Woodward adapts to K-12 principal position

By RICHARD JENKINS

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Ironwood - It's 7 a.m. - 1 hour before classes start - and Ironwood K-12 Principal Denise Woodward is arriving for another day at Luther L. Wright.

Upon arriving at her office, she is greeted by three students turning in a cell phone found outside the school and a student returning from a disciplinary issue.

"It kicks in quick around here," Woodward said. "Honestly, I have no idea what time I have to be here to beat the first kids here."

By 7:05, these issues are handled and Woodward begins one of her weekly tasks - composing the Friday morning shout-out, an email blast sent out to the staff regarding positive things related to the school.

"I like to get something positive out to the staff," she said, explaining items included in the email could be as simple as marking a teacher's birthday or anniversary.

Following the email, Woodward walks the halls, greeting everyone she meets - while also dealing with how to recharge the lunchroom/recess monitors' radios - before meeting the school buses as they drop students off at the front of the school.

This provides Woodward a good opportunity to catch kids and discuss any minor behavior issues that need to be addressed.

Once the students arrive, Woodward returns to office to handle a range of other issues including discussing the planning of several upcoming school concerts with music teacher Sandra Genisot and reviewing the meetings scheduled throughout the day with Dean of Students Dan Niemi.

After these meetings – both scheduled and impromptu – are done, Woodward meets with board secretary/superintendent Carolyn Mieloszyk to pick up applications for substitute positions for the district's support staff.

She then answers several phone messages that have been left for her and gets an update on the district's technology audit - including what equipment she needs to locate - before leaving to attend a citizenship ceremony for the kindergarten through second grade classes.

It's now 8:30 a.m.

8:30 a.m.

The assembly is a monthly event where a student from each class is recognized for that month's character trait. September's trait was respect.

Following the assembly, Woodward has to help handle a minor school safety issue that lasted for around 15 minutes.

Upon returning to her office, Woodward calls several students out of class for discipline issues.

She, along with Niemi, key teachers and other staff members, is working on developing a new discipline system for the district, she explained. The new program is designed to be more collaborative and minimize the amount of time students are kept out of the classroom.

The program, informally referred to as the "choices program," isn't being formalized into an official policy at this point as the district continues to conduct a trial run to work out the issues before it's officially adopted.

"This program is designed to try to get students (to be) more reflective of what they do and deal with (issues) immediately. In the past, if a teacher were to write a discipline referral for students, they might not even find out they had Saturday school until Friday when all the kids were called down to the office for the Saturday school referral. In a seventh grader's world, what they did on Monday was a really long time ago," Woodward said. "... What we are trying to do is deal with situations immediately as they arise and be diligent about ... having discussions with parents because they need to be brought in on that. Sometime that's all that needs to be done."

Among the changes being implemented is the elimination of Saturday school.

"In years past (Saturday school) was an effective program but it's losing effectiveness ... it's lost its luster so to speak," Woodward said. "If students don't report to Saturday school, then the policy is they get suspended Monday. A full day of out-of-school suspension isn't working for the kids we need to have in our schools. There are higher academic standards and we need to keep kids in classes, learning."

The new system features a number of different steps built into it, with consequences slowly escalating depending on seriousness and frequency of the student's behavior. Initially, many of the incidents will be handled by the teachers without escalating and involving other staff members.

"The classroom teacher has the latitude, if you will, to be able to reteach expectations, to adapt the curriculum, to change seats, contact parents by phone, send a letter, however they want to do it," Woodward said. "But after they've done some of these things and the problem continues, then (the student) gets referred to the 'choices program', which Mr. Niemi and myself are handling."

Several steps are included in program, ranging from having students write a "change plan" or simply contacting parents to in-school suspensions ranging from an hour for younger students to full days for older students.

"Basically the concept behind this is assigning meaningful, age-appropriate consequences," Woodward said. "... We don't want to be inconsistent, we want to develop a consistent approach."

The system also features the possibility of referring to a newly created restorative justice advisory group comprised of individuals who have worked with students and in the school system in the past.

This group will be able to work with students to follow up and help refer family to applicable support and services available in the community, Woodward said.

"This whole program is really designed to be helpful. Yes, consequences are part of this process, but 'meaningful consequences' is a phrase I keep going back to. It's just as much our job to teach correct behavior and good citizenship as it is academics. So we are kind of shifting away from the approach where we just assign consequences without any follow through."

While out-of-school suspensions will still be used in major cases - especially those that involve student safety - Woodward said, the program seeks to solve issues before they escalate.

"I guess we are just trying to be proactive and supportive of families, because all kids make mistakes, but it's how we approach those mistakes ... that's the concept behind this new program."

She hopes to continue to implement the program over the course of the year and said feedback from both parents and students has been positive so far.

Woodward then meets the parents of a student for approximately 30 minutes.

After the meeting Woodward said it went well and noted that it's almost always good when parents come in to deal with situations.

"It's positive when parents are proactive and come in so we can address the situation early," she said.

11:05

It's now 11:05 and time for Woodward to visit the school's cafeterias while the students have lunch. There she meets with JROTC instructors 1st Sgt. William Murphy and Col. Sandra Keefer, who have been helping monitor the cafeteria during lunches.

Generally, either Woodward, Niemi or Superintendent Tim Kolesar try to make an appearance during lunch to ensure that traffic continues to flow smoothly and issues don't arise.

"It's working great," Woodward said, adding there were some minor issues at the beginning of the year but students have gotten use to the system now.

11:35

By 11:35 she is back to the office and meeting with another student and take care of other business.

So far the day has been fairly routine, Woodward said, and she estimates roughly 10 percent of her day is pre-planned with the rest filled with unexpected issues.

The steady flow of unexpected challenges means she must develop the skills to solve whatever issues arise, Woodward said. t also prevents her from doing certain tasks - such as spending more time in the classroom. She hopes to increase the amount of classroom time as the year continues and a routine is developed.

"I just want to stay connected with the kids and teachers," she explained.

She also thanked all the staff who have stepped up to the plate and helped the school year run smoothly so far.

"The teachers and paraprofessionals are the eyes and ears of everything. They are great at doing interventions themselves but they really keep me and Mr. Niemi in the loop," she said, adding that for every problem that makes it to her desk, there are a many more that have been resolved by the other staff members.

After meeting with the student, Woodward works on an effort to build staff community and team spirit. One of the ways she is attempting to build camaraderie is the development of special staff "holidays" where they dress according to the day's theme, such as college-apparel day.

She then calls a volunteer for an "adopt a classroom" project where each of the school's K-6 classrooms can be "adopted," by a volunteer who helps support the teacher by either reading a story to students, attending field trips or whatever other means of support they would like to provide.

While she has more to do in her office, Woodward is called to the playground at 11:50 for a student who fell while climbing on the playground equipment. After talking to the student and providing ice, Woodward returns to the principal's office.

As recess is ongoing, the office has turned into a bit of a field hospital with staff handling both physical and emotional injuries.

Woodward jumps right in, talking to a student who claims to be unable to move her arm.

Once students have returned to class, Woodward reviews several truancy letters created by Niemi - another new development the district is working on.

Three letters will be sent to students as necessary, one warning that the limit on number of days missed is approaching, one when the limit is hit and a third informing parents that the student is being referred to the truancy officer.

After more work in her office, Woodward heads to another citizenship assembly for the third through sixth graders.

It's 2:27 p.m.

2:27 p.m.

Walking to the assembly, Woodward reflects that she now interacts with students in all grades rather than just those she had in class.

"I was worried about losing my connection with kids when I left the classroom, but I've met so many more," she said.

The assembly lasts for the remainder of the school day, after which Woodward monitors dismissals - a repeat of her morning routine at the buses - before returning to her office.

At approximately 4 p.m. - 9 hours after arriving - she finally heads home.

Normally she said stays until 6 p.m., however, she has a family function in Chicago over the weekend. So, for the first time since the school year started, she is leaving early.