Project 2: Clean Campus Campaign

Narrative

Over the years several of my colleagues and I have become increasingly frustrated with how messy our school gets during lunch, especially considering how small of a school we are and how we generally have very nice and well-behaved students. For how few discipline problems we tend to have overall, it seems as though our students should be much more respectful of themselves and their own learning environment.

One of our school's core values is to "honor ourselves and others," so I thought it would make sense to tie school uncleanliness after lunch to this core value and introduce the problem to staff and students. This leadership project came about during Dr. Gomez's class on improving complex systems. I gathered data and identified root causes from observing the lunch area as well as surveying students, teachers, administrators, office staff, parents, and custodial staff. These observations and surveys helped to shed some light on the problem as it existed in my school and helped me to develop some cycles and change ideas.I was very surprised by some of the findings, especially in hearing some of the students' own thoughts.

Some of the data collected is presented as part of the Powerpoint presentation that was first introduced to staff and then to the entire school. I knew that one of the main issues contributing to the problem was that students did not seem to care. Upon further investigation, I found that my initial thoughts were correct, but I dug deeper. It became very clear that students relied on supervising administrators to consistently remind them to pick up their trash. When their trash was not picked up, students proceeded to class anyway, often leaving the administrators, custodial staff, and often times parents volunteers to clean up. The area would be wiped clean and after class students would return to the area as if nothing happened.

For one week we decided not to remind students to pick up after themselves after the bell rang, but also not to clean up after them. I counted pieces of trash and documented the mess with photos to later present to students. In speaking to administration and the custodial staff, we also found that part of the issue was environmental. We did not have enough trash and recycle bins in the lunch area and the bins that we intended to use for recyclable items were not blue. Students would end up leaving trash out on the tables, missing the trash bins, or dumping their trash into both the grey and yellow bins; yellow being intended for recycling.

After collecting the data, I presented it to staff and they agreed with the findings. The Safe and Civil team then presented it to the entire school through advisory classes and framed it as a school problem that students could easily remedy byt becoming more conscious of the problem, incentivizing it with a contest, and finally with some new bins. The results were very positive.

Reflections on Leadership

I felt very good about this project. Initially it was only supposed to be a little project for Dr. Gomez's class to learn about the PDSA cycles, however I was able to easily get the buy-in of my colleagues and it ended up becoming a much bigger project than I intended it to me. I learned the importance of getting buy-in from all stakeholders. I also learned that there can be more than one root cause to a problem. In this case, the students' behavior was the main issue that we were looking to correct, however we also quickly realized that part of the environment was to blame. After bringing the problem to the attention of the students and providing them with more (and properly colored) bins, we began to see the lunch are much cleaner.

The one thing that I would do differently would be to deliver the findings of this mini-study and the improvement plan closer to each other. I initially started the work for this project in the fall and presented the problem and the data to staff before Winter Break. Because of the break and previously scheduled advisory lessons, the problem and improvement plan were not presented to the students until a couple of weeks after the break. I feel as though the quicker the information is presented, te better it is.

CPSEL Standards

Standard 1.2 - This project focused on helping to improve school culture and cleanliness by focusing on the vision established in our core value of "honoring ourselves and others." In this case it was honoring each other by showing respect for the school and their learning environment.

Standard 2.1 - I met this standard by reminding the students of the culture of our school and re-establishing high expectations. In surveying the school, several students echoed the sentiments of the frustrated staff, so it was nice to hear other students call for respect from each other.

Standards 3.1, 3.3 - In addition to the messy lunch area being an eyesore and a reflection of poor school culture, it also presented some health and safety issues for students as well as some issues in the way in which we disposed of our waste, since recyclables and waste were not always separated. Finally, with administration, we had to plan for the purchase and usage of new bins, which we were able to secure with the help of donations from parents.

Supporting Documents

This is the final Safe and Civil Team presentation that was delivered to the students through advisory classes.