My preliminary action research plan.

1.    Examining the work: Setting the Foundation – What is causing, or why do some students, have an attendance problem within the school day, but show little to no discipline problems otherwise? I began working with a research team January 2013 to address this issue within our school. Through preliminary observations the kids, when at school, were functional and successful within the classroom environment but were at various risk levels of losing credit because of attendance. These seem to be the kids that should have a positive and successful high school career, but are currently on the road to lost credits and possibly not reaching graduation. Since it should be our goal to graduate 100% of our kids at a high level, this is a failure that needs to be fixed within our system.

2.    Analyzing data – The initial data that will be analyzed will be through the student selection process. Because the student population that will be looked at is a very specific population data will have to be used the selection process.

3.    Developing deeper understanding – Once selected, the students will be discreetly observed within the classroom environment to log common activities and actions the student uses frequently and identify a common theme if one emerges. After observations, the students may be interviewed in an attempt to see what their perceptions/reasons are of why their attendance is low.

4.    Engaging in Self-Reflection – After gathering the quantitative and qualitative data of the selected students, and highlighting areas of concern, we as a campus must reflect on what we do that either drives students away from school or brings them in. After identifying the problem areas through our student group, we must decide if and how much we can affect those areas as teachers/administrators.

5.    Exploring Programmatic Patterns – The patterns in data is what is driving this research project. Highlighting a group of students that are lacking in a specific way at our school and attempting to seek out a solution in order to level the playing field for them in some way.

6.    Determining direction – In order to complete this project we will gather a team of teachers and administrators to help observe and analyze data. Though the basic direction is already decided, through a series of meetings the team will collectively decide final direction and facilitate that direction.

7.    Taking action for school improvement – For immediate action we, as a team, will meet with our lead principal and present our findings to determine what is deemed appropriate for us to do at our campus in the short term.

8.    Sustaining improvement – Any short term fix will be just that, an attempt to solve the problem as it stands in front of us. In order to prevent this problem from reoccurring we will need to put it into a presentation model, and be able to use the data collected in future staff development meetings.

Team selection, initial data review, student selection, and one round of observations should be concluded before the end of the 1^st semester of the upcoming 2013-2014 school year. A final model representing the research and its findings should be completed by the end of April 2014. Smaller, more frequent, goals to ensure progress will be set during the team’s first meeting.