Internship: Columbia Elementary School

A lot of things have happened since I last updated my blog, so I’ll start with a post about my first Saint Louis Public School District internship.

January 11, 2011 was the first day of my internship with the principal at one of our district’s elementary schools, which was in its first year under the turn-around model; with a new principal, new staff, and a lot of new money. The internship was a requirement for my Advanced Business Management class at my high school, and I chose Columbia because I was eager to learn from their new principal (one of my former teachers). Columbia is located in North Saint Louis, near the intersection of Grand and St. Louis Avenue, the school had around 200 students, and class was in session from 8:05am until 3:02pm.  I was to report to Columbia every Tuesday and Thursday, along with one additional intern (that later turned into two additional interns).

During my time at Columbia I assisted with student discipline, managing the main office, classroom observations, redesigning the school’s website, monitoring students, problem solving, organized and set up a new math lab, created parent surveys, researched fundraising ideas, constantly updated bulletin boards, attended staff meetings, along with many other addition duties assigned by the principal and requested by the staff.

Although we didn’t always see eye-to-eye on everything, I’m grateful to have been able to work under Principal Gale. She’s really working hard to make sure the children are given a great education. I’ve been back to visit at Columbia several times this school year, and it is obvious that she (along with the rest of the staff) is really turning Columbia around. I will continue to visit Columbia, because I really care about the students and the staff members. Hopefully I’ll be able to join the team, as a first grade or second grade teacher in a couple years. 🙂

My experience as an intern at Columbia Elementary School is one that I will not ever forget, and I know that it will help make me a better teacher, principal, and superintendent in the future.

Some of the ideas that I had/have to help improve Columbia Elementary School are: 

1. Adjust the school’s calendar to make it a year-round school, or at least lengthen the school day.

2. Enforce the uniform policy.

3. Build partnerships with the community around the school. The key to improving the community is improving the schools, so why not get the business leaders and community members involved.

4. Start a “Parent Academy”, to provide information and training on a variety of topics, for the parents, grandparents, and family members that care for our students.

5. Open a pantry in the school for students and families, with items like granola bars, peanut butter, tuna, crackers, mac & cheese, cereal, juice boxes, etc.

6. Work with the Police Athletic League, to get them to come coach/mentor students. This would create a positive relationship between the students, parents, and police officers; while also helping eliminate the idea that police are bad people.

7. Create a Facebook page for the school. This would help spread information to parents, community members, and individuals that are interested in helping the school. I would also make sure the school’s webpage is updated at least once a week. (This should be done for every school in the district)

8. Hire a Musical Therapist in addition to or instead of a music teacher. I think this would be a great alternative to the traditional music class, and we could hire graduates from Maryville University’s Certified Music Therapy program.

9. Add more structure to the In School Suspension room.  We need to make sure the students are learning from the mistake’s they make to end up in I.S.S.

New Post Comming Soon

I havent been updating my site like I should be. There will be plenty of post soon about my internship at a Turn-around school!

Adopt-A-Freshman

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Program Director: Darion Robinson

Co-Director: Derion Tabb

  

About: The Adopt-A-Freshman program at Gateway Institute of Technology will pair freshmen with juniors and seniors, who will act as mentors and help them adjust to the high school environment.

Goal: To have upperclassmen help underclassmen become familiar with high school, by showing them around the school, helping them set goals, talking to them about their worries, and answering any questions that they might have.

How: Recruit juniors and seniors to be mentors, and train them on what it takes to be an effective mentor. The freshmen will get signed up when they come to the school for registration. We would like to offer some type of incentive for the mentors involved in Adopt-A-Freshman.

Meetings: The pairs would meet after school, and during this time we will have some type of group activities, team building exercises, and there would also be some one-on-one time for the pairs also. If possible, we will include gym time for the last 30min of each meeting.  We will also make sure that they have lunch with eachother at least once a week.

Result: A more accepting and less intimidating environment for new students, freshmen grades will improve, and behavior problems will decrease. 

Resources Needed: 

• Adopt-A-Freshman will be working with hundreds of students, and it would help us out if we had a room of our own (like the Student Government Assoc.). This room would be used to store all of our papers and files, have small group meetings, one-on-one sessions, planning space, and much more.  
• Plenty of printer or copy paper.
• Index Cards
• Folders
• Binders
• Markers
• Along with any other item that we could give away as incentives to our participants. 

Evaluations: A-A-F Leadership will check in with the freshmen, to make sure that they are getting what they need from their mentors, and the school. We will collect Mentor/Mentee journals on Fridays to review them.

Journals: We have designed journals for the supervisors, mentors, and freshmen. These journals will have record sheets that the pairs will fill out, recording when they meet (time), where they meet (location), and what they did or discussed. Personal information does not have to be recorded in these journals. 

Incentives: If the mentor can help their freshman keep a GPA of at least 3.0, then they will be invited to a pizza party, if they get a 3.5 then there will be a pizza party, and they will receive a gift card, and if they get a 4.0 or higher then they will get the pizza party, gift card, and enter a drawing for a cash prize. This will happen twice a year. 

This program will definitely help Gateway Institute of Technology, and will hopefully be used at other schools in the future. Please support us by donating funds, or any of the supplies that are listed in the Resources Needed section.