There's a lot to be synthesized from your responses to each of the nine questions we examined today. And it's my intention to get to all of them. But, in view of all that that entails, I think it might be most productive if, over the course of the next few days, we examine each of the survey questions, and your responses and reactions to them, in isolation, one at a time.
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Key indicator: be safe.
I was pleased to see that so many of us chose "be safe" as our most important culture-and-climate concern as a school. I think it makes sense to assume that we understand that all of the other indicators are similarly important, but that, without safety as a top priority it will be difficult if not impossible to achieve any of them. We must provide a safe place for students at Marshall. And I believe we do.
Nevertheless, in reading through the responses which your table groups made to handout Question 1: How can we work together to make our school safer?, there are a few common threads running throughout.
- We need to establish, broadcast, and consistently reinforce a common set of acceptable playground behaviors and expectations.
- We need to do even more than we already to do foster a real sense of community within our school building.
- We need to investigate if there are other ways and means to provide even more adult supervision on the playground, especially during lunch and morning recesses
In response to that, I believe I can make the following assurances to you.
- I believe a common set of playground behaviors already exists, if not in physical form, in our collective mind. In the next few days I will do my best to track down what's already been created and make it available to you and to seek your feedback and input on how these expectations might be improved/clarified. Once we've got a list finalized, I'll get it back to you published as a handout and as a classroom poster so you can have classroom-level conversations about them with your kids. I will also review these guideline with all of our playground personnel and post the posters near entry/exit points, too. If you have other ideas related to how we might more effectively broadcast this message, please let me know.
- I think building the perception of our-school-as-a-community is an area in which we can definitely improve, and I find it exciting to imagine our school as an even-more vibrant place were everyone feels they belong, where everyone feels safe, and where everyone feels their voice can be heard. So, here's what I think we need to do: We need to form a group, a School Community Committee, to work towards adding to the many community-building programs we already have in place: our PBS initiatives, our Java-By-The-Gym events, our Open House Nights, our fundraisers, and all of our other sundry community-building events. We need this group to work together to devise even more and better ways to make Marshall Magnet School a community of friends, neighbors, and true-believers in the reality that all students can succeed. If you'd like to join in this effort, let me know.
- As regards your concerns about adult supervision on the playground, I will say this: I will continue to advocate for more staffing to cover these components of our daily schedule, as well as other critical areas in our building that require supervision. But I must be honest with you as well. It is unlikely that we will see any increase in general aide staffing at this time. Already, we are doing everything we can to pull in those classified as general aides for every available minute to cover all three lunch recess times, and we're even paying some individuals for these hours from a small fund granted to us by the PTO. Finding an adequate number of people to cover our lunch duties has been a persistent challenge, and one I expect we will be forced to deal with into the foreseeable future. But I want you to know that I will continue to be vigilant in ensuring that what coverage we have is used in the most effective manner possible, and, as opportunities arise, that I will continue to make revisions to this system as resources become available to us.
Coming up next time:
- Q2a: Are we meeting together in the most productive manner possible in order to improve teaching and learning?
- Q2b: How can we enable ourselves as a faculty to meet together more productively in order to collaborate for the benefit of our students?
