How Many Leaders Does It Take?

Crisis situations are usually few and far between in most schools. It seems to be more important, in that case, to have a group of adults leading the school that are confident and know what to do in a crisis situation. The question remains to me to be how many adults should lead a school through a crisis? My school had a relatively small crisis yesterday, and there seemed to be too many leaders, and not enough listeners. Here is the brief situation, so you know what we're dealing with. The principal was out of the building. One assistant principal was in his office (on the same floor, but about 50 feet from the main office), the other assistant principal was in her office (up one floor from the main office). A pipe burst creating a waterfall in the main entryway, and it leaked down to the floor below. The fire alarm went off, and the nurse (whose office is next to the main entryway) announced that no one need leave the building. About 30 seconds later, she announced for an evacuation. Once outside, the crisis team was in communication with their walkie talkies. A small conference was held with four crisis team members to create a plan for dismissal (as the pipe burst only ten minutes before the end of the school day). Another teacher who overheard the conference then whistled to get all students' attentions, and made an announcement, which was not the same as the decision come to by the crisis team. All students arrived at their homes safely, and the world still turns. The question still, however, remains for me to be how do you encourage teacher leadership, while still needing teachers to follow?

Teacher Ed Programs VS Working in the Profression

On the application, or during my teacher education program (HGSE, '00), I did not experience any purposeful excommunicating of students who do not hold the majority view. On the application, there was no method for the admissions department to know what my views were, only my reasons for wanting to attend graduate school and my academic record. During the program, there were plenty of opportunities for students to express their political opinions, as well as opportunities to hear the opinions of those who were leading the program. For someone like me who is more politically "open", there was no point in time where I felt that I had to take a stand and side with one group or another.

Since I left graduate school and entered work in the public schools, I have felt pressure to hold similar political views to the majority of the profession. During my time in the classroom, in faculty meetings, and eating lunch in the teachers' room, there have been many occasions when a subject came up where I did not feel comfortable voicing my thoughts/opinions. I was more often than not in the minority. Much of the time, I simply wanted to hear other people's thoughts on the topic. I have not, however, experienced issues being discussed on an intellectual level, rather on a personal level (or often the party line). Where I understand many teachers' desires to discuss political issues on a personal level because of the public and political nature of their jobs, I feel that we would have better discussions, and be seen by the world outside the profession as a more respected group, if the conversations surrounding the issues were more of a rational nature than a personal one.

Merit Pay

Is it possible in public education?

Currently, teachers receive stipends for "extra" duties or services they perform within a school (being an advisor for a club, managing the school's website, attending extra events or meetings that weren't required by the contract). This is the only form of merit pay that the teacher's union will allow. When I first became a teacher, I was similar to many first year teachers. I was active in just about every aspect of student life. I wanted to be a part of how the school worked, get to know the students, and just in general, be involved. I thought that if the students got to know me, and see how important I felt their experiences were, they would benefit in some way. I was right. On the whole, students respond much better to teachers who are more involved in student life, and teachers who they see as allies for their causes. Now, as a beginning teacher, I didn't feel the need to receive a stipend for every little thing I did. Granted, I tended to go a little bit overboard (hence the move into administration), but I still didn't feel like I couldn't do these activities if I wasn't receiving money based on pressure from my colleagues.

One day, when another teacher noticed that I had created my own classroom website, and was about to create a website for the school, she approached me with her grave concerns. She told me, "You'd better be getting a stipend for all this web stuff! Next thing you know, we're all going to be required to have a website, and no one's going to be paid for it."

The question remains, how can you ask teachers to do anything that is above and beyond the contract without giving them a stipend of some kind? Can you? Should you? The teacher's contract is more about minimum, not about maximum, but is so often treated as the maximum. Teachers are still paid on a salary, not by the hour, right?

Mistracking

This issue at the heart of my interest in researching tracking and its effects on the academic and personal future of students. In an ideal world, there would be the ability to easily move between tracks. A student, parent, or teacher would identify someone who is mistracked, there would be some form of verification, and the change would occur. Is anyone aware of a tracking system in which there is some mobility?