Log+Sheet+Details

__Log Entries for Field Study in Educational Administration__
All activities were performed at North Arlington High School under the direction Site Supervisor Laurinda Pereira.


 * Date**: May 14, 2010


 * Beginning Time**: 10:30
 * Ending Time**: 12;30
 * Total Time Worked on This Date**: 2

Worked on Appeals Process: This process involved reading the letters which were written by students and parents on behalf of the students who is failing a course for the year. There are reasons for this. They are that the student was tardy for school so many times that he/she lost credit for that class OR a student was absent so many times that they could loose credit because it was impossible to keep up and did not have the tools to deal with it during the school year.
 * Narrative of work performed:**


 * Date**: May 15, 2010


 * Beginning Time:** 9:00
 * Ending Time:** 11:00
 * Total Time Worked on This Date:** 2

Worked on Appeals Process. My primary work involved reading the letters from parents and students themselves and highlighting the primary reasons students believe they should be given credit for a course. Extenuating circumstances do come into effect during some of these appeals. Illnesses and moving between homes stood out as the main ones whereby a student should be given credit for a course if an attempt was made to keep up to speed otherwise.
 * Narrative of work performed:**


 * Date**: May 17, 2010


 * Beginning Time**: 3:00
 * Ending Time**: 5:00
 * Total Time Worked on This Date: 2**

an agenda for a plc. The professional learning community was to involve smartboard training for physical education teachers. I did the research on the internet to find some links to videos to be used as samples for dance class lessons and driver education lessons. I also visited the smarttech.com website to review some basic smartboard tools and techniques that the teachers needed to infuse. I made an agenda that would incorporate both practice time using the smartboard for each staff member and then time to actually start create the smartboard lessons.
 * Narrative of work performed**: Planned agenda for professional learning community. This task involved making

Date: May 18, 2010 Beginning Time: 12:00 Ending Time: 2:00 Total Time Worked: 2 Narrative of work performed: Appeals. Read more letters that were submitted by students and parents in regard to their loss of credit for classes. Many of the students who lost credit did so because of their tardy situations. When 3 cuts are issued due to lateness, a loss of credit is automatically generated by our system. The letters that were submitted must be evaluated to see if a student did actually have extenuating circumstances and has made a good faith effort in his/her overall school performance to merit giving some credit for the course.


 * Date: May 19, 2010**


 * Beginning Time: 2:00**
 * Ending Time: 5:00**
 * Total Time Worked on This Date: 3**


 * Narrative of work performed: Make a schedule for the teachers to meet with administrators in reference**
 * to students appeals by course. This was very difficult. I had to reference the teachers' free periods to organize a period by period conference situation for every student. The meetings must take place within a three day timeframe before the exam schedules begin. It indeed was a challenge to manually do this and keep moving people**
 * around to make it work for everyone. Some had to be performed after school.**


 * Date: May 20, 2010**


 * Beginning Time: 1:30**
 * Ending Time: 4:30**
 * Total Time Worked onThis Date: 3**

bulk of materials sent from the State for the end of course biology test. We had to count and sort the answer folders test booklets by room assignments to ensure that every teacher who was proctoring would have the appropriate materials for the test. Testing is a critical day and emotions run high in the building whenever the schedule is a little different.
 * Narrative of work performed: Sorted End of Course Biology tests. This involved breaking down the**


 * Date: May 24, 2010**


 * Beginning Time: 7:30**
 * Ending Time: 10:30**
 * Total Time Worked on This Date: 3**

This task involved presenting the test booklets to the proctors, with all the instructional materials including pencils and calculators. This is a state assigned test and details must be followed as with any high stakes testing. After distributing the materials, then attendance sheets were collected so that we could decipher if there were to be any make-up tests. Following the testing instructions from the minute they are received in the mail to the minute that they are mailed or sent from the guidance office is a critical no nonsense activity. Every detail is followed to avoid any flagged situation or irregularity reports.
 * Narrative of work performed: Administered End of course Algebra test.**

Date: May 25, 2010

Beginning Time: 8:00 Ending Time: 10:00 Total Time Worked on This Date: 2

Narrative of work performed: Naviance setup: This involved a last minute need to set up a laptop computer complete with stand and projector and appropriate signal needs so that a presentation could be made to our junior students. Throughout the health classes, guidance counselors along with myself would demonstrate the use of a new computer software program entitled "NAVIANCE". This is a software program purchase by the Board of Education which seems very promising. It contains access to career and college options for our students. I am very interested in getting all of our students involved in accepting more ownership of their learning and especially in career training and college searching opportunities. I believe that this venue being online will agree with their digital readiness and they will buy into this system. I am very excited about this and will be anticipating seeing them jump on board with it. It should also prove to relieve some pressure from the counselors whereby they may invest their time more on counseling instead of rote details. This could prove to be a real "win-win" for our students.

Date: May 26, 2010

Beginning Time: 2:30 Ending Time: 5:30 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Facilitated Professional Learning Community This involved working with 10 staff members to develop a smartboard lesson. Most of the staff were in Physical Education and the lessons that they worked on were a dancing lesson and driver education lesson. The other staff members were in the "special areas" and developed a lesson on internet safety. With the recent state mandate involving keeping our kids safe on the internet this is a critical lesson to have handy. On every level, we as educators are held responsible to keep our kids safe and in every venue that is true. We have to take that responsibility serious and follow any and all avenues available when it comes to using computers as well as any other equipment used across our disciplines.

Date: May 27, 2010

Beginning Time: 11:00 Ending Time: 1:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: End of year retirement party planning & scrapbook This task was very enjoyable and involved brainstorming with my mentor and other colleagues ways to celebrate the many retirees that our district was to remember this year. We were aware that many staff would be retiring including four administrators with many many years of service to the district. We wanted to make it special and we secured a beautiful statement making room with all the accompaniments. These started out with special invitations, people including some of our special retirees who return for gala events. My input involved helping with printing the actual invitations, collecting and inserting pages for our own principals memory scrapbook, counting money, counting guests and table arrangements.

Date: May 28, 2010

Beginning Time: 8:30 Ending Time: 11:30 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Scheduling process reviewed This task involved being introduced to the actual process of initiating and processing to completion a student's high school schedule. This task is sometimes very cumbersome because of the constraints in a small school building with course limitations. The individual assignment involved calling up a student from the system whose schedule was "incomplete". Then using an option to let the system regenerate a new schedule or to hard assign a course or courses for the student. I learned that the system itself could only completely computer generate approximately 65% of our student body and then the counselors were to go back in to reconfigure the rest of the schedules.

Date: May 29th, 2010

Beginning Time: 9:30 P.M. Ending Time: 12:30 A.M. Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Wrote summary of Professional Learning Community

This task involved writing a summary of what my assigned group of staff members had accomplished during the learning community meeting of May 26th. It was all fresh in my mind so I was able to do the assignment fairly simply and access the lesson that my colleagues presented. There were details to be considered such as new ideas that were shared among the group, barriers to completing the task on hand to be broken down and also ways to bring smartboard to the classroom under equipment constraints. We all know that the situation is never ideal when asked to bring "new technology" into the classroom but we must do this anyway. The idea that I like to pass to my colleagues is the "KIS" "Keep it simple" motto. I think we did this best by using the very tools that the smarttech company has availed to us right through their website.

Date: June 1, 2010

Beginning Time: 2:15 Ending Time: 5:15 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Party Details

This task involved final head counts and cash count to be delivered to the caterer for our retirement party. Later place cards had to be addressed and put in table order. The orders for food choices had to be communicated with the place cards being delivered along with final flower orders. Seeing this celebration come to fruition was an enjoyable and bittersweet time for me as I will miss the colleagues that I have worked with for 10 years. Lots of last minute details went into doing this party in a very short time frame. It was a success!

Date: June 2, 2010

Beginning Time: 11:00 Ending Time: 1:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Diplomas

This task involved counting the diplomas which were received and verifying that the students names were spelled correctly. This is one of those tasks that you want to make sure that you get right. Therefore this task is performed by a couple of sets of adults during a different time and setting. That way we will ensure to the best of our ability that the proofread is accurate.

Date: June 3, 2010

Beginning Time: 2:00 Ending Time: 5:00 Total time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Helped with senior awards program.

This task involved sorting documents, awards and certificates that are given to our senior students. This is a complex task involving a spreadsheet system and listing all of our senior students with accompanying awards, certificates scholarships to be hand delivered at a ceremony in our gymnasium. Other details involve making sure the room is setup and broken down by the custodians, arranging for floral delivery and also arranging for the adults who will be giving the awards to our students. Setting up a table in front of the forum is important and having a place for students to be recognized in so important to them. This is the culmination of their academic career and we want to make it special for them.

Date: June 4, 2010

Beginning Time: 6:30 Ending Time: 8:30 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Attended the senior.

This task involved attending the senior awards event held every June at our school. I presented certificates for excellence in online learning. Six senior students held an "A" average in a virtual course taken as an elective at our school.

Date: June 7, 2010

Beginning Time: 3:00 Ending Time: 5:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Summative.

This task involved writing a summative review for one of our staff. The task meant to collect three observations, reading them, visiting the staff member on two different occasions to do a short informal walk through and then writing my summary of his performance and making recommendations for improvement. A lot of though went into this task and I believe now that this is easier to do in theory as we did in the supervisor preparation courses than in real life. I believe I did a good job and surprised myself as to how objective I kept this review as I do know this staff member and was able to keep emotions at bay.

Date: June 8, 2010

Beginning Time: 7:45 Ending Time: 9:45 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: HSPA Scores

This task involved reviewing the list of HSPA scores from the 11th graders in language arts and math. This is also a critical process as the HSPA scores dictate how many students will need remediation courses and then this dictates scheduling assignments for those students. Any students who were not proficient in an area must be scheduled for a remediation course in that area. This way we are helping the student to reach proficient as required by AYP and NCLB demands. I flagged and highlighted the students who were "not proficient".

Date: June 9, 2010

Beginning Time: 5:00 Ending Time: 7:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Student spotlight article

This task involved taking pictures and summarizing the details of volunteer work that many of our students are involved in. One of the most visual signs of community involvement of our students is seen every day when they roam the building and pick up and physically place recyclable paper in dumpsters located outside our lunchroom. This is a project that came to fruition as the result of a grant written by one of our own staff members. Students get involved in keeping their building green by helping to do the actual recycling. I am proud and happy to report any "good" that our kids are involved in.

Date: June 12, 2010

Beginning Time: 4:00 Ending Time: 7:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Reading articles.

This task involved reading articles from "Administrator". I am especially interested in the arenas of discipline and technology. I think we are being challenged every day by our students who are digital natives and we are digital immigrants. The digital divide is very evident and I believe that the movitation factor in schools right now could improve if we had a better way to eliminate that divide. In the area of discipline, I believe that once motivation becomes intrinsic in our students, many of the discipline issues will be eliminated.

Date: June 14, 2010

Beginning Time: 3:00 Ending Time: 5:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Research to find out about Michelle Rhea.

This task involved looking up Michelle Rhea and finding out about her style of management. This was one of the important facts mentioned when we met for the first time at Kean in reference to staying abreast as to what is happening nationally in education. Wow! At that time we did not know where we would all be at this time. However, I was aware that teacher merit pay and administrative pay would be under the microscope. These are very challenging times for educators especially in New Jersey. I still believe we have a wonderfully successful school program which considers the best interests of the whole child concept.

Date: June 15, 2010

Beginning Time: 12:00 Ending Time: 3:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Research options for summer school. This task involved making phone calls to institutions to find viable opportunities for a student to make up work. He is in desperate situation and wants to play football. He needs to make up three classes and this is not easy. He will have the option to take a class online which will not be easy for him. We are only gathering the information for him to give him options.

Date: June 16, 2010

Beginning Time: 2:30 Ending Time: 3:30 Total time: 1

Narrative of work performed: Discuss summer school options with parent and student. This process took longer than expected in trying to communicate the whole picture to the student about this type of commitment.

Date: June 17, 2010

Beginning Time: 2:00 Ending Time: 5:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Navigating schedules and trying to adjust details of hard conflicts. This is a very time consuming process. Being a very limited staff with a few course offerings, sometimes students are trying to take advanced courses which are only offered once in the day at the same time. Then we have to ask the student which course he prefers and then find another elective for him to take.

Date: June 18, 2010

Beginning Time: 2:30 Ending Time: 3:30 Total Time: 1

Narrative of work performed: Distributing yearbooks to underclassmen. Call all students to cafeteria and distribute yearbooks alphabetically by class. This is a crowd control and logistics task. Keeping order and dismissing students is a process that is always being refined.

Date: June 19, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending time: 3:00 Total time: 5

Narrative of work performed: Worked on schedules through online program from home. The realtime student personnel system is a web-based program whereby we can access the students schedules and grades online. This allows us the flexibility to perform tasks at home. I spent the day massaging some schedules to fine tune details.

Date: June 21, 2010

Beginning Time: 12:45 Ending Time: 4:45 Total Time: 4

Narrative of work performed: Attend staff barbq. Went to field to check and peruse field for all last minute details for our graduation exercises. We had a different setup this year so some different details had to be managed, set up and tested. Attended graduation exercises.

Date: June 22, 2010

Beginning time: 1:00 Ending time: 4:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Last day for teachers details. This involved checking off keys, custodial requests, summatives outstanding, and grade challenges.

Date: June 23, 2010

Beginning Time: 9:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Looked at catalogs and perused some documentation regarding professional books for staff. I would like to have on hand some materials for classroom management, in-class support, special education and parent relations, community outreach.

Date: June 24, 2010

Beginning Time: 1:00 Ending Time: 3:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work: Fielded a summer reading book challenge from a parent. This involved reeducating a parent about the validity of today's literature in the high school setting. On occasion a parent will challenge a book with sensitive subjects such as sexual innuendo or religious connotations. It is our responsibility to respect that individual but also explain how and why the books were chosen to support our curriculum.

Date: June 25, 2010

Beginning Time: 7:00 Ending Time: 9:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work: Looked up "first days of school" list of things to do. I'm trying to get an idea of team building activities for both staff and students. I want to create a positive spirit and environment when I have my own building to lead. My mentor loves these kinds of activities so I want to find the best suited for building a great school climate.

Date: June 28, 2010

Beginning Time: 11:00 Ending Time: 2:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work: Searched through files to get the summer mailing flyers together. I found a few and had to update them and then come up with some others that will be new next year. I'm trying to "go paperless" by setting an example and putting some forms and documents online. This is in line with following a business model in schools. It is working well so far.

Date: June 29, 2010

Beginnning time: 2:00 Ending time: 4:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work: Sorting and updating schedules. This task is cumbersome but needs to be done. Every child must have a schedule for the following school year. We are trying to finish them all by July 15. That way in September we will have only the new registrants to figure out. This will keep chaos to a minimum in guidance.

Date: June 30 ,2010

Beginning Time: 9:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work: Sat in on interviews for curriculum position. This position is critical and this individual needs a lot of skills regarding curriculum knowledge, state department knowledge, testing experience, great writing and communication skills. I met three individuals with different backgrounds and one woman stood out because she had experience as an English department chair. This is a tested area and critical to have someone who knows the ropes with testing.

Date: July 1, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending time: 11:00 Total Time: 1

Narrative of work: Discussed the qualifications of candidates with principal. This task was not difficult at all. We highlighted resume and talked about the assets of candidate and how they could fit into our school.

Date: July 11, 2010

Beginnning Time: 4:00 Ending Time: 6:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Visited my section of scheduling online to review the pending students schedules.

Date: July 12, 2010

Beginning Time: 8:00 Ending Time: 10:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Worked on class advisor book. This task involved gathering information from previous class advisors so that I may put all information together for tasks, dates, ideas, and things to do for class advisors. We do not have any such item right now and this will give the staff a better idea of needs and expectations for being a class advisor.

Date: July 13, 2010

Beginning time: 9:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Class Advisor Book. I read through all the ideas collected from eight different colleagues. I created a document to be given to our principal for review so that all advisors have an idea of what to do with the students during each of the four years.

Date: July 14, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending Time: 12;00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work: Copies. Made copies of different forms which need to be part of the summer mailing packet to students.

Date: July 15, 2010

Starting Time: 8:00 Ending time: 10:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work: Office Cleaning. Our principal of 43 retired and left his office and all its growth behind. This was a challenging job. This involved aprons, gloves, tons of garbage bags and cooperation.

Date: July 16, 2010

Starting Time: 10:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work: Reorganize Files. This task involved stomping and moving 2009-2010 files to the bottom and making 2010-2011 files for the new school year and putting them in the top lateral file. VERY TIME CONSUMING! Will continue another day.

Date: July 19, 2010

Starting time: 4:00 Ending time: 6:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work: Portfolio. Perusing the documents that I want to keep for my portfolio. Entered dates and time of last activities performed.

Date: July 20, 2010

Starting Time: 10:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work: Portfolio. Updating the spreadsheet details of hours, activities.

Date: July 21, 2010

Starting Time: 9:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work: Proofread documentation. This task involved reading some flyers and mailers to be distributed with summer packets and make sure there are no typos, or grammatical errors.

Date: July 22, 2010

Starting Time: 10:00 EndingTime: 12:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work: Brainstorm ideas for freshmen orientation. This task involved talking with my mentor and perusing some websites to get some ideas to get the spirit of the freshmen class going. Some ideas are a raffle for ipod, soccer ball game and trivia.

Date: July 23, 2010

Starting Time: 9:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work: Read journal articles for digital opportunities and netbooks.

Date: July 24, 2010

Beginning Time: 7:00 Ending Time: 10:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Followed up on email from information age publishing.

Noted by some to be the "the most original book about education in years" I was intrigued to get a couple reviews about Gene Glass' "The fate of public education in America." I also called a couple of colleagues to find out if they had heard of this title. I would like to order this for a professional shelf.

Date: July 26, 2010

Beginning Time: 9:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 3

Narrative of work performed: Reviewed HSPA test scores. This involved breaking down the class and finding how many partially proficient students there are in language arts and mathematics. This will determine where students are being placed for remediation.

Date: July 27, 2010

Beginning Time: 9:00 Ending Time: 1:00 Total Time: 4

Narrative of work performed: Office Cleaning. This task involved organizing and discarding old data files and putting important relevant files aside for the new school year. Discarded old phone books, catalogs, memos, posters, office supplies, wall hangings, etc. Getting ready for a clean new school year with decluttered office space!

Date: July 28, 2010

Beginning Time: 8:00 Ending Time: 9:00 Total Time: 1

Narrative of work performed: Purchase orders. Sign off on all last purchase orders. Check emails and respond.

Date: August 2, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Now I am shadowing my mentor at her new school: Connors Elementary. We are finding the last school years first days calendar and agenda and reviewing it. This work is in an elementary school. Things work a little differently here. We spent our first day getting acquainted with the building and new custodial staff.

Date: August 4, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending time: 12:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Setting up the office of the principal. I discarded old files, cleaned desks and tables and put some decorative touches on the office with her personal belongings. We met central office staff.

Date: August 6, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Going over the first days of school and itinerary for the staff.

Date: August 10, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Take down old bulletin boards outside main office. Make up some new ideas for the bulletin boards to highlight staff names.

Date: August 11, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 2 Narrative of work performed: Design new bulletin board for main office floor entrance way. Make cutouts and names for each staff member.

Date: August 12, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Finish first floor bulletin board. Start taking down second and third floor old boards.

Date: August 16, 2010

Beginning Time: 9:00 Ending Time: 11:00 Total Time: 2 Narrative of work performed: Building walk-thru. We walked the entire building with the head custodian to get an idea of what orders were being worked on over the summer. We made an itemized list of things to do and in what order they should be done.

Date: August 17, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed: Fire and emergency map reviewed and copied for staff.

Date: August 18, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time:: 2

Narrative of work performed: First days of school for staff gifts and video. This task involved calling a representative to buy pins for staff members to be given out on their first day back. This is a proactive statement to staff members that we care about them and we are all going to make a difference to our students.

Date: August 21, 2010

Beginning Time: 10:00 Ending Time: 12:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed:

Date: August 22, 2010

Beginning Time: 3:00 Ending Time: 5:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed:

Date: August 23, 2010

Beginning Time: 9:00 Ending Time: 11:00 Total Time: 2

Narrative of work performed:

Next