Running Head: CREATING THE SCHOOL 1

Creating the School: Hypothetical School Exercise and Demographic Study

Exercise

DeAndre Carter

Concordia University Texas

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When an administrator has a vision of a perfect school, they are able to

take that vision and work in order to get their school to resemble their vision.

I imagine my school having a solid foundation of tradition, academics, and

extracurricular activities. My school will focus on the whole child and not just

one aspect.

My school will be a middle school with grades 6 through 8. I would am

to have 200 students in each grade level. The school will be designed for

students of low economic status all with very different ethnic backgrounds. I

believe diversity is important and student must be able to deal with all

people no matter their color.

The curriculum will be taught in alignment with the state standards,

however, the classes will look very different from regular classrooms. Our

classes will be structured based off of exploration. Instead of information

being fed to students, students will be involve in the discovery of why the

things they learn are important. They will do this by first exploring with

different things, engaging in debates, or solving a real world problem that

relates to their topic. Then students will actually learn the topic which will be

reinforced with a project. My school will not have a talent and gifted program

because all students will have high expectations. The school will have a

special education program for students who can meet the high requirements
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but still have a learning disability that requires slight modifications or

accommodations.

My school will need large classroom so teachers can do the

explorations and projects. It would need a large library good for research as

well space to work on projects outside of class. We will need a SPED

department as well as a large counseling staff so students will actually be

able to meet with their counselor and choose a career path for high school. I

also want three collegiate/career advisors that only focus on getting the

students to be aware and want to go to college or a career. The school will

have large office spaces so that the administrative and counselor teams

have more than enough space to do their job.

One issue that I can see arising from the school is finding enough

students capable of doing the work and meeting the expectations for the

school. I would like to find 200 per grade level but that may be difficult

especially with the competitive market schools are in right now.

My school will have athletics as well as several clubs for students to

get involved. I am a firm believer in educating the whole child and that

means we have to tend to their social needs and economic needs. The sports

will be a vessel for learning supporting the principles of diversity, hard work,

and critical thinking.

My current school has a history of being majority African American and

still is today with 70% of our students being African American and 30% being
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Hispanic. Currently we have 350 sixth graders, 300 seventh graders, and 320

eighth graders. We have 80% of our students living in poverty and we have

missed Index 1 on the state report the last two years. Typically we score in

the bottom half of the district on local and state exams. We have a total of

45 teachers with experience from no years to 42 years of experiences. We

have 5 staff members with advanced degrees. I would like to see my

hypothetical school have a little more diversity and less students. I would

keep the student-teacher ratio at 100 to 1 in order to pass all indexes. I also

would like my staff to be a little younger having zero to 15 years of

experience.

Climate of my current school is low with most teachers not involving

themselves in the culture of the school. We have teaching and learning going

on but most teachers have little to no relationship with the students. We

have invite only award ceremonies and have not received a distinction in two

years. Test scores are slowly increase in some grade level subjects of math,

decreasing in ELAR and Social Studies, and increasing in science. At my

hypothetical school, I would like to see a strong relationship between the

teachers and students. I want it to be as close as a partnership as possible

while still teaching authority and structure. My school will have several

awards banquets and have several opportunities for students to enjoy

coming to school like spirit week and homecoming pep rallies that involve

the entire school.

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References

Sherman, R., & Mixon, J. R. (2009). The principal's companion: A workbook for future school
leaders. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.