Welcome

I would like to just take a minute and welcome my follower's.  I am in the processes of looking for other blogs to follow so if you have any insight please let me know.  I am also looking for constructive feedback so please if you have any suggestions or comments in regards to my current research topic or any of my posts please feel free to do so.

Once again welcome and happy reading & blogging.

Action Reasearch Plan

GOAL: 

Increase Parental Involvement at the 1^st Grade Elementary Level of Migrant Students

OUTCOMES	ACTIVITIES	RESOURCES/ RESEARCH TOOLS NEEDED	RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS ACTIVITIES	TIME LINE	Benchmarks/ ASSESSMENT	Revisions to SIP/PIP based on monitoring and assessments
Identify possible causes for minimal migrant parental involvement for 1st grade migrant students	Interview Mrs. Oralia Romero, PIP Clerk, Interview Mr. Umberto Flores Principal, Interview Dr. Maria Vidaurri, Asst. Superintendent of C&I. Interview various Migrant parents. Conduct a survey via surveymonkey.com for parents, Interview teachers with migrant students in the classroom.	Tape recorder, Prepared interview questions, Online access to create surveys on www.surveymonkey.com, List of migrant students and parent information to make contacts. Parental Involvement focus group, Time	Pamela J. Garrett	October- November 2012	Review data collected through online survey/ paper copies of survey, review interviews,
Identification of possible activities or accommodations to be implemented.	Follow up interviews with Mrs. Oralia Romero, PIP Clerk, Mr. Umberto Flores Principal,  Dr. Maria Vidaurri, Asst. Superintendent of C&I,  various Migrant parents, and teachers with migrant students in the classroom.	Tape recorder, Prepared updated and more concise interview questions, Online access to create surveys on www.surveymonkey.com, List of migrant parent’s that are currently not participating as parental volunteers Time List of proposed ideas/ strategies Parental Involvement Focus Group	Pamela J. Garrett	November – December 2012	A proposal listing the ideas and requests/ new strategies to increase parental involvement among the migrant parent population.
Increase in migrant parental involvement	Implement new strategies/ ideas that have been uncovered due to the research. Apply new knowledge towards increasing parental involvement for each year.	Time, Conduct count of migrant parents registering to be parent volunteers, and attending parental involvement meetings, Creation of parent survey’s to be used as evaluation of parent meetings.	Pamela J. Garrett	January- February 2012	Annual Parent Conference held at the end of January for entire district. Evaluate the number of elementary migrant parents in attendance. Conduct parent surveys to determine the main area of interest for following  year.

Where have all the parents gone?

Parental Involvement? What does this even mean to the parents of todays youth? What are teachers suppose to do when they spend 5 days a week, 8 hours + a day, and countless hours worrying about someone else's child just to find out that these so called parents don't care about the kids?  As a teacher I see and hear it every day from teachers. Teacher's that are at their wits end and call a parent just to hear its your problem deal with it. We have kids that are calling out for attention in every thing they do, from using foul language to not doing anything at all.
This week I learned that there may be a way for me to alleviate some stress from the backs of my fellow teachers. Instead of sitting idly by I can be proactive and do something. This is my action research topic, and I plan to take action. This research I believe will not only benefit teachers, but individual students, and possibly school performance, and school community in the form of morale for teachers.

Educational Leaders

I believe blogs for educational leaders should become an essential means of communication. Sometimes we are unable to connect with people via phone, email, and face book because people lately seem to be continuously on the go.  With a blog you are able to comment and receive feedback.  Many times blogs can be anonymous which means the main contributor can stay unnamed, and therefore they are able to speak freely. 

Action Research

I have recently learned that action research is an amazing tool that allows teachers and administrators alike to have concerns with what is being done.  It gives the school officials and those who know of the issue whether it is a child, or another type of hindrance the school may have, and gives the power back to those who need it in order to make a change.  Now administrators and teachers alike don't have to take the sole advice of a text book junky on how to handle the budget crisis, disrespectful students, or just a teachers everyday crutch on, "How do I teach the one child that just seems not to grasp anything." Teachers now are able to form learning communities within their grade levels or across several grade levels. By doing this they are able to learn from each other’s mistakes and come up with new innovative ways of approach.  I plan to really push the PLC at my school and learn from my mistakes and others and reach out for new ideas.  I plan on taking the one topic that really rubs me the wrong way and that is our current bilingual education system and conduct my own action research. I would love to find out why and how we are able to let down so many young and adolescent students alike.