Design

Plan of Action - The Kindergarten Committee

In order to address the challenge, I am going to form a Kindergarten Committee. This committee will look at the challenge and research different ways to address the issue. This could look like contacting other schools, discussions with early childcare providers, researching existing studies, or basically anything that involves addressing the challenge. My four chosen competencies influenced this plan in several ways:

  • Interpersonal Effectiveness

I will build trust with my colleagues by being an effective group leader, building critical relationships that will help this challenge be addressed with a shared goal and plan. I'll serve as a support for the members, some of who might be newer staff members and need to work on their interpersonal skills just like I do.

  • Group Processes

I will lead and organize the committee, making sure to include diverse stakeholders and manage the group dynamics. I will mediate conflict when it arises and make sure to manage any difficult situations.

  • Explore and Challenge Inequity

The whole goal of the committee is the explore and engage with the inequity issues surrounding our students when they enter Kindergarten. This will help all committee members recognize the inequity problems and actively work towards implementing a policy that will be more equitable for our students.

  • Advocacy

Ultimately, the committee will come up with a plan to address the challenge and advocate for a policy change with the school board that will reflect that plan. This could be advocating for changing existing policy or creating new policy depending on the plan created.

This design was informed by the needs assessment I performed as part of the "Learn" section of this project. The assessment can be found at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RaFN9LHpqNPD9NaC0sJ-E5lyoXCF1n620ywRi3qlnqI/edit?usp=sharing

Below is the email I sent to solicit teachers and staff members to join this committee.

leveraging strengths and addressing needs

The committee will include diverse stakeholders, such as teachers, administration, a counselor, a behavioral specialist, and several community members. This will allow us to hear the broadest range of ideas on how to address this challenge. I will leverage the strengths of members that I already have a relationship with, and will build relationships with others in order to accurately assess their strengths.

Collaboration, questioning, data, reflection

Every meeting will start with a reflection on what happened at the last meeting. We will talk about what happened, then discuss the research we performed or the steps taken after that meeting. This will start our meeting off with a goal-focused mindset.

Data from the current class and the two previous years will be used to explore the challenge further, with data redacted to protect the student's right to privacy as several committee members will be parents.

obstacles

There are several obstacles to implementing this plan:

  1. I need administration approval to form a committee.

  2. Scheduling meetings is difficult with a group as diverse as this will be.

  3. Several committee members have strong opinions. I will need to make sure all members have a chance to have their say.

  4. If we want to implement this by next school year, we will need to work quickly towards a solution.

what success looks like

Success will look like the committee forming a plan to address the challenge and implementing that plan at a district level. This plan could vary based on the findings of the committee.