ABSTRACT
Therefore, never underestimate the power and importance of a caring adult who values the child. That caring adult could be a teacher, a lunchroom worker, a janitor, or a principal. I knew of an elementary principal who took an interest in a few particular students who needed the attention and would consistently check their homework. Drugs and gang violence are other issues that can influence any school. While some schools are plagued by these problems, no school is immune to them. Therefore, all educators need to be aware of and learn about the indicators of drugs and gangs. Drugs are everywhere; even prescription drugs can be a huge problem that is sometimes overlooked, underestimated, or just ignored because of societal attitudes that accept that if there is a prescription for a drug, then it must be OK. We have some very good programs that are attempting to deal with the illicit drug issue, but this is not something that can be solved by a one-time intervention. School leaders must maintain constant vigilance about drugs and continue to learn about the changing nature of this threat to our students and society. Gangs and gang “wannabes” constitute another danger that is much more widespread than many educators would like to admit. Again, we need to learn the warning signs, which take a wide variety of forms. One example is when kids roll up one pant leg or use other clothing styles to signal their membership. These styles also have a lot of copycats-individuals who may not be directly involved in gangs, but whose actions and attitudes strengthen and spread the gangs’ negative influence. Adults need to be good role models, especially younger teachers who may tend to dress in ways that are similar to the students. That is not bad, but the principal needs to discuss the importance of the potential problem and ask teachers to be good role models, which includes the appearance they present. Some schools have dress codes for teachers, but to me the more important issue is attitudinal. It is good to have some teachers who relate to all segments of the student body, but when it comes to gang and gang wannabes, professionals need to be very careful not to support and reinforce negative behaviors. Gang awareness and prevention of negative behaviors that often accompany gangs is not an easy or simple task, but well
worth the effort. The effort might start with some professional development for the staff and involve some school-wide activities such as assemblies. However, those beginning steps need to be part of a comprehensive effort that includes building a positive sense of community within the school. One way to build positive community is through student service programs. Tirozzi discusses service efforts by students and notes that a meaningful volunteer experience combined “with the feeling of satisfaction that accompanies service well performed” can help students “develop lifelong habits of giving back to their communities” (2010, p. 2). One area in which caring and keeping the focus on the student seem to have become part of what most schools do is special education. While not all educators immediately embraced the laws that require all public school students to receive a free, appropriate education in the least restrictive environment, most do understand that all children deserve equal opportunities in education. Over the last few decades we have been moving closer to making that work for all children. Although implementation took some time, the legal requirements began under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). Educators have sometimes resisted the move to include all students in regular education classrooms. In most cases, it was a fear of not being able to properly teach all students, not a lack of caring, that caused the resistance. At first, teachers were unprepared to make the necessary adjustments, but the lack of knowledge was not as difficult to correct as was an attitude held by many teachers and administrators that special education students would not benefit from joining the regular classroom. They believed that the status quo of the separation of special education students from mainstream classes was in everyone’s best interest. As late as the mid-1990s “special education managers agree that principals too often take a reactive rather than a proactive stance in addressing special education law and practice and how it affects student is their schools.” In fact, some special educators still express “concern with principals’ over-reliance on special education consultants, teachers, or district level
administrators to deal with the issues that arise among special education populations” (Stephens & Nieberding, 2003, p. 4). While a great deal of the blame for this surely rests with the university preparation programs that shortchanged this area, that does not let caring principals off the hook. We need to take on the responsibility of becoming more familiar with these issues and laws, not only for our own legal protection, but for the sake of the students. Initially, in the mid-1970s and into the 1980s we spoke of mainstreaming special education students because prior to that we hid these children away in special schools or selfcontained classrooms that were out of sight and out of mind. As we worked to provide free appropriate education in the least restrictive environment and identify students in need of assistance, we set up mechanisms to identify students and guide our interventions. These often involved teachers and the student’s parents working together in a group or team, sometimes called an intervention assistance team (IAT), to develop an individualized educational program (IEP) for each student. When a student was struggling in the regular classroom, a teacher would notify the proper person who would set up an intervention team meeting. This process has been recently refined and is referred to as a Response to Intervention (RTI or RtI). RTI is a framework “designed to bring together general, special, compensatory and gifted education with the goal of providing a comprehensive, unified system of education to meet the needs of and improve results for all students” (Graden et al., 2008, p. 3). One model to implement this framework is what has been referred to as the standard protocol model, which involves three levels or tiers. The first tier is the general instruction provided to all students in a regular education classroom. Shores and Chester explain, “The classroom teacher utilizes benchmark assessment or other forms of curriculum-based measurement to assess his or her entire class for mastery of the core curriculum” (2009, p. 6). This should involve differentiated instruction and the use of scientifically based or evidence-based approaches. This first tier must include “proactive assessment practices (universal screening) for early identification of students needing more intensive instruction and intervention to accelerate
progress” (Graden et al., 2008, p. 11). Some schools are using formative quarterly benchmark assessments to gauge how a class is doing in understanding curricular goals. Grade-level meetings can be used to discuss strategies or plans to help students. While much of this activity focuses on the students as a group, it can also indicate when an individual student is particularly struggling and in need of more assistance. If student are not successful with instruction in the first tier, then they are provided tier II instruction, which can occur in small groups, but at this level, “interventions are individualized, and tailored to the unique needs of struggling learners” (Wright, 2007, p. 3). This small-group instruction is provided in addition to the regular tier I instruction and needs to be “based on the most common needs of students in the school”; it “involves scientific, research-based strategy or curriculum specifically designed to address the students’ deficit areas” (Shores & Chester, 2009, p. 6). There is also more frequent curriculum-based measurement to monitor the progress of students receiving tier II instructional support. This increase in monitoring is used to judge if the student has benefited enough to discontinue tier II instruction and return to tier I; if the student should continue in tier II; or if even more assistance is needed and the student should be moved to tier III instruction. As students move up the tiers, the individualization and instruction intensify. In tier III there is intensive individualized instruction and even more monitoring of the students’ progress. This model began and is still widely used in early elementary reading programs. A second model for RTI is what Shores and Chester (2009) call the problem-solving model, which “is preferred by practitioners in the school setting in that it allows more flexibility with interventions and focuses more on the individual needs of the student” (2009, p. 9). This involves gathering together a group (or team) comprised of regular education teachers, administrators, school psychologists, special education teachers, the parents or guardians of the student, and others who have knowledge of the student or of ways to assist the student either behaviorally or academically. Shores and Chester explain that “when a student in the general education class is identified as at risk for academic or behavioral difficulties, the classroom
teacher utilizes the problem-solving team to develop an appropriate RTI plan” (p. 9). The problem-solving process usually takes four steps, with the first step being the development of a definition of the problem, followed by a plan for an intervention. Once the intervention is planned, it is implemented, and finally the student progress is evaluated. This process will work only if a caring attitude is inherent at each step. The process can be a part of a school-wide approach to solve problems where faculty work collaboratively in departmental or cross-departmental meetings (or at grade-level and cross-grade-level meetings). This type of involvement can reduce the feeling of isolation that many teachers feel. RTI is not just for special education teachers; principals need to care about everyone’s opinions, to involve all teachers in the process, and keep the focus on the outcomes for the students. The problem-solving approach is greatly enhanced if principals act in ways that demonstrate that they value the professional judgment of teachers. The principal can show that respect through any interaction, whether it occurs in the hallway, at a teachers’ meeting, or as a part of the formal teacher evaluation process, which is another topic of care. While I discussed evaluation and teacher dismissal to some extent in Chapter 5, there are many other interactions with teachers that can demonstrate care. For example, the practice of “walkthroughs,” which has been tried in a number of schools, can be done in a positive manner. Being visible is not a new leadership concept-Peters and Waterman use the term “MBWA-Management By Walking About . . . [or] Management By Wandering Around” (1982, p. 122). Rossi notes that “caring, openness, and trust are the key values in employing MBWA, but being visible in the workplace and communicating to workers is what drives this supervisory approach” (2007, p. 31). More recently, Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) has used Marzano’s research as a foundation for what the company calls the Power WalkthoughTM. This software is different because it has a broad focus that systematically collects data school-wide, including every teacher; then, “looking at the picture those data begin to paint of the school
or district, administrators and curriculum directors can, for the first time, thoroughly analyze the extent to which professional development is actually impacting classroom teaching and learning” (McREL, 2008, p. ii). Although caring is not a part of that model, I believe it could be added to this model or could be included separately with some adaptation of the process described by McREL. Sometimes people get caught in thinking that academics are the most important aspect of school. While academics are important, they are only important in that they can benefit students. Academics are not more important than the human beings that we work with each day. For students going on to college, academics are vital, and certainly all students need the basics, but academics sometimes need to be understood in the context of an individual student’s life. If a loved one passes away, that will change a person’s perspective. At the end of our life no one is going to focus on our high school GPA; it is the emotional ties that we were successful in maintaining that will matter-in other words, how much care we showed to others and how much other human beings really cared about us.