Weekly ZEST meeting notes: November 21, 2011

Attendance: Ellen, Clarissa, Brenda, Alison, Michelle, Susan, Linda

Update from Saturday:
continued with 4 things we want to accomplish by dec 23
teacher survey- Clarissa and Linda will organize
club fair is on for December 6
discussed teacher aspect of school website, pr
created possible teacher survey questions

For featured teachers (NOT calling it teacher of the month), we will work by department- we will feature an entire department, volunteers from an entire department. As fast as we can get it done- not monthly.

Michelle: at the end of every Monday ZEST meeting, we should post what has been discussed on ZEST blog… the core group has access to dropbox, but other stakeholders (GAs, other community members) don’t have access

Michelle: survey is to gage teacher morale, find out about their use of social media

Clarissa and Linda share possible survey questions (now in dropbox courtesy of Ellen)

Ellen: they should be two separate surveys. There is also a teacher morale survey in our email inboxes from the DOE- job satisfaction and retention- maybe something to consider in creating our survey

Club fair
Katia: Club fair is Tues Dec 6 per 4-8 in Student Cafeteria: i need volunteers to staff the club fair and volunteers to hold meetings with club advisers. Other needs for club fair:

• long table from teacher’s cafeteria
• print out information sheets for each club (problem with that is that we have no paper- clubs should do this on their own)
• poster from each club, created by club members
• one or two representatives from each club per period
• signup sheet for each club

Escobores is working on new club directory, so ZEST does not need to take on that task

We will hold meetings with club advisers on 11/29 to make sure they are prepared for the club fair…

Agenda for club adviser meetings (11/29)

• basic info for club fair (date, time, location)
• go over materials that each club should bring:
• signup sheets/waiting lists (for clubs that feel there are already too many members)
• posters
• any other materials/info/props
• get names of student leaders who will
• questions, concerns, suggestions

Who will lead the club adviser meetings? (all take place in 118)
Susan and Clarissa 3rd period
Ellen 5th period
Alison 6th period
Brenda/Cathia 7th
Susan 9th
Alison 10th

Far future goal: fundraising fair for the school- Clarissa has experience with this

Website- we should have a formal student focus group to get feedback/generate ideas for website; should also get feedback on our current taxonomy from parents

Agenda points for next week’s meeting:

• we should look at the list of new clubs that students want and see which clubs could exist solely on facebook, then plan around that
• we should also discuss ways to get “brick and mortar” or real life clubs going- strategize around finding advisers, sending out “will you be an adviser” email to faculty, etc
• plan for student focus group for website (to be held Monday Dec 5)
• dedicate some time to discussing ways to get more teachers to attend grant writing team meetings

 

Action items

• Alison: posting weekly meeting notes on ZEST blog (in the future this responsibility will fall to whoever takes notes each week)
• Katia: send an email to club advisers telling them there will be meetings tuesday 11/29; ask them to email us the names of students (at least 1 per period) who will staff the tables; make sure to say that this will be a short meeting; send to Meyerson + Scandura to fwd to the entire school
• Alison will bring hard copies of new clubs that students want to next Monday’s meeting
• Everyone: look at timelines in dropbox and edit, revise, comment as necessary
• Ellen: get Mrs. Prince to give feedback (WRITTEN), discuss with her developing a parent focus group

Reflecting on change: after more than a month, where do we stand?

From the beginning of our involvement with the Creative Pedagogies for School Change program at the New School, our group has been focused on the idea of student empowerment. By the end of the 2010-2011 school year, we came up with a change plan that attempted to promote student empowerment by engaging students in leadership activities at school and by fostering teacher-student relationships. We closed the year by meeting with our faculty and informally surveying them on what they saw as the “bright spots” at Clara Barton and their ideas for the coming school year.

During the summer institute at the New School, two things happened within our team. We were inspired by our classes to make social media use a key element of our theory of change; and we completely restructured our change map, both to include social media tools and to clarify our outcomes and workstreams. We believed then as we do now that tools such as facebook, wordpress, and twitter have the potential to provide a democratic, non-heirarchical space for communication, a way for students and teachers to make their voices heard, and a stepping stone to empowerment.

In restructuring our change plan, we divided responsibilities and leadership roles amongst our seven team members. We set many goals for ourselves, and we were confident that as a large team, we could distribute our work in such a way that made our goals acheivable. Yet while we began the work of restructuring our change plan this summer, we started the school year with our new change plan still in a very rough form.

Successes

Several clubs have been successfully using social media tools to engage students this year. Facebook groups were established for three new after-school clubs: Clara Barton Fashionistas (fashion and design), The Artists of Clara Barton (current and former art students) and Lyrical Genius (poetry club). Lyrical Genius is also using willyou.typewith.me to document club related organizational things. The facebook groups allow students to participate even when they can’t make it to a physical meeting. They also provide a space for students to share their artwork which many students and alumni are taking advantage of, forming a virtual community of artists and writers.

Challenges

Upon returning to school in September, we found that a number of unforseen things hindered the progress of our change plan. There has been some resistance to the use of social media both from school leadership and from teachers. After our change team spoke at a faculty meeting about the exciting social media work that we hope to do this year, our UFT chapter leader warned the entire faculty that using social media could endanger their jobs. Many teachers are already resistant to using technology or lack basic computer skills, and this did not help our case. (However, several teachers at Clara Barton already use tools such as facebook and twitter, and as the semester has progressed, these teachers have expressed their support for and interest in our change plan).

Another hindrance we met with involves a serious reduction in our school’s resources, both technological and otherwise. Computer equipment was damaged during the summer break, and the staff responsible for maintining the equipment has been severely reduced due to budget cuts. Budget cuts have also reduced the availability of even basic supplies such as paper, creating a stressful environment for faculty and in some cases feelings of cynicism and hopelessness.

A third set of problems– problems we believe need to be addressed before we move forward with our change plan– involve the level of participation within our own change team. We were working under the assumption that we would be able to meet weekly in the same time slot as last year. After the start of the semester, meeting times and requirements changed, and our team members were split into separate mandated planning groups. Several members of our team have also been required to take on extra commitments this semester, which makes it difficult to find a regular meeting time. To address this issue we have attempted to use social media tools to virtually communicate with our change team, but this too has proved challenging. Several of our team members have not regularly accessed our facebook group and many have had difficulty accessing dropbox. Without regular face to face or virtual contact, our team cannot reach the level of clarity or shared understanding necessesary to refine the change plan that we started this summer; and without clarity, shared understanding, and regular contact, we cannot move forward in implementing our ambitious plans.

Questions

After examining our challenges we are left with many questions: How do we promote the use of social media tools to teachers who view them as dangerous or unnecessary? How do we sustain our own excitement and commitment in the face of the challenges that this year has brought our team members? How can we use social media as a catalyst for school change when our own team has difficulty using the tools we hope to promote? Should we continue to push for alternative times and spaces for our team to meet? Or do we need to refine our ambitious change plan to reflect the current reality– that we cannot regularly meet as a team of seven?

Welcome to ZEST

ZEST! is a team of teachers and students at Clara Barton High School who are interested in creating a vibrant, empowered learning community. This encourages students and teachers to share their knowledge so as to develop, grow and change. We believe Freire’s view that “only through communication can human life hold meaning.”