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| Best Practices
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Turn Job Shares into “Win-Win-Wins” |
Tips for Making Shared Positions Work for Teachers, Students and AdministratorsBy Alex Kajitani with Megan Pincus KajitaniRecently, the principal of a low-performing school filled with at-promise students told me that after her first year as principal, she abolished all job shares. According to this principal, job shares — or the agreement between two teachers to share one contracted teaching position by coming in on different days — were ineffective, confusing for the students, and did not promote the highest levels of student learning. She stated that it is her duty to ensure the learning of all students, which includes making “tough decisions,” such as the one to disallow job shares at her site. Job shares, she stated, are “great for the two teachers, but bad for their students.” As I left the meeting, I couldn’t help thinking that while this decision might boost test scores for a year or two, overall, it hurts our society. First, it forces working mothers (who occupy most job shares) into an “all-or-nothing” decision regarding choosing between mothering full-time or teaching full-time (same holds true for fathers). Second, it stifles the kind of creative thinking, relationship-building and flexibility that we all need to learn (adults and youth) to thrive in the workplace of the future. I kept asking myself: Isn’t there a way we can offer the flexibility of job shares to teachers and have students succeed at the same time? Aren’t there job shares that work? And, what will it take to find a win-win here? So, I decided to do a little research, speaking with job-sharing teachers around our school district about what was working for them and what was not. I also talked with principals about what they saw. After identifying the pitfalls that “ineffective” job shares seem to fall victim to, I also pinpointed cases in which the job shares were “working,” as demonstrated by the quantitative data. From these conversations, I came up with some concrete ideas for creating a win-win for teachers and students — and a win for administrators as well. Making Job Shares Work for Everyone Below are five strategies for creating and maintaining effective job shares that will allow teachers the work-life balance they deserve, students the high level of achievement that they are entitled to, and administrators a smoother ride in managing job share teams: |
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A Focus on Individual Student Growth |
By Linda Dawson, Kris Mallory, and Khristel JohnsonEveryone knows young parents who enthusiastically engaged in conversations about their children’s accomplishments, and rightly so. How old was the child when she started walking? When did he say his first words? During these phases of a child’s development it is common to hear that all children progress at a different pace, and parents should not be overly concerned. |
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It’s up to us to market the work our schools and at-promise students are doing.By Alex Kajitani
Recently, at the annual “Title 1 Meeting” for a low-performing school in our district, I happened to sit next to a parent who was clearly nervous. When I inquired, she told me she was upset because she thought the meeting meant the school was being taken over. I quickly explained that Title 1 status is determined simply by the number of students receiving free and reduced-price lunch, that this was just an informational meeting, and her children’s school is not currently at risk of being taken over. Then, she visibly relaxed. That exchange got me thinking about how often the only news people hear about education is negative news, and how it is becoming standard to assume the worst, especially when it comes to our schools with large numbers of at-promise students. As educator-leaders working to improve the lives and futures of at-promise students, I firmly believe it is part of our larger responsibility to communicate what is really happening in our schools, clearly and broadly, to parents and the larger community. We ARE the Marketing Department! |
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By Sheryl Armstrong, RAPSAWebquests can be valuable learning tools in your classroom to give students an opportunity to explore a subject on their own or with peers. Most of the research is done online, and the activities can be tailored to meet students' needs and learning styles. The best webquests give specific information on how to complete the tasks and provide a rubric for grading clarity. Students work through the tasks and synthesize the material across different metacognitive tasks. The files below are evaluations for three webquests that may be used in social studies or language arts classes. They are geared for secondary age students. |
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Making the Most of the Critical First Five Minutes of Any ClassBy Alex Kajitani
Remember the old Head & Shoulders Shampoo tagline? You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
As teachers, we actually get a chance to make a first impression every single day -- often several times per day with each class we teach. And with today’s at-promise students, who are accustomed to the rapidly paced sound bytes and topic switches of a new media world, if we don’t grab their attention quickly, we know that they often tune us out and the rest of the class is usually shot. That’s why the first five minutes of any class is so crucial: it is an opportunity to connect with our students, set the tone, convey our expectations, and state, in clear terms, why the class is even happening at all. |
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at•promise: [at•prom’is]
adj. Belief that all students
can succeed
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