Holy Turnaround Batman!

Can I just say that this year, so far, has been really positive?  Not so much on the teacher part, but on the students' part.  (The teachers are complaining too much about the new grade book system, meetings, turning in lesson plans, etc. and it's making me nuts.)  I really thought that the students were going to be super rebellious this year with all the new policies and procedures, but you know what? they are responding quite well.  We are also getting more parental involvement.  Mainly because students are wanting their phones back because they think they are dying, but hey, it's a start.

The number of detentions, students assigned to ABS, cell phone collections are high, but that is really to be expected.  They are testing their boundaries to see what they can get away with and it's really not much.  Teachers are enforcing the policies and administration is backing them up.  Parents are also backing us up because they knew from day one that these new policies were going to be enforced with a heavy hand.  When you don't have too many behavior issues, then the focus can be shifted to learning.

I don't see very many electronic devices.  Sure you see the occasional student trying to sneak a peak at those missed texts, but for the most part they are off and put away.  It's so refreshing to not see a student glued to their cell phone.  It's also nice to not hear a student blast their music while they are walking down the hallway.  I get bombarded enough with the yelling and adding thumping rap "music" to the mix makes me want to climb the walls.  Parents are also asking the office to hold on to cell phones for a few days so the message really sinks in with their children.  Parental support finally!

Kids are running to class.  They don't want to be late anymore which is a huge change from last year.  The tardy sweeps are working because students' don't have any place to hide anymore.  I guess they could hide in the bathroom, but if you've ever seen a high school bathroom, you would choose that as a last resort.  Just walking by them makes me gag.  Kids don't want an afternoon detention because it means they have to miss the bus or sit around and wait to go home.  (School gets out at 1:30, buses leave at 1:50 and detention doesn't start till 2:00 and ends at 3:00.)  If they miss detention, it's an automatic ABS.

Hopefully these changes will stay with us throughout the year and the number of discipline issues will go down and real teaching and learning can happen.