Woodall 1

Anna Woodall
November 18, 2014
Educational Psychology
Artifact Paper
Diversity Scenario
Creating a school board for any school is no easy task. The members of
the board must balance each other out so as not to show undue favoritism
but they must also be representative of the area in which the school is
placed. That being said, with the demographics I was given I tried to make
my school board of six people as balanced as possible.
My ideal school board would be as follows. Of the six I would aim to
have one person each from the Hispanic, African-American, Native American
and White groups and two people that would be classified as Other. This
would give every culture a voice but hopefully also keep them balanced so
that one group cannot act solely based on their own interests. As for age I
would have three members from the 40-50 age group, two members from
the 50-60 age group and one member from the retired group. This would put
the majority of the board at or near the ages of parents who have students in
secondary school, which might enable them to make more informed
decisions. In the financial realm of things I would have one member each
from the minimum wage jobs and 50-60,000 annually groups and two

Woodall 2

members each from the social security/unemployment/retirement checks

and 35-45,000 annually groups. This is still in the interest of keeping things
balanced but also representing the bulk of the population.
As far as the selection criteria for the school board members, I would
want them to be involved in the school system in some way either as a
teacher or administrator or even simply as a parent or guardian of one of the
students. The one thing I do not want would be people coming in who do not
know the system or the area and expecting to make arbitrary changes
without knowing how it might affect things. Once I find people who would be
interested in serving on the board the selection process would involve an
interview with me (including a resume and all the regular interview
trappings) as well as a written explanation of why they think they ought to
be considered for such a position. From there I would select 6 people who fit
the aforementioned criteria.
Once the school board was up and running I would swap out half of the
members every two years. That way I would never have to deal with an
entirely new board of people, and there would be some consistency for the
school as far as who makes the decisions. Members would be allowed to
serve for more than one consecutive term but they would have to go through
the whole selection process (interview and written explanation) again to be
considered.

Woodall 3

Once my board was in place and functioning properly I would turn my

attention to school itself. I was given a list of eight problems that my school
has, and given 2 years to address them. These problems were gangs,
bullying, low teacher morale, poor attendance, teen pregnancy, drugs and
little parental involvement. Of the issues presented, the first four I would
address would be Low teacher morale, poor attendance, gangs and drugs.
I chose these four to be first because I believe they affect the other
issues somewhat. To combat any of the problems on the list I would need the
support of the administration, namely the teachers, so low morale would
need to be corrected quickly. Also, solutions will be impossible to implement
if the students are never at school, so poor attendance makes the list as well.
Of the remaining problems, I chose the two that I thought were the most
likely to pose a danger to the student population as a whole, drugs and
gangs.
In order to help correct these problems I would first work on morale
boosting for the teachers. Using activities and educational seminars I would
attempt to build school spirit and form a team out the educators who would
be working alongside me to fight these issues. I would want the school board
members to participate in these as well, because I think it is important for
them to know exactly what is going on in the schools. After that, I would
make a joint effort by the school board, teachers, and local townsfolk to get
the students to come back to school. I would enact closed campus policies to

Woodall 4

make it harder to leave once they were on campus but I would also improve
campus life in hopes that they would be encouraged to stay on their own.
To deal with the drugs and gangs there would a zero tolerance policy
for the whole school district. Any violence or drug use would be dealt with
not by taking the students out of school but by mandatory counseling and
community service. The approach would be individualized to help the
student see their errors and eventually succeed. Success for all four of these
problems would be measured in different ways, but most by the numbers. If
more students show up and gangs and drugs decrease, were doing pretty
well.
The second year at my school the problems I would address would be
the issues of bullying, low test scores, teen pregnancy and little parental
involvement. My approach to bullying would be very similar to the one I took
to combat the drugs and gangs problems. Lots of teacher involvement as
well as personalized plans for the offenders would hopefully help students to
improve. Low test scores would require a little more planning on the part of
individual teachers but one of the things I would do school wide would be to
set up a tutoring program which students who were not doing well in
subjects would be required to make use of. In this program they would be
tutored by their peers or other teachers who could cover the subject
material.

Woodall 5

Teen pregnancy would also be an interesting issue to combat in my

school. I would probably go at this by starting a district wide campaign that
the school board would head up, teaching the downsides of teen pregnancy
and ways to avoid it. However, I would also have the school board include
options for girls who are already pregnant and are unsure what to do about
it. Getting parents more involved in the school would be a challenge that I
would ask not only the school board to help me with but the students as well.
If the students want their parents to support them in what they are doing the
parents will be more likely to come out and see their children. I would also
set up several different ways for parents to be involved such as booster
programs for sports or clubs or even a PTA. Success for all of this would be
measured by the growth of the students and our school programs.
All of these issues are once that a school might conceivable face within
its career but I believe that with parents, school boards, students and
teachers working together any problem can be overcome.