Saturday, April 27, 2013

Note Of Thanks


I would like to thank Dr. Thomason and my colleagues for the feedback they have provided me with during the Communication and Collaborating in the Early Childhood Field course. I appreciate the insight and ideas you have shared during this period. My wish for you as a colleague is to fulfill your desires in life and on your professional journey.

My Email is: williams606@att.net

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Working In Groups/Teams


The adjourning stage makes me think of my colleagues at the end of a school year and my graduate school colleagues at the end of a course. In both groups expectations are established and we should be high in performance. The groups that have clearly established norms would be the hardest to leave because the expectations are known and goals have been voiced.

When we end a school year we go out to eat and enjoy each other we talk about individual plans we may have during our vacation. My colleagues in graduate school we end up by thanking each other for be supportive with comments they have provided during the course and wish them the best on their educational journey. My hopes are to wish everyone future success on their educational journey and for them to be prosperous and obtain all the goals they set.

The adjourning stage is where we evaluate what happens and capture lessons learned. This will provide an opportunity to say goodbye to each other and wish each other luck on future endeavors (Abudi, 2010).   

Reference

Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Conflict Resolution


Our school district is one of many in the State of Louisiana that are faced with losing state funding. Remind you that our school district is number two in the state with Leap and ACT testing we have an overall grade of A out of seventy other school districts. On last week the Superintendent of our school system met with us and told the employees they would be laying off 18- 20 teacher for the next school year. Other districts do not offer a free universal Pre-K program they charge parents monthly for those services. Employees have voiced their opinion stating maybe they should charge a fee Pre-K programs so you would not have to fire these teachers and it would also bring money to the district.

I work with the Head Start program that is federally funded and the school board is our grantee this would not affect us unless the school board decide to stop being the grantee for the program. On the other hand the sequester that we are dealing with Congress cutting 5%of funding for all Early Head Start and Head Start programs will have an effect on us. I made a suggestion that if parents provide supplies such as pampers, milk, wipes, paper towels, crayons, markers, playdoh and ziploc bags plus if we let an employee drive the bus route that has a CDL license we can cancel the contract and this would help out with money’s being spent and save the program.
I can implement the win/win approach of the conflict resolution kit and their strategies of going back to the underlying needs and attack the problem not the people.
Now I would pose a question to my colleagues for suggestion with these issues we are faced with.
Conflict Resolution Network. (n.d.). CR kit. Retrieved from http://www.crnhq.org/pages