Leadership in Current Capacity

Transitioning to Remote Learning

During the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, I began my administrative internship at The Preparatory Academy for Writers where I was able to shadow my principal, and lead the school as the Director of the Technology Subcommittee. When we were notified of the impending school closures and the immediate transition to remote learning, we learned that several staff members did not feel comfortable with using the new technology. I surveyed our staff to determine what they needed to learn, and designed a professional development to teach our staff. My morning session provided an overview of some of the more fundamental platforms including Google Classroom, Docs, Forms, Meets, and Slides. My afternoon session helped enrich teachers who had more experience with the technology. The subsequent weeks of isolation became an opportunity for my staff to continue to practice their new skills, and ask for my continued support. I was able to lead all of my staff members to becoming effective in their use of technology, and has many of these practices have been adopted when we transitioned back to in-person instruction

Access For All

One of the most challenging aspects of our transition to remote learning was that over 100 students lacked access to a device suited for school. To solve this issue, I invited all teachers to join the technology subcommittee

Together, we divided the classrooms amongst all of our members, and collected all of the Chromebook, laptops, and tablets that were in the building. Our next step was to test them and troubleshoot any problems that we came across. In the first 6 weeks, we were able to close this gap by 100% as all of our families who reported that they lacked access were given a device for the entire upcoming school year.

Working Together With Our Community

To better communicate and collaborate with our parents and community members, I began to co-host weekly virtual townhall meetings. Together with my principal, we discussed the following:

1) Updated guidelines from the C.D.C. and New York City Department of Education regarding schools

2) The drafts of our reentry plan for both provide transparency and receive actionable feedback

3) Information on how make a well-informed decisions when purchasing devices for their children

As a member of the Reopening Committee, I was able to address questions and concerns through the chat while there was another presenter speaking. The number of participants was very steady at an average of 122 participants every week for the first three months prior to the start of the 2020 school year.

Led Inquiry to Identify Off-Track and At-Risk Students

As 11th and 12th grade teacher lead, I had the opportunity to lead our grade team in examining student data to identify students who are struggling, and those who may be at risk. With a team of nine teachers, we examined approximately 172 students' records including grades, attendance, and parent sign-in sheets from parent-teacher conferences. When the data was compiled, we invited the 10th grade teachers to provide additional information about each student so we can have a more wholistic view of the them.

Off-Track vs. At -Risk

Students who needed intervention were divided into two groups. The "off-track" group were students who possessed a borderline average of 50-65 while "at-risk" students had an average of <50.

Differentiated Interventions

Off-Track

For students identified as off track, we would invite them to after school tutoring programs where we would facilitate biweekly tutoring sessions. Seniors who volunteered to help were given credit hours towards their 200 hour school graduation requirement. Our results showed that students who regularly attended their tutoring sessions made improved their grades by an average of 23 points.

Differentiated Interventions

At-Risk

For students who were at risk, our approach was to first support the students social-emotional needs. We believed that it was in the best interest of the child to ask them in the hall to discretely schedule a five minute meeting with one of the members of my team to discuss our findings. This was done to build rapport with the student right away and reassure that we want to help them find success. Once the student came to the meeting, we would inform them about our findings and that we were concerned for their well-being and how we can offer help. We were able to recruit one teacher from each core subject to provide 60 minutes of additional academic support that were split into two 30 minutes sessions five days per week. Students were scheduled to attend these sessions based on individual need. All of our classes had less than six students so every child could get valuable personal attention. In addition, we were able to offer students therapy sessions with our guidance department once per week to address any social-emotional need they might have.

Our Bright Spots

Our results for the at risk and off track group also shown an improvement in ways different than the other group. While the academic component of this exercise showed marginal results, we found that student attendance in classes increased by approximately 27%, negative behavior referrals decreased by 31%, and the feedback we received from our guidance councilors was that these students' moods improved over time.

As the Social Studies Teacher Leader, I designed and facilitated the breakdown of four Global History and four United States History regents exams. As a team, we examined each question, and determined the New Generations standard that it was aligned to. We used this data to determine trends within the exams over a meaningful period of time to better inform our test preparation. We were able to adopt a "depth over breath" approach to help reinforce learning of more the prominent topics within the exams. The results showed strong improvements on the Global History regents yielding a passing rate 34% above the city average, and 24% for the United States

While teaching during the Covid-19 Pandemic, I would often check in with each student throughout the week to see how how they are feeling as they struggled to cope with the isolation during school closures. During these conversations, some students expressed feeling lonely as they missed their place in our school community. In an effort to bring students together while remaining distant, I organized our school's first e-sports team.

Access Issues

When the notices first were distributed about the establishment of the team, three students wanted to join, but did not have a device to participate. Through conversations with these students, I learned that they could only email me using a cellphone because they did not have access to a computer. After contacting their parents, I informed them of the dialogue I had with their child, and that I wanted to lend them a device for school work, and participate in the e-sports team.

Our Bright Spots

1) Our team in the first year was comprised of 75% female students despite the gaming space being predominantly male.

2) Our team has increased by 300% since last year

3) As a cultural change agent, many on our team have built enough confidence to join other clubs and activities in the school.

4) We are working on interscholastic competitions in an unofficial e-sports league.