3/10/09 Shadow Experience #1 Male High School Principal 7:30 am – 1:30 pm (6 hours)
| Abbreviated Field Notes from Shadowing Experience #1 |
7:30 am | Mr. High is in the front office sitting behind the counter. He talks with teachers as they enter the building to sign-in for the day. Two teachers ask him questions related to events that are occurring at the school. |
7:45 am | Mr. High leaves the front office and goes to the student drop-off area. He greets students, parents, and teachers as they enter the building. He waves at parents as they drop-off their kids. He has conversations with a teacher, two parents, and another school administrator. |
8:15 am | After the bell rings, Mr. High goes to his office and does the morning announcements which include a moment of silence, the pledge of allegiance, and important announcements for the upcoming school day. |
8:30 am | Mr. High checks his email, signs purchase orders, makes a phone call, and talks with the secretary and bookkeeper in the front office. |
8:45 am | Mr. High drives to the board office to attend a staff meeting. |
9: 00 am | Mr. High attends the staff meeting which includes: all school principals, the superintendent, the curriculum director, the plant operations manager, the technology director, the school nutrition director, the special education director, the after-school program director, and the pupil services coordinator. |
10:00 am | Mr. High listens as the following topics are discussed: school budget for FY 09, parent academy update, moving teachers and students into the newly renovated elementary school, special education update, take-out food costs for our lunch program, and SPLOST. Also, each school principal discussed what was happening at their school. Mr. High discussed the upcoming prom, the success of our Math 1 implementation, and the recent accomplishments of some of his students and teachers. |
10:30 am | In the staff meeting, the special education director gave an overview of one chapter in a book titled “Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners”. Topics discussed included: English Language Learners (ELL), poverty, autism, instructional quality, tracking, home cultures, and other special challenges that schools face. |
10:45 am | After returning to the high school, Mr. High checked his voice messages and made a few follow-up phone calls to parents. He also checked his school email again. |
11:00 am | Mr. High stood on duty during first lunch. He talked with several students, the vice principal, and other coaches who stood on duty in the lunchroom. |
11:30 am | Mr. High ate his lunch in the school lunch room. He sat at a table with the coaches who had lunch duty. |
11:55 am | Mr. High stood on duty during second lunch. He talked with teachers and other staff members who were also on duty. They were observing students and looking for dress code violations. |
12:30 pm | After lunch, Mr. High asked the SASI records clerk to pull some data for him. After the data was pulled, Mr. High tabulated average grades for students in certain classes. |
1:00 pm | After tabulating grades, Mr. High discussed a facility issue with one of the school custodians. Next, he responded to an email from a parent and talked with the instructional facilitator regarding an issue with a teacher. |
1:30 pm | At 1:30 pm, I ended my observation as the principal was wrapping up his discussion with the instructional facilitator. |
3/11/09 Shadow Experience #2 Female Primary School Assistant Principal 7:15 am – 2:15 pm (7 hours)
| Abbreviated Field Notes from Shadowing Experience #2 |
7:15 am | As students began to enter the building, Mrs. Prime went to the lunchroom to monitor breakfast. |
7:30 am | Mrs. Prime, a teacher, and another school worker directed students to the tables. Students were not allowed to talk during breakfast. Mrs. Prime directed traffic through the lunchroom. She told students where to sit, reminded them to eat their food, and told them to get up from their seats when they were finished. One student had to stand in the corner for not obeying rules. The lunchroom was very quiet. |
7:45 am | As students finished meals, Mrs. Prime reminded them to wipe their faces and had them put unopened boxes of butter, jelly, and cereal in a cardboard box. Mrs. Prime used physical contact to get children’s attention (such as a hand on the shoulder or cheek) and she constantly reminded them to eat (Ex. “everybody’s eating”). The lunchroom remained quiet except for the voices of adults. |
8:00 am | Mrs. Prime and others conducted the morning announcements. Pre-k students did the pledge of allegiance over the PA system. |
8:05 am | Mrs. Prime checked her emails and made some changes to the school bulletin. |
8:10 | Mrs. Prime walked to a teacher’s classroom to perform an observation. The teacher was not there (absent), so Mrs. Prime did a walk through of the hallways, the gym, and the library. |
8:25 am | Mrs. Prime called a 1st grade female student to the office for a referral from yesterday afternoon. The referral said the student had opened the teacher’s candy box without permission and then told another student to put his hand in the box and closed the lid on his hand. |
8:30 am | “Did you open the candy box?” said Mrs. Prime. “No m’am” said the first grade female student. “I’m confused, I want to understand this. We are going to take a little walk to your teacher’s class” said Mrs. Prime. |
8:50 am | The gym teacher brought a student to the office for saying something ugly to another student. Since this student was a repeat offender, the punishment was OSS. The boy’s mother could not be reached by phone, so the boy finished the school day in ISS. |
9:10 am | Mrs. Prime and the 1st grade student from the candy incident visited the teacher to discuss what happened. The student cried and admitted that she had not told the truth. Mrs. Prime called the student’s mother and allowed the student to talk to the mother over the phone. The student was assigned ½ day ISS. |
9:50 am | Mrs. Prime attended a parent conference that was being held by the speech language pathologist. |
10:18 am | Mrs. Prime visited the office to check on a boy who had hurt his knee during gym. She went to the lunchroom to get the boy some more ice and talked with the lunchroom ladies for a moment. |
10:25 am | Mrs. Prime took a male student to ISS for not doing his work in class. Parent was called. This was a persistent problem with this particular student. |
10:35 am | Mrs. Prime took a phone call from a parent. |
10:40 am | A teacher brought two male students into Mrs. Prime’s office. Students would not answer her. “Let me tell you what the paper says” said Mrs. Prime. Mrs. Prime makes students be still, face her, and look at her when she speaks. Parents were called and students were sent to ISS. |
11:10 am | Mrs. Prime left campus to pick up school mail from the board office. |
11:30 am | A teacher brought a male student to office for telling another student something ugly while in line. When addressing the student, Mrs. Prime made the student stand still, come to her desk, and make eye contact with her. Mrs. Prime mentioned student’s parent in her conversation with student. The parent was called and the student was sent to ISS. |
12:00 pm | Mrs. Prime ate lunch in her office and had a parent come visit her about a student during lunch. |
12:30 pm | A parent stated that his son was getting bullied on the playground. Two other students were called to the office and the event was investigated by both the principal and the assistant principal. |
12:52 pm | Two male students were brought to Mrs. Prime’s office at the same time. One student was brought to the office because he was having a breakdown and could not function. Mrs. Prime talked with the student and learned that he had a splinter in his finger. Mrs. Prime sent him to the nurse to get it out. The other student (the one previously sent to ISS for not doing his work) was not doing his work in ISS. Mrs. Prime called the boy’s mother again to have her come in and discuss his recent behavior. |
1:00 pm | The male student who had the breakdown returned from nurse’s office and Mrs. Prime had the student finish his work in a school desk in her office. Mrs. Prime also encouraged the student not doing his work in ISS to finish his work at a table in her office. |
1:30 pm | A student from the gym was brought to Mrs. Prime’s office by the coach for throwing a PowerAde bottle in line and hitting two other students. The student was sent to ISS and the parent was called. |
1:45 pm | Mrs. Prime received a phone call from a parent regarding a discipline incident. |
2:00 pm | The parent of the student who refused to do work in ISS arrived. Mrs. Prime, the child, and the parent had a long conversation to address the student’s behavior. |
2:15 pm | At 2:15 pm, I ended my observation as Mrs. Prime was finishing her meeting with the parent and student. |
3/12/09 Shadow Experience #3 Male Middle School Assistant Principal 7:30 am – 2:30 pm (7 hours)
| Abbreviated Field Notes from Shadowing Experience #3 |
7:30 am | Mr. Middle was on bus duty. Students are dropped off outside of the school and must either go to breakfast or hang out by their wing. Each grade (6th, 7th, and 8th grade) has their own wing. Students are kept separated by wings throughout most of the day. Mr. Middle discussed the previous day’s school sporting events with coaches who were also on duty. Mr. Middle also had a few conversations with students as they walked to their wing. |
7:55 am | Students entered the building to begin school. Mr. Middle entered the 6th grade wing and walked down the hall as students went to their lockers and classes. He greeted students as they went to class. He recognized some students individually by calling their name. |
8:05 am | Mr. Middle went to the lunchroom as students finished breakfast. He monitored the lunchroom until all students had finished and gone to class. |
8:10 am | Mr. Middle checked his email and picked up his mail from his box. |
8:15 am | Mr. Middle did a walk-thru of the school. He checked on all classes (5 to 10 seconds max) by opening the door and entering the class for a moment to make sure everything was going ok. |
8:30 am | Mr. Middle began to enter some information from discipline referrals into SASI. |
8:45 am | A female student entered Mr. Middle’s office to let him know that she has heard that another female student was going to try to fight her. Mr. Middle investigated the allegation by asking the student questions and recording information on a notepad. Mr. Middle also asked clarifying questions to make sure he had a complete understanding of the situation. He gave the student advice on how to handle the issue and investigated the fight threat further by calling other students into the office. |
9:10 am | “What’s going on with you and…..?” said Mr. Middle. Mr. Middle called three other students into the office to get their takes on the story. With each student, he took notes on his notepad, asked clarifying questions, and gave advice on how to avoid the situation in the future. |
9:46 am | Mr. Middle read an email forwarded from the principal by a teacher regarding two girls and a dress code issue. Students were in dress code violation and they refused to put on a lab coat as requested by a teacher. |
10:00 am | Mr. Middle pulled the students out of class to address the lab coat issue. When confronting the student, one student chose to wear the lab coat and the other student chose not to wear the lab coat. Both students were disciplined for the dress code violation. The student who refused to wear the lab coat was sent home OSS and her parent was called to pick her up. |
10:30 am | A teacher stopped by to talk to Mr. Middle about a student issue. Mr. Middle discussed a student issue with the principal. |
11:11 am | Mr. Middle was on lunch duty during the 6th grade lunch. Each grade eats separately. Mr. Middle monitored recess after lunch. Many students came by and talked to him during recess time. Recess ended with a whistle, not a bell. Bells are not used to signify class changes. |
11:43 am | Mr. Middle monitored the 8th grade lunch and recess. Several students stopped by to talk with Mr. Middle during recess. |
12:05 pm | Mr. Middle walked with 8th grade students as they returned to class following lunch. |
12:10 pm | Mr. Middle checked his email and began to process more referrals. He updated notes in his notepad. |
12:30 pm | Mr. Middle administered discipline to students for referrals that had been sent to him. He gave students the referral and gave them advice on what they should do in the future to avoid the referral. One male student who was referred for failure to report to detention asked if he could take licks instead of ISS. Mr. Middle told him he needed to look at the code of discipline in the handbook. |
1:00 pm | Mr. Middle took a lunch break in the lunchroom. He talked to school custodians as they cleaned the lunchroom. |
1:30 pm | Mr. Middle processed more referrals. He logged information into SASI, called parents, gave referrals to students, and prepared envelopes to be mailed to student’s home addresses for parents. Mr. Middle gave all students advice on how to avoid future referrals as he administered discipline. |
2:15 pm | After watching Mr. Middle process referrals, I ended my observation at 2:15 pm. |