EDL715: Change Proposal

Good afternoon, this is jenny

and I'm here to present my change proposal for E. D. L.

7 15 change theory and educational leadership with

dr Tony paul's of indiana Wesleyan University.

The executive summary

of this change proposal.

Um centers around school improvement goals and lack of

staffing in place in order to meet those goals.

Currently our school improvement goals are to reduce

the number of consequences that result in school removal

and also improving student attendance.

What we are requesting

is more substance with additional time and money

spent to fortify the efforts of the group

and for that to happen. A delineated structure for student support must be created.

We are currently experiencing very rapid growth and exponentially

increasing diversity and socioeconomic needs at the school.

There is also in the community,

a refusal of the township to evolve alongside the school population.

The high school population is much more diverse than the community. At large

changes of the high school

must be coordinated with the junior high and while that is

understandable in regards to vertical

articulation needed for academic structures,

it does make it very difficult when trying to support

students who are looking at graduation versus just grade promotion.

The opportunity that we have identified is the use of

our big team and little team model for student support.

Little teams are made up of counselors and the dean for a specific

alphabetical split and they meet every two weeks to discuss at risk students.

The big team is made up of administrators, school counselors,

the social worker school psychologist,

a nurse representative and the director of special

education as well as school safety officers.

The goal is for this team to meet once a month,

a running catalog of students is updated each time one

of the students on the list is met with.

This could be updated by the counselor, it might be updated by the dean.

It could even be updated by an assistant principal and reasons

for an update could include something significant to the student's life,

such as a hospitalization, a failing class or a suspension.

Covid replaced the importance of these routine team meetings.

However, our focus became more about attendance and tracking who was out and why

and less about our big team little team structure.

The awkwardness of the splits of the student

population is also problematic because we are understaffed.

We currently have three assistant principals, four deans and seven councilors.

The math just doesn't work out to create clear rosters for everyone.

Data collection has become very complimented

complicated. Excuse me

Because we have three new programs that were put in place last summer and a 4th

which was actually put in place um in the middle of the school

year that we use for data collection and also limited collaboration time.

We have a student population of 3300 for the 21,

school year. We anticipate a student population

Of 3500 for the upcoming school year.

And again when you think about seven councilors and three assistant principals and

four deans that just does not allow for a lot of communication time.

So if we were able to implement this plan, what would that look like?

The big part would be the systemic, intentional and proactive change.

Student support services as they currently stand

are reactionary triage as opposed to therapeutic.

Um we think of our school counseling office as a

hospital and it has become more of an emergency room

then

an intensive care unit.

The addition of graduation pathways has also added quite a bit to each

of our school counselors and building administrators plates

and the need for intervention to meet

the goals outlined in the school improvement plan

are also a concern.

Ultimately, we would like to see a revamp of the student support services team,

including a clear delineation of job responsibilities of the little team,

greater definition of student rosters to be serviced by each level team

and for this to happen.

Staffing must increase to match the growing student population

time set aside for both little and big

team meetings would be sacred and proactive behaviors.

Not reactive responses would be the processes that are used.

We collected a significant amount of data and took a

look at it in order to support our requests.

Right now,

school counselors are responsible for a caseload of almost 500 students.

The American school counseling association recommends that Caseload for

a high school counselor be just under 300 students.

Data from the 21,

school year indicates that there were 9000 separate sign ins for school

counseling office and again we have seven counselors and then an eighth.

Um with the director of school counseling who does not carry a caseload,

but we'll see any student who is an immediate need

if they're counselor is already being seen by someone.

1700 formal referrals were written by teachers. These are, you

Are handled by four deans

again doing the math there, you're looking at 425

referrals during the course of the school year. For each dean

tools that were used to collect this data includes Skyward, which is our student

information system.

Um This is where we warehouse all their demographic information

and contact information canvas is really our student management system.

This is what teachers used to deliver their content and curriculum.

Mastery connect is a data collection system for assessments whether they be

summited performative and attracts students in

their performance on priority standards.

Zel o is the fourth new item that I mentioned previously.

It was introduced in the middle of the school year and replaced Navient,

which more people might be familiar with.

It deals with college and career readiness allows

students to create four and 10 year plans.

Also identifies areas of interest for them and they can also request

course schedules. This way

we are at google school.

So we use a lot of google drive

and associated programs to collect and organize our data

and then of course the school improvement plan which we summarize everything with

the team that would be involved in this.

The majority of them are building level including counselors,

assistant principals, deans, the principles, social workers

And instructional and graduation coaches.

We are asking for an additional assistant principal for a total of four,

an additional counselor for a total of eight and an additional social worker for two

As well as 2-4 instructional or graduation coaches.

This position does not currently exist in our building

secondary members of the team would include school psychologists.

We currently have one.

There has been some discussion with the

Director of special education to add a second

special education staff,

medical personnel and safety officers and

of course district leadership because we

need their approval in order for any of this to happen.

The plan itself is based upon the action research model.

The problem statement is the realization of current caseloads

of counselors, Deans and assistant principals in the building

analysis and feedback would occur during PLC conversations,

weekly secondary administration meetings and bi monthly cabinet meetings.

The cabinet is made up of building

level administration including the principal assistant principal

Dean's

Director of school counseling and athletic directors

action planning would be centered around not

only that little team organization and staffing

that we previously mentioned but also assistant

principal duties with the addition of 1/4.

We could add a clear

job description for student support and intervention.

Um adding that to facilities,

teacher hiring and retention and curriculum and instruction

action and follow up would be conversations

regarding staffing and cost effective use of resources

to implement the plan.

We would definitely need monetary resources,

salaries and benefits of the additional positions.

Again we're looking at a counselor and assistant principal,

a couple of instructional coaches,

Another social worker and another school psychologist would total over $600,000.

The assistant principal and counselor would cost the district

approximately 250,000 according to the Chief Financial Officer.

Academic interventionists and additional social

worker would be classified positions.

Um I know it sounds odd for a social worker to be that,

but that is the way it is currently outlined and how our current social worker is paid

An additional school psychologists as well.

They would necessitate more than $350,000 in order to cover their salaries,

benefits, retirement plans, FICA and so on.

There are grants in place to help offset the cost of social emotional positions

and there is the potential of reallocation of funds from a dissolved position.

We have a um dean of attendance which is separate from our disciplinary

deans who is planning on retiring the circumstances surrounding his hiring just a

few years ago required that he be treated as an administrator so his

salary would more than cover the cost of an additional assistant principal.

Also expenditures to complete offices.

These would come from building level supplies and equipment accounts.

There is inventory available in other buildings that we could

kind of pillage in order to help make that happen.

And then any technology based items must be formally requested through our I. T.

Department. We are not allowed to purchase those independently of them.

The staffing would result in four solid little teams.

Each team made up of two councilors,

one dean and one assistant principal with a very clear alphabetic split.

And then of course the big team composition

would increase based upon those positions as well.

And then finally the data collection that I

mentioned previously using the systems we have in place

evaluation of the plan would occur. Um

Hopefully through early identification of students

that are struggling with academic,

social or emotional issues.

These identification to become more commonplace and assistance more immediate.

As a result positive impacts would be our school graduation rate.

We currently stand between 95 and 97%.

So we would like to sustain if not improve that.

The number of referrals being written to

the dean's office should decrease the average amount

of time being spent with students in the

school counseling office should increase as well.

And community benefits would also improve,

particularly as the school's graduation rate increases.

The school's grade increases and property taxes. I'm sorry property values

also increase negative impacts of course would be cost and politics.

I previously mentioned that the community is not

as diverse as the high school population.

There is a lot of resistance and hesitation to diversity and equity efforts.

Um, those would need to be addressed in order for this plan to be successful.

And then lastly, data conference comparison, we are in the,

what is considered to be the highest performing academically and also the best

athletic conference in the Hoosier Crossroads conference

and also county comparison Marion County.

We are unique to Marion County given our A status and high graduation rate.

But um, staffing and support information could come from both of those sources.

So the last part of this presentation,

I wanted to address the actuality of this plan.

Um, we had

an opportunity to present this for real time staffing

um,

In our meetings and this is what happened for the action plan.

So the staffing presentation took place in April of 2022.

Um,

we were allowed to add the assistant

principal and that was because of the retirement

of the Dean of attendance and his,

his salary was really kind of cannibalized in order to make that assistant

principal position possible.

We were also able to add a school counselor. Um

There is some consideration that this happened because

the junior high also added a counselor and

we could not have a junior high that had more than 80% of the staffing.

We had at the high school when the high school is twice as big, but we will take it,

the student support team result um stopped there.

However,

we were not allowed to get academic interventionists and we have not

added a school psychologist or an

additional social worker which is disappointing.

But

um with the addition of the assistant principal and the counselor,

we are still able to create those four solid alphabetically aligned

little teams

to dedicate time

um to students that are specific to each of them,

The referendum that we were holding in May of 2022.

The result of that uh indicates where the community is compared to the school.

It failed and it failed miserably. Um The result was about

two thirds nay and one third year.

So of course that impacted anything that we were able to do

in regards to hiring

um

moving forward.

Um

We're gonna create our little teams based upon

the four solid structures that we have.

We have also moved our four core area department chairs to positions

of coordinators and um the hope is that we might be able

to give each of the four of them some academic interventionist responsibilities

so that they can then contribute to our little teams as well.

So

that's where we stand. Um I hope that

you enjoyed this change proposal.

I'm glad I was able to have some actual results to share with you as well.

Thank you so much. Hope you have a great day

EDL715: Change Proposal

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