April Recap
35 entries were submitted to our Self-Study Response Feedback Form. Here are the questions, followed by a summary of the responses:
Additional Calendar and Class Size Insights:
The "calendar also supports stewardship, community relations and educationally-related activities not only for Punahou but for Hawaii's educators who attend many workshops and conferences on our campus.
The core calendar is determined by the ALT committee. But the remaining list of calendar records evolve as a result of pro-active conversation and an exchange of information and understanding from many department reps, who comprise our campus community. This year, our master calendar meeting was attended by 30 people whose interests ranged from academic to support services, administration, and to co-&-extra-curricular issues. In an hour, we poured over nearly 1,000 records to format the base of next year's school calendar. Our conversations took time for unique opportunities: the 100th anniversary of PFA and the 175th anniversary of the school. We were transparent and supportive of each other. That, to me, is what makes our campus so successful." "The Junior School calendar, esp. for middle school teachers, does NOT allot "time needed for assessment and grade processing." There are always teaching days leading up to grade deadlines, with constant student contact throughout." "I wouldn't say that the Academy's student/teacher ratio is 85 students per teacher, that ratio is highly misleading. Each full-time teacher may be responsible for approx. 85 students over the course of the semester, but that doesn't take into account other factors. For example, there are many part-time teachers that help decrease the overall ratio and there are multiple teachers in various depts. to assist students when they come for help, not to mention coaches and deans and counselors and staff. I think the response is a very full-time-teacher centric response (no offense), and not reflective of the overall teacher-student experience. If you take the total number of students in the academy (approx. 1730) and divide by 85 (the number of students/teacher in your given ratio), then we get 20. That would suggest that there are only 20 Academy teachers total. This is clearly far from the truth. Perhaps a better way to demonstrate the ratio is to say that there are x number of Academy students (approx. 1730 students) and x number of Academy teachers (approx. 170 teachers, according to the handbook and depending on whether or not you count deans, librarians, which I didn't) = approx. 10 students per teacher in the Academy. I think this number more accurately represents the reality and the personalized feel for students at Punahou. While teachers do interact with approx. 85 students per semester, they are not working alone to foster their learning, etc." Thank you for all of the responses. Please contact your self-study team if you would like to provide additional feedback. http://punahouselfstudy.weebly.com/contact.html |
Successful Faculty and Administration Communication Responses:
Along with double checking our early research, the self-study team is also still gathering information from our Punahou community. Here is the April question, followed by selections from submitted responses:
Provide a recent specific example of healthy, effective communication between faculty and administration regarding a difficult issue. What factors made it successful? "I appreciate that my supervisor seeks out opinions and "cycles back" to topics that we have discussed in more formal meetings when we have the opportunity to interact one on one." A "conversion led to a more serious one in which we discussed how complicated it is for us at our grade level to continue conversations about program when our supervisors keep rotating. This model of rotating supervisors is exhausting for teachers and adds frustration as we can't move our programs forward effectively or in a timely fashion. Change is difficult enough at Punahou without creating a model that makes change laborious. It was a great conversation as we discussed this issue as equals - not one person knowing more than me just by virtue of their position. Again - we listened to each other and it ended up being another wonderful interaction with [my] administrator." "I can offer feedback based on my own department chairperson. He is almost always available at a moment's notice, he looks directly at me when speaking, he pays close attention to what I am saying, which in turn means that he does not come to the table with pre-informed decisions, he is flexible in entertaining viewpoints very different from his own, he never makes me feel beneath him in position or cerebration, and most of all, he makes me feel comfortable even when I am vehemently against his decisions. I feel no threat from him; rather, in the most dire of situations, I truly believe that he would come to my defense if such defense were morally or ethically just. All this he does without compromising his integrity. I respect him and would go out of my way to defend him if necessary. This is what I see as healthy and effective communication, to work with an administrator whom I regard as "boss" without having to worry about roles or consequences. Honesty, integrity, and respect is equal to healthy and effective communication between community members working toward the same goal, the betterment of our students." "For several years academy teachers had to use professional or even personal days to take students on field trips...But then when we had many administration folks in the same room including Ruth F., Paula H. and Pauline B. (for a meeting about PD) we got it resolved in about 5 minutes. Now when teachers take students on trips it comes out of some other bank of days (vs. PD or personal). As a teacher who sees the value of experiential learning it made me really happy to get this support. |