EDLD 5345 Human Resource Management

Week 5 Assignment

Overview

Your Week 5 assignment provides you with an opportunity to reflect on your learning in this course and how you will apply it in your future work as a school administrator.

Rubric

Use this rubric to guide your work on the Week 5 Assignment.

Tasks
ê / Accomplished
No errors in grammar, spelling or punctuation. / Proficient
Few errors in grammar, spelling or punctuation. / Needs Improvement
Responses lack clarity and depth and/or multiple errors in grammar, spelling or punctuation.
Part 1 / The student completed all aspects of the assignment and demonstrated knowledge and skills as indicated in the performance outcomes.
(3 points) / The student completed the assignment, but did not demonstrate complete responses to each aspect of the assignment.
(2 points) / The student attempted to complete the assignment, but failed to meet minimum requirements in all aspects of the assignment.
(1 point)
Part 2 / The student completed all aspects of the assignment and demonstrated knowledge and skills as indicated in the performance outcomes.
(3 points) / The student completed the assignment, but did not demonstrate complete responses to each aspect of the assignment.
(2 points) / The student attempted to complete the assignment, but failed to meet minimum requirements in all aspects of the assignment.
(1 point)
Part 3 / The student completed all aspects of the assignment and demonstrated knowledge and skills as indicated in the performance outcomes.
(3 points) / The student completed the assignment, but did not demonstrate complete responses to each aspect of the assignment.
(2 points) / The student attempted to complete the assignment, but failed to meet minimum requirements in all aspects of the assignment.
(1 point)
Part 4 / The student completed all aspects of the assignment and demonstrated knowledge and skills as indicated in the performance outcomes.
(3 points) / The student completed the assignment, but did not demonstrate complete responses to each aspect of the assignment.
(2 points) / The student attempted to complete the assignment, but failed to meet minimum requirements in all aspects of the assignment.
(1 point)


Week 5 Assignment, Part 1: Disaster Planning and Impact Field Experience Reflections

Your Week 5 lecture discussed the impact of natural disasters, like hurricanes, on public schools and all of the stakeholders impacted by the disaster. Disasters, man made and natural, can have immense impacts on school systems, especially in terms of human resources and budgeting. Preparing for such disasters must be a leadership imperative.

Using your own observations and experiences, including interviewing someone in your Human Resource or Personnel department, along with campus administrators, answer the questions below.

Does your campus have a plan to respond to disasters? Explain.

Yes we do. Over the past two years we have had several “disasters” that were man-made. One notable one was the shooting on Ft. Hood in November 2009. This impacted our campus as well as 6 others whose student body has over 70% active military and are on Ft. Hood or within 2 miles of the post. One middle school was within walking distance (across the street) from where the shooting took place.
During this disaster, the District put all the schools in the area into a hard lock-down. No one was allowed to enter and no one was allowed to leave the campus. Students were kept in the classrooms (luckily, lunch had just finished) behind locked doors and in the appropriate place in the room. This lasted for approximately 5 hours as they searched for the man/men that did the shooting. We eventually went to a soft lock-down. Students stayed in the rooms, however, parents were responsible to pick up their student from the school. It wasn’t until 11:00 pm when all students had been picked up. The reason it took so long was that Ft. Hood did not open their gates to allow parents to leave until after 8:30 pm.
With regards to natural disasters, we do have a disaster plan that covers bus accidents, fires, tornados, snow/ice storms, bomb threats and terrorist (intruders) attacks on the campus. These are practiced on a regular basis so students understand what to do when the time comes.

What impact do disasters have on budgeting issues, including potential loss of personnel due to the disaster? Have you experienced an increase or loss of student enrollment due to a disaster?

The two disasters that the district has been affected by is the First Gulf War (Desert Storm) and Hurricane Katrina. During Desert Storm, many of the families left Ft. Hood and headed home to their families in other states until the war was over. This response was due to the memory of the causualties in the Vietnam War. If your loved one was killed, it would be better to be surrounded by family rather than alone on post. With that many people leaving, the enrollment in the district plummeted and they had to let teachers out of their contracts since there were not enough students to go around.
When the war ended, the reverse happened. So many families returned along with a second Division assigned to the Post that there were not enough schools or personnel to handle the influx of students. Our District ended up going to several states to find teachers to fill positions. This trend has continued over the past 15 years.
The second disaster that affected our district was Hurricane Katrina. Many of the soldiers located on Ft. Hood had families from Louisianna, Mississippi, and Alabama that were left without homes. These families moved into our area and the district’s overall student population increased by 1,000. Our campus receive over 300 of these students. Again, overcrowded schools were the result of the increased student population.
In all of these cases, the budget was affected. The hiring of additional teachers means more money is needed to cover their salaries. The decrease in student population results in a decrease in money coming into the district.

How do disasters affect accountability and budget issues, like daily attendance, meeting minimum attendance days, and completion, graduation and dropout rates?

In the examples from above, the shooting mainly affected the budget due to needing to pay the hourly employees for the hours they ended up working to help with the students and parents. For these pople, the district authorized compensation time whaich could be taken at a later date. The drawback of this method is the people may fall behind when they take the time off.
In the case of the additional students from Hurricane Katrina, the main budgetary problem was the increase in staff necessary to be able to instruct the students. Their daily attendance started, once they arrived on campus. With regards to graduation, the State of Texas and Louisianna worked out a recipricol agreement for graduation. We did show a higher than normal “drop out” rate for that year. This was mainly caused by finding student who enrolled under false information (over age 21). Once these students were identified, they were withdrawn from the campus and were offered the opportunity to attend the at-risk/drop out recovery campus. Many did not take us up on the offer.

What advice did you receive regarding being prepared for natural or man-made disasters?

Take time to work with your staff to make plans for the expected disasters. Once the plans are finalized, as far as you can make them, communicate the plans to the entire faculty and staff. Ensure that everyone has a clear understanding what needs to happen with each plan. Once the students are in school, make sure you take time to practice the different plans. This communicates the necessary information of the plans to the students. When a disaster happens, they will not be surprised when the plans are put into play.
In some cases, event the best laid plans do not take into account unforeseen disaster, usually man-made. In order prepare for these, preliminary plans can be made using of the natural disaster plans.


Week 5 Assignment, Part 2: HR Identification and Application of Field Experiences

Along with its alignment with State Board for Education Certification standards, this course also incorporates the Educational Leadership Constituent Council’s (ELCC) Educational Leadership Policy Standards. These standards and supporting skill functions were discussed in the Week 5 lecture. Please review the national standards and review your assignments from this course, (e.g., field experiences, interviews, readings, tests and other activities), and identify activities that addressed each of the six ELCC national standards.

Here are the national standards and supporting functions:

Standard 1: An education leader promotes the success of every student by facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by all stakeholders.

Supporting human resource functions:

·  Collect and use data to identify goals, assess organizational effectiveness, and promote organization learning.

·  Create and implement plans to achieve goals.

·  Promote continuous and sustainable improvement.

·  Monitor and evaluate progress and revise plans.

In the space below, describe which activities you completed for this course address ELCC Standard 1.

Reviewing our campus improvement plan, helped me focus on this standard. By looking at the goals set by the campus based on the data it collected focused on the need for emphasis on improving our math and science TAKS scores and keeping better track of the completion rates of our students. Due to the mobility rate of our students these two area are a constant focus of our campus. By having the CIP that defines these as our goals along with a plan and support for attaining them, our campus can continually monitor the progress our our students and modify the plan as needed to sustain the improvement.

Standard 2: Candidates who complete the program are educational leaders who have the knowledge and ability to promote the success of all students by promoting a positive school culture, providing an effective instructional program, applying best practice to student learning, and designing comprehensive professional growth plans for staff.

Supporting human resource functions:

·  Nurture and sustain a culture of collaboration, trust, and high expectations.

·  Develop the instructional and leadership capacity of staff.

·  Maximize time spent on quality instruction.

·  Promote the use of the most effective and appropriate technologies to support teaching and learning.

·  Monitor and evaluate the impact of the instructional program.

In the space below, describe which activities you completed for this course address ELCC Standard 2.

Looking at the process required for change on a campus, helped me focus on what a job it really is to begin and sustain it. I have been on my campus for about 10 years and have always believed we could be better than we are currently. Though we have had 5 principals during that time, their leadership focused more on “student” test scores and how to fix them rather than on building a campus community that worked towards a common goal. Looking at and analyzing the steps required to create such a change made me realize that the principal has to be commited to making the change and find a way to get the faculty and staff on-board. Taking this step is the most difficult. In the case of our campus, the faculty and staff are more the Doubting Thomas types. Until you can prove to them through your actions (not just words) that they are important to the process, the change many never happen.

Standard 3: Candidates who complete the program are educational leaders who have the knowledge and ability to promote the success of all students by managing the organization, operations, and resources in a way that promotes a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.

Supporting human resource functions:

·  Monitor and evaluate the management and operational systems.

·  Obtain, allocate, align, and efficiently utilize human, fiscal and technological resources.

·  Develop the capacity for distributed leadership.

·  Ensure teacher and organizational time is focused to support quality instructional student learning.

In the space below, describe which activities you completed for this course address ELCC Standard 3.

The one thing that comes to mind is the recruitment and retention of highly qualified, highly effective teachers. Knowing that our district was known for recruiting from many areas outside Texas to find teachers, this activity put perspective on what a tough task it really is to find them. Our district has a good, solid one year induction program for brand new teachers and good support for teachers new to the district. Though the program needs to be improved and revamped to include new technologies and educational trends, overall it does what it is meant to do. Looking at the various programs other states have implemented in this area, I can see some things that our district can and probably should incorporate if they do want to become the recognized district we are capable of being. Recruiting and retaining the highly qualified, highly effective teachers is the biggest step to that goal.


Standard 4: An education leader promotes the success of every student by collaborating with faculty and community members, responding to diverse community interests and needs, and mobilizing community resources.