Essay on "School Scenario Formal Response Letter"

Essay 4 pages (1339 words) Sources: 2

[EXCERPT] . . . .

School Scenario

Formal Response Letter to Mrs. Robertson

Mrs. Dorothy Robertson

2214 Elm Street, Trenton, NJ 08603

Robert Gonzales, Principal, Middle Fork Middle School

Rationale for why the principal said what was said to Mrs. Robertson

The principal of course does not know exactly what went wrong in that classroom but it was deemed important to back up the teacher until any evidence to the contrary is discovered. The letter to Mrs. Robertson was intended as an immediate formal response which acknowledged the parents' concern and a copy (cc) of the letter to Mrs. Robertson was sent to the superintendent. There were other possibilities in terms of how pornographic images were shown to a 7th grade classroom; for example, the computer Ms. Paulson was using could have been infected with some kind of malware of spyware or otherwise may have been hit with a virus. This could possibly explain why photos that are considered pornographic could have appeared; there may have been a pop-up and Ms. Paulson may have clicked on it without knowing its lurking danger and hence, uncomfortably raw photos may have been shown.

The most important point that was made to Mrs. Robertson was that the school is taking her concern seriously and is in the process of investigating. The immediacy of the response to Mrs. Robertson is more important than the principal's suggestions as to how this matter could have happened in the school's 7th grade classroom.

TWO: Developing a plan of action

(a) Identify what actions would be taken immediately. The

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first thing the principle needs to do is contact the district legal counsel to make certain that each step taken follows the spirit and the specifics of state and federal laws and of the Trent Public Schools regulations. Before the principal notifies any teachers, including Ms. Paulson, he needs to coordinate his actions with the superintendent, with the legal counsel, and with his assistant principals. He needs to be fully informed as to the way in which this incident can be thoroughly and legally investigated, without violating the rights of Ms. Paulson. The principal also needs to find out if the filtering software that is required of all Internet-accessed computers was working in Ms. Paulson's classroom at the time of the incident. If it wasn't working, why was it not operable? He needs to keep in mind this allegation came from one student: a) was this student believable; b) why weren't there complaints from the parents of other students; and c) if the school has a technology acceptable-use policy, how does that apply here?

(b) Which principles and issues relating to teacher supervision and evaluation are involved in this matter? The principal knows from personal experience that Ms. Paulson has trouble maintaining an orderly classroom. Indeed the principal has visited Paulson's classroom twice, and he should have had a conference with Paulson as regards her poor classroom discipline -- or otherwise he should have provided her with a support teacher aide or teacher training opportunities. Any teacher in a classroom with digital technologies that could conceivably be accessed by students should have very strict control over her class. The principal has shown a lack professionalism by failing to confront Paulson vis-a-vis her lack of discipline.

(c) Identify which board policies and state laws apply to the issues in this case. The laws in New Jersey require schools to follow federal guidelines (FCC issues guidelines); hence, "ALL Internet-accessible computers used by the schools and libraries…" must have filtering technologies whether or not they received federal funds (Children's Internet Protection Act) (CIPA) (www.state.nj.us). The Trenton Board of Education has set down rules, referred to as "Acceptable Use Of The Internet" (www.trenton.k12.nj.us). The guidelines include the fact that students "…shall not have access to inappropriate matter or content in the Internet… [and] Student use of the Internet shall be supervised by staff" (www.trenton.k12.nj.us). Moreover, the Trenton Board of Education requires that each principal shall ensure "…that staff receive proper training in the use of the [school's… READ MORE

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Quoted Instructions for "School Scenario Formal Response Letter" Assignment:

“

Scenario

Letter from a Parent

You are a newly appointed principal of a suburban middle school in a poor neighborhood. You are responsible for the education of approximately 1,200 students on campus, split evenly between sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. There are 80 certified teachers, 35 paraprofessionals and instructional aides, 12 administrative clerks, nine cafeteria workers and six custodians (two daytime and four on the night shift) working on campus each day.

Ms. Paully Paulson ***** Technology Teacher has been with the school for just over one full school year. She was hired the previous October as a long-term substitute for the Computer Technology Class when the teacher of record left as a result of a sudden illness. Ms. Paulson served in that position for 127 school days and was given a full teacher contract at the beginning of this school year. She has done a fairly good job up to this point and a review of her evaluation from last year indicates that, while she had some difficulty with classroom management and supervision of students, she received adequate evaluation marks. She has not expressed any concerns with these issues for this year, but you have dropped in on two separate occasions and observed her working with individual students while the rest of the class was left largely unsupervised. You have not mentioned this concern to her at this point, however.

Mrs. Robertson ***** Parent of a seventh-grade female student ***** has written a letter to the superintendent, who has passed that correspondence to you for action. The letter was received by the superintendent on Tuesday afternoon. The gist of the letter is that her daughter reported to her that she was exposed to several pornographic pictures on the big screen in her Computer Technology Class during 3rd hour this past Monday. A quick check of the attendance in that class on Monday shows that there were 27 students in attendance, 15 girls, 12 boys, and that Ms. Paulson was also in attendance. The classroom has a video projector hooked up to *****teacher***** computer that can access the internet. A quick check with both of your assistant principals indicates that they are unaware of any incident of this type being reported.

There are 2 parts to this essay writing the letter than the plan of action ***** I would like the letter with rationale to be the first page then the rest of the paper be the Plan of Action.

A) Write a formal response letter including a return address, date of letter, complete name of recipient, salutation, body of the letter, and a closing. This is standard business letter format.

(1) Follow the letter with a rationale for and insight into why you chose to say what you said in the response letter to Mrs. Robertson.

B)Developing a Plan of Action

(2) Assume the principal*****s role and develop a plan of action for an investigation into the allegations of possible misconduct on the part of Ms. Paulson.

(3) Consider the following in the plan*****s development:

(a) Identify what actions, if any, you would take immediately.

(b) Identify which principles and issues, relating to teacher supervision and evaluation, are potentially involved in the allegation.

(c) Identify which board policies and state laws apply to the issues underlying the allegations. (New Jersey law) --*****on Public Schools

(d) Determine whether a formal investigation is warranted or not. Explain your rationale.

(e) Identify the steps and a proposed timeline that you would use to investigate the allegations.

(f) Describe the investigative plan. explaining how you will:

(i) Choose the students and staff to interview. Why these people?

(ii) Conduct these interviews.

(g) Described how you will maintain confidentiality of the interviews and the allegations.

(h) Describe how you will communicate the issue and the details of the investigation to the media and the community, if necessary.

*****

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