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Running head: DIRECT LOG WEEK SEVEN

Lindsay Gigous
DIRECT Log Week Seven
Drexel University
EDUC 828: Superintendent Internship: Parents and Schools
November 6, 2016

Describe
This week I attended the district social media meeting, which was a direct result from the
student crisis encountered last spring in the district I am interning in. It was helpful for me to see
my mentor reacting to a situation in a proactive way by having a parent meeting. She mentioned
in her welcome why this was an important issue for the parents to think about and how it was
related to their district. However, I was shocked to see that only eleven of the districts parents
showed up. To me, this was such a big issue that had received such a large public outcry, and yet,
six months later, parents had seemed to move on and no longer need to know directly how to
help their children in the same situation. As I sat in the meeting, I made a possible list of reasons
for the low turnout rate, including possible poor advertisement, too much time between incident
and workshop, and location choice, as there are four high schools in the district but this was held
at only one high school. I look forward to talking to my mentor next week to come up with an
action plan of how this same workshop could have been more powerful. The woman who gave
the workshop was a local technology expert who frequently appears on the news to discuss
technology. She had given a workshop geared towards students to the high school in which the
incident occurred back in September, which I felt was a great move on the districts part, but
perhaps this workshop should have been provided in that same time frame in order to be
effective for parents. Personally, I was shocked by the information I learned at the meeting, such
as the consequences for sending and receiving or forwarding sexts, which is something that all of
the parents were also unaware of. I admire the way that the district chose a topic that was
relevant and factual for parents, but I am still dismayed at how many parents showed up.

Identify
The ISLLC standard that I feel is most relevant to this situation is Standard 3: A school
administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of every student by
collaborating with faculty and community members, responding to diverse community interests
and needs, and mobilizing community resources. The Drexel competency that this opportunity
allowed me to develop was range of interest.
Reflect
In this district, I have seen the handling of a crisis situation and the aftermath of it. I
assumed that this workshop would still carry a lot of weight and value to the parents, but I
learned that there are many factors that create public outcry, and one huge factor is the medias
portrayal of the situation. To me, the small turnout just showed that parents were not as
concerned about social media as the media and news outlets reported them to be. Of course, there
could be other reasons why the parents did not show up, which I took note of to discuss with my
mentor, but I think this was a situation in which it was evident that the outcry did not match the
number of people truly willing to do something about it. For me, as a future administrator, I want
to examine why because I know the value in parents participating in school events. This may
stem from my early childhood background in knowing how parents should be viewed as partners
in the learning process, but I dont think this ends after the children reach elementary school age.
I believe that parents still need to be encouraged to attend school events, especially ones that
revolve around current trends and topics that their teenagers are facing, and especially ones that
have had a direct effect on the students in this district.

Evaluate & Connect


I have become very reflective as a result of this program, and in my reflections, I am not
afraid to identify weaknesses or areas of improvement. For me, if something does not go as
planned, I am able to re-evaluate it, weigh out what the potential reasons for that were, and reimplement. In this situation, as a superintendent, I would try to implement this same workshop
again, but using different methods. Maybe combining it with a different school event, such as an
open house, might make this a more well-attended event. Maybe having one workshop at each of
the four high schools would have increased attendance. I think that as school leaders, we need to
be willing to identify what causes certain events to not go well and we need to not be afraid to
admit when we were unsuccessful. Leaders are willing to try again and motivate others using
methods that they have thought out. As we identified leadership skills necessary to run a district
earlier in the Drexel program, I discussed foresight and how important that is to have in any
leadership situation, but I also realize the value in the ability to look back at something and
evaluate how it went. All of these DIRECT logs have allowed me to do that, and at this point in
the program, I have successfully learned how to apply that same type of evaluation and reflection
to school district situations. As a teacher who was groomed using Charlotte Danielsons
framework, I have always been able to do this in the classroom, but now as a budding
administrator, I see that this skill is something that I can extend into looking at school events and
functions as well.
Toward New Actions
In looking at how I can utilize this small turnout to learn from, I plan to discuss the
reasons for the low turnout with my mentor so that I can determine what the next steps should

be. I also decided that I want to reach out to my department chair to ask if it would be possible
for me to teach our Parent/Family/School Interaction class so that I can have further
conversations with students about ideas for engagement. I find that students, who are often
parents themselves, have great insights as to what will encourage others to participate.
Hours Log
11/1/16 (3 hours)
Weekly meeting with mentor
Completed weekly readings
Completed discussion board
11/2/16 (3 hours)
Portfolio formatting and artifact creation
Work Your Dreams Using The Leadership Competencies webinar
Kids Deserve It!: Positive School Culture webinar
11/3/16 (2 hours)
Social Media Meeting
11/4/16 (2 hours)
Completed DIRECT log
Total Hours Completed This Week: 10
Total Hours Completed This Semester: 67.5/100
Total Hours For All Internships: 373.5

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