Is Merit Pay a Bonus or a Bust?

In response to a recent email to a university professor and writer regarding the debate of merit pay for teachers:

Ms. Wright,
Thank you for the email and your thoughtful questions and comments. I am in fact even more opposed to merit pay in the public schools today. Since I wrote the article I have found little new evidence that merit pay makes a difference with student outcomes. No doubt this is because effective teachers are already working hard and doing the best they can.
With regard to your comments about extra pay for extra work, of course teachers should earn more for taking on duties outside their contract. My opinion is that they usually don't get paid enough for extra work like yearbook, after school tutoring and coaching. When I was a school district superintendent I made changes to address the low extra duty pay in our school district.
What I do tell the "free market" advocates who push merit pay is that if competition is such a good idea, then why not make teaching salaries competitive with other professions that require a bachelor's degree for entry and expect a graduate degree over time? Maybe we can attract some of the geniuses from Wall Street to teaching in the public schools.
Merit pay doesn't work in public schools because they don't have revenue streams to support it. It is not like the Dallas Cowboys who up the price for seats to pay bonuses to running backs. Inevitably these programs collapse because school districts cannot run a merit pay plan and keep their salary schedule up to attract quality new teachers in the first place.
As far as you getting $1500 for doing a good job, I think that is great. But I wonder if the recognition was more valuable to you than the money?
Again, thank you for the email and good luck with your graduate studies.
Al Ramirez, Professor
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
Dept. of Leadership, Research and Foundations