Well starting the my 9th course. This one is all about technology. So this should be fun. I just set up my first Google Doc. It was different then the video that we were to watch although I got it figured out. How things change in such a short amount of time. I am still not sure how the editing will work although I guess we will figure that out as we go. This should be interesting.

AR Plan Update

          On our campus we have had an issue with absences and tardiness. Our campus improvement plan has stated that we need to improve our absentees by 1% and improve on tardiness. This seems reasonable with regard to absences as we have improved slightly every year. Were we seem to have the biggest issue improving has been with tardiness. We have a very high number of students that are tardy. 

          The second semester of the 2011-2012 school year I asked about having a no tardy/ absentee bubble party. Through this incentive program students would be allowed to get an extra fifteen minutes of recess and bubble at the end of the semester if they had no absentees and had not been tardy and absentees included excused absentees as well. If you were not there excuses of not you didn't get to go.  It was done every nine weeks.

          The way that I came up with this idea is from another school in a neighboring district. I had heard that they had done a no tardy bubble party as this school had a huge issue with tardiness. So I figure if we changed it up a little then it might work for us as well. I talked to one class from each grade level and pitched my idea and asked for feedback. What I found is that the younger kids loved the idea of bubbles, the older kids liked the idea of time out of class. So this worked for everyone.

          I pitched my idea to the assistant principal who loved the idea but wanted to know how I was going to pay for it. So I get the  PTO involved. I pitched my idea they loved it and bubble party was born!

          After doing this at the end of last year we saw that absentees improved slightly, although the improvement with regard to tardiness was out standing. We improved on in this area by about 20%. This year we are again trying to promote this incentive program. What we are doing differently is we are promoting it more. The classroom teachers are talking about it, we are talking about it during our morning round up time, and we are adding the bounce house. The bounce house was added because after talk to the students again I found that bubbles didn't seem to be enough incentive. When I asked them what they thought would help make it better one student said "Why can't we do bounce house also?" Great idea! This year we are adding this in hopes that we will have an even better response. 

EDLD 5326

School has started! This first week is always so busy although I am excited to be back, I now have to find the balance again. I don't know about you but during the first week I have a hard time balancing back to school, family, and this program. It is something I need to work on.

            This early morning web conference is good because I can get it done while the kids are still sleeping and then there aren't a bunch of interruptions.  I don't know about anyone else but the transition from black board has been a challenge. This first weeks  web conference has helped me understand the black board better. I would like more details about what to expect on the mid term. Community relations is something that can be a challenge.

This is what my action research plan looks like at this time. I am sure through the use of some of the strategies for sustaining improvement it may change. Allot of times we just think about the problem and what we can do to change it. We don't consider the opposition or even the people that are affected by the changes that we want to make.

ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT

STUDENT ATTENDANCE IMPROVEMENT

1.      SETTING THE FOUNDATION- Through collaboration with my principal with regard to our site base goals, there has been an issue with meeting our attendance goals. I have proposed using an incentive program to promote attendance. I met with PTO to get them on board and to get them to fund the project.

2.      ANALYZING DATA- Looking at current and past year attendance records. See what needs to happen in order for us to meet the campus improvement goal. We need to raise attendance by one percent from last year.

3.      DEVELOPING DEEPER UNDERSTANDING- Surveying students, staff, and parents about their feelings toward the current incentive program. Meeting with the site committee for addition impute as to how they think we can go about improving the program. Using literature and articles focused on improving school attendance to see if how we might be able to improve this program.

4.      ENGAGE IN SELF- REFLECTION- Questions include:

·         What other factors are out of our control that affects attendance?

·         How do we handle excused absences?

·         How are excused absences counted in the attendance process?

·         What else could we do to improve the incentive to motivate kids to continue to come to school every day?

·         What does the other literature say about promoting attendance?

5.      EXPLORING PROGRAMMATIC PATTERNS- After collecting data to see if the new program is successful look into the additional information about improving attendance and see what could be done to improve the program. Consult with site committee, PTO, and students again.

6.      DETERMINING DIRECTION- Students who have perfect attendance for the nine week attendance period will attend a bubble party. Student will go at their scheduled time to the playground and spend twenty minutes enjoying their own bottle of bubbles as well as running through the bubbles made by the two bubble machines provided by the PTO.

7.      TAKING ACTION FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT-

Action Planning Template
Goal: Improve School Attendance
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Inform students, parents, and staff about the program. Hold a “Bubble Party after every nine week grade period for those with perfect attendance.	Myself, site based committee, teacher, students. (students have to try to take responsibility or ownership as well)	Starting the end of 2011-2012 school year continuing through 2012-2013	Supervision and bubbles. Supervision provided by myself and staff. Bubbles provided by the PTO.	The program will be evaluated after the first full semester.

8.      SUSTAIN IMPROVEMENT- Continue to promote, reflect and change incentive program as needed to sustain improvement. Things may change along the way so it is important to always be looking at the data to insure continued success.

The nine passion areas that we look at with regard to school improvement really gave me insight into different things that I could be used on my campus in the future. It is so important to be sure that we not only invest in improving our staff and students but that we are always trying to improve our selves as well.

            When talking with my principal about my research plan he agreed that it would be good to see if the program is successful and how we could improve upon it. He feels that attendance is something that is difficult to improve because some of it is out of our control. Kids get sick, parent plan trips and choose to take students out of school for a day here or there, deaths in the family may cause a student to be absent. If an incentive program can make students want to come to school it’s worth researching and giving it the time and resources needed. He also mentioned that no teacher has come to him before and said “I have an idea on how to improve attendance if I can get the support from PTO will you allow me to try it.” This is a subject not to many people try to tackle, although it is a very important subject. He feels if I have a desire and passion to try to make this program better then that is what my action research should be about. 

          This week I learned that an action research plan is not a program that I will implement but truly a questioning that will allow me to improve something that we are already doing. It’s funny because I read the literature but until I really started looking at the sample action research questions I don’t think I really got it. The subject that I have chosen will make finding literature difficult but I am determined to take something I am interested in improving and make it better through action research.

 Recently I created a program to increase school attendance per our campus improvement plan. The purpose of my proposed research plan is to see if this incentive program is getting the results that I hope that it will. Through research of this program we will see if we will continue the program or discontinue it. If it is not successful we may have to look at other things that promote better attendance in schools.

Having a successful outcome will benefit our campus, the students, and the teachers. It will benefit our campus because we will meet our campus improvement goal or hopefully exceed them. It will benefit the students because they will not miss valuable learn and it benefits the teacher as they don’t have to go back and re-teach several times due to absentees.

The action research will be beneficial in determining if this program is successful or if we need to go back and look at other options for promoting better attendance.

The action research plan is very important to me because I am the one that implemented the incentive to improve attendance and I want it to be successful. It is important to have goal and be able to achieve these goals. As a school our goal is to try to improve student attendance and through this program I hope we will be successful in meeting our goals.