After reading numerous articles and listening to several education scholars interviews and lectures I am realizing that some of the best solutions to an individual campus' unique concerns or problems has already been implemented elsewhere.
Dr. Kirk Lewis, Superintendent of Pasadena ISD, in Houston, TX said that his district is very “data rich” but that his district takes data that other districts may have compiled and they tear it apart to find a way to apply the data to their district in order to find an applicable solution to their unique set of concerns.
A concern that our campus has is two-fold; low parental involvement and low student motivation. I say they are two-fold because I believe that they are closely tied to one another and my actions research project created this week will aim at finding a correlation between the two and thus finding a solution to improve each.
A solution that has been used on another campus, by Principal Lynette Langford, was the implementation of Saturday School as a consequence for students in lieu of attending In-School-Suspension or Out-of-School-Suspension. Rather than just having the students show up for 4 hours on a Saturday, stare at a wall or a book from 8am to 12pm, Langford offered the option for parents to attend with their child and as a result only would have to stay for two hours. Langford said of her application of this intervention
“In the beginning we only had few students attend, but when parents realized their grades were suffering, the numbers increased and the numbers nearly doubled when the parents started attending.”
From: Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The Principal as Action Researcher by Nancy Fitchman Dana
Solutions are out there and have been tried, have failed, and have had success. Educators just need to look in the right places, ask the right questions, use information that can be applied in their unique school.
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