Student Council Adviser
Project Rationale:
I chose to advise the student council at William Green Elementary for a few reasons. I was new to William Green this school year. I came from a school where teachers, staff and administrators worked together to create a positive school climate that was fostered by the shared vision for the school. My principal and I wanted to bring this sense of cohesion to Green. I observed that the culture of the school needed to be changed. William Green Elementary lacked a community of people who were dedicated towards the same mission. This is largely because it is such a big school that it is difficult to communicate with others outside your grade level on a daily basis. Secondly, I advised student council to have the opportunity to work with all staff at my school as well as community members.
Leadership Role:
From the start of the year until now I have been able to work with my administration to implement our new discipline program PBIS through an anti-bullying campaign. I worked with the technology staff to make anti-bullying videos with the students, implemented dress-up and spirit weeks such as Holiday Week. I added morning announcements which have helped students feel connected to one another. I created the Great Kindness Challenge and help facilitate my Principal’s campaign of “Filling Someone’s Bucket”. In addition I worked with my administration to make Earth week. During Earth week we worked with the garden teacher and grant advisors to set up a beautification day in the garden. We also had a recycling competition, dress-up days, activities at recess as well as an earth booth. Students came to the earth booth to create their goals to be Green. Furthermore, I created a college-going culture at my school. Each grade level was asked to vote on a college they would like to represent. Based on the replies, student council assigned a college to each grade. We kicked off the college-going culture with an assembly educating students about college. We then had a dress-up day every Thursday where students and teachers could wear colors, hats, shirts, sweatshirts from the college of their choice. Moreover, each month we would highlight four teachers. These teachers would fill out a form about where they went to college and their experiences. Then at our Friday morning assemblies each teacher would come up and share one memory about college. This excited the students. I also worked with our Kaiser Grant foundation, COPA to include lunch time games and activities that the colleges (aka grade levels could take place in). Student council also assisted with Read-Across-America week, the Jog-a-thon where I worked with the PTA and Jamba Juice to ensure a well-organized race with refreshments. All of these events allowed me the opportunity to work with students, teachers, office staff, stakeholders, administration and parents which taught me a lot about the importance of collaboration and team work.
Reflection:
Reflecting back upon all the activities and events I realized that my administration was the key to my success. It was easy working with the parents, office staff and stakeholders such as COPA. They were all easy to get a hold of and loved joining in on the activities. However, it was difficult to get teachers involved. The only thing that teaches were excited about and willing to help was with the College-going Culture During each of our spirit weeks, student council would run a booth once a week where the students could complete an activity. This would occur during their lunch recess. I could only lead the activity during the upper grade lunch recess because I was teaching. It was almost impossible to get teachers to assist in running the booth. My principal and assistant principal ended up running the booths during the lower grade lunches. This was disappointing. However, after the events teachers would thank me and tell me how their students love the activities. It was frustrating at times that their still seemed to be a lack of teamwork and commitment to our shared vision.
I do feel like I helped influence the school culture. There is now shared things that the entire school takes places in. Students, parents, most teachers and administration are pleased and see a huge difference in the climate of the school. I would like to continue this mission to alter the status quo.
Connections to the CAPES:
CAPE 1- Being the leader of Student Council I helped my principal articulate and develop a vision of teaching and learning for the school through implementing a new discipline policy as well as College-Going Culture at our school.
CAPE 3-Lead by Example to Promote Implementation of the Vision through forming a positive school culture with different events such as earth week, The great Kindness Challenge as well as creating a college-going culture etc.
CAPE 4- Sharing Leadership with Others in the School Community to help Accomplish the Vision by working with the PTA, teachers, community members such as the COPA and our friends from the Kiaser Grant to help accomplish our school's vision.
CAPE 13- Modeling Life-Long Learning and Job-Related Professional Growth through creating a college-going culture where each grade level represents a different college. As well as having events and lessons about college for the students.
CAPE 20-Involving the Community in Helping Achieve the School’s Vision and Goals through working with Jamba Juice, Subway, Round Table Pizza, PTA, Kaiser, Sharefest to assist with different school events such as parent workshops and college-going activities to achieve our School's vision.
