Each writing assessment prompt is designed to focus on one specific aspect of this course. It is an opportunity to explore the topic in depth in a narrative response that integrates practical experience, research, and reflection. In your response, be sure to include at least three scholarly research citations, and one of those must come from the required course text.

Focus: School Culture and Climate

Role: Your principal unexpectedly won the lottery, and you were assigned the new building principal for your current (real life) school.

Problem: You must assess the current school climate and culture. There have been reports of parent dissatisfaction with the school culture, teacher responsiveness, and inclusiveness on the part of students and parents. You need to understand if these are true or just “office gossip”.

Prompt: Respond to all the guiding questions below to assess the reality of the situation you have inherited. Create a 400-500 written narrative that clearly and comprehensively addresses all questions. Identify any gaps or areas of concern, and then develop a 90-day plan to address them. Your action plan can be a MS Word or Excel table included in your narrative.

Guiding Questions:

If you were a parent and walked into a school, what might you see or hear there that would cause you to say to yourself: “I would like my own child to attend this school”?
Looking at the school setting, do your goals include “what we want”? Explain your answer. What is “high-level learning”? What does it include?
Most educators recognize the subtle influence of institutional regulations on the school culture; with this in mind respond to the following questions:
How do teachers and other staff treat the students?
When students go to the office, are they kept waiting while the office staff talks?
Are student requests treated as unwelcome interruptions?
Are all students regarded as either real or potential troublemakers?
Are students permitted to assume genuine responsibility for their achievements?
Are the rules for attendance and homework sufficiently flexible to accommodate individual circumstances?
Are students permitted to establish and maintain a culture that systematically discriminates against peers?
Are bullying and its effects on its victims tolerated?
What types of beliefs might find their way into a school’s philosophy and have the potential to drive practice?
What staff attitudes, if universally adopted, might set the stage for a school culture of learning and success?
As the school leader, how would you help staff and parents explore the school’s beliefs and their impact on the school?
Other assignment guidelines:

400-500 word narrative essay format
MS Word or Excel chart for your action plan embedded in your narrative
Use APA 7 formatting guidelines for scholarly citations.
Carefully proof your narrative adhering to the writing mechanics for good grammar, punctuation, and scholarly writing style.

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Assignment #1 – Refining the School’s Mission, Vision, and Values Statements (20 points)

Due End of Week 1

Role: You are an assistant principal at your school.

Goal: To assist your school principal in the process of improving your school’s mission, vision, and values statements.

Product:

Write recommendations to create or clarify the school mission, vision, and values statements for your school and a plan for doing so.

Define define these terms, explain the purpose, and explain why it is important for a school to have a clear mission, vision, and set of values.
Explain who should participate in the process of creating or revising the school’s mission, vision and values statements.
Recommend strategies to create and deepen people’s understanding of your school’s mission, vision, and values statements.
Your recommendations should show a clear understanding and use of Systems Theory.
Include a minimum of four (4) peer-reviewed, scholarly references (dated 2018-2023; one of those must be from your course textbook) to support your narrative.
Paper Outline: (Use these headings at a minimum to organize your paper’s narrative.)

Introduction – Provide an overview of the assignment and your role as the assistant principal
Definition and Purpose – Define these terms, explain the purpose, and explain why it is important for a school to have a clear mission, vision, and set of values.
Stakeholder Participation – Identify which and how stakeholders should participate in the process of creating or refining school mission, vision, and values statements
Strategies – Identify how to create and deepen understanding of the school’s mission, vision, and values statements
System Theory – Identify how it applies to creating or clarifying the mission, vision, and values statements
Conclusion – Summarize the narrative
General Assignment Guidelines

Based on the guidelines outlined above, create a 3-4 page (not counting the cover or reference pages) narrative essay that addresses and includes all bulleted points above.
At a minimum, use the subheadings listed in the assignment to organize your paper
Select at a minimum four (4) peer-reviewed, scholarly sources of literature (2018-2023) to identify the current state of scholarship on your topic. One of these sources must include your course textbook (Joe Roberts Blase, Blasé, J., & Dana Yon Phillips. (2010).
Include a Fischler College of Education APA 7 standard cover page fse_standard_format.pdf
Include a properly formatted reference page/list, in APA 7 format, for all the research resources examined and included in the paper.