School Project

20 interesting aspects of our school
1. The name.
2. All the young teachers.
3. The diversity among students.
4. The mission/what the school is trying to do.
5. The classes they offer.
6. Mr. Kinory.
7. The roof garden.
8. The classes, before they were tracking students, or the classes where there is no track.
9. The fact that we need a dean of discipline.
10. 6-12.
11. Classes are made up of all the same people.
12. Not a strong community. It is just beginning to become “normal” for students to talk to student in other grades.
13. Internships are there, but the program is weak.
14. Electives suck.
15. Students don’t respect the school. There is a lot of vandalism.
16. Not as many drugs as some other schools.
17. People copy and cant do the work and then actually wonder why they aren’t passing.
18. Everyone knows everyone.
19. Mr. Berg.
20. The locker room is all the way in the basement and there are 12 floors.

3 Strengths
1. The staff is dedicated.
2. No regents.
3. Good teachers.

3 Weaknesses
1. Students don’t respect the school and the education as much as they should.
2. Bathrooms are gross and the bathroom policy is degrading to the students.
3. Policies are not considered and created as they should be.

One Aspect to change
The way policies are made.

Observations
Since I started attending school here, the policies seem to be increasing as I advance in grades. The bathroom policy was created so that all students follow the same rules in the classroom and the school is able to track the students’ moves. The lateness out-lunch/policy was created so that anyone who is late cannot go out to lunch. Many schools don’t even bother with out lunch passes or anything. The 3:10 policy was created, and student cannot reenter the building after 3:10. But there is no real way for me, as a student, to observe the policy making process because all policies are made without student’s presences, whether they are made by DeLaura alone or in the staff meeting students are locked out of.


Goal
My goal is to make it so that the policies made in the school are made by the students. I believe that if the students make the policies, they will have more inclination to respect the policies. I also think that by creating a new system that would include the students, it would have to well organized and everyone would have to come to the meetings already having spent some time deeply considering the way the policy should be. This way, there will be more student import, better thought out polices, that will allow students to be more active in the community.

Goal
My goal is to create a policy-making system that will allow students a say, force everyone to deeply consider the policies and create a more conscious community.

Action Plans
1. Start attending staff meetings, without permission.
2. Collect student opinions and ideas and give them to the policy makers.
3. Gain student support by providing information on the idea of a new policy-making system.
4. Start a new meeting that would only have students and create our own new laws/policies that we will follow.

One action plan
Take a survey to get information on students and gain student support by providing information on the idea of a new policy-making system.


Data
Survey Data:
Question: Do you think student should have a say in policies that affect them?
Responses: 93 answered “yes” and 2 answered “no.”

Question: Would you invest your time in deeply considering school policies and attending monthly meetings?
Responses: 55 answered “yes” and 40 answered “no.”

Data Analysis/Evaluation
From this data we concluded that it was worth it to create a new policy-making system and that the students were invested enough in the idea. By giving this survey, the idea of this new system was just beginning to cross the other students’ minds. But completing this survey was not effective in really creating an environment where students would think about the policies and a new policy system.

Another Step
The next thing after completing the survey was to write up the results in a proposal that would gain support and provoke ideas about a new policy-making system.


The Proposal
There are many things to be quoted from the School of the Future Family Handbook - September 2006, but for the sake of space on the page and your time, we have selected these following sections from the handbook:

From Our Vision: “Our students will graduate as lifelong learners and socially conscious participants in their communities.”

From Our Mission: “Our goal is for each child to graduate from the School of the Future with a sense of social and academic responsibility that will allow them to pursue their goals. We hold students accountable for being respectful, productive, community members.”

From Our Guiding Principles: “With the choice to be a part of this community comes the responsibility to make it work every day. Staff, families, and students commit to true partnership that enables us to transform our vision statement into our daily reality.”

What we would like to see is the students taking a more active role in the school. As a part of a “school project” in Civics class students have begun to decide what they want to change about the school. As our project we want to give students the opportunity to be active in the role of making the decisions that are going to affect them. As a part of this project we completed a survey asking two questions to ninety-five of the juniors and seniors. The first was, “Do you think students should have a say in policies that affect them?” Ninety-three students answered, “yes” and two answered “no.” The second question we asked was, “Would you invest your time in deeply considering school policies and attending monthly meetings?” This time fifty-five answered, “yes” and forty answered, “no.” What we wanted to find out was whether it was worth it for us to try to create a policy-making system where students would be able to have a say. Since it is worth it for the students, and worth it for the school’s vision, mission and principles, we have a proposal to make.

We propose that the students and staff meet together to establish policies. We believe that instead of the policies all being made by Ms. DeLaura and the teachers during staff meetings, that the policies are made in a new meeting environment with both students and teachers. This could mean opening up staff meetings for the first 30 minutes (before the confidential issues are discussed), meeting after school or taking one advisory period a month where students and teachers come together to have town hall like meeting.

The purpose of this proposal is to give student the opportunity to act as socially conscious participants and productive partners in the SOF community. Another benefit of the meetings we are proposing is that both student and teachers alike would be bringing more thoughtful, well prepared ideas and arguments forward before a policy is made.

Please think about the idea, consider the ways it can work, so that we can come together to better meet the vision and mission of our school. We are open to the students’ and teachers’ ideas on how this should be run, so please share them with us. We want to make sure this is done to the benefit everyone and represents what the community wants in its policy-making system.

Thanks,
Simone Lackey and Anna Sears

Evaluation
The proposal written was successful so far in that the people that have read it liked the idea, and even so much as wanted to keep a copy of the proposal when I asked for it back. But the proposal was not successful in completing my project because there is not yet a new policy-making system. The next step in completing the project is to continue to pass out the proposal and gain even more support, especially amongst the teachers. Then, a meeting needs to be held to discuss the different ways to actually hold the policy-making meetings.