After collaborating with my supervisor and the SBDM Committee, I thought the one idea that would be most beneficial to my campus is doing an action research inquiry on the effectiveness of our anti-bullying plan on my campus. My supervisor and I know that there is a bullying problem at my school, especially among the female population. Three main questions were asked: 1. Is the anti-bullying program at my campus achieving the desired outcomes and if the resources are being wisely allocated? 2. Is there a proper evaluation of the program to determine its effectiveness on my campus? 3. Do we have an effective anti-bullying program on my campus that involves the entire school community? I believe that an action research project on this program will provide us with the best opportunity to review this program on my campus and to potentially make it more effective for the students.

1. Setting the Foundation- Through collaboration with my principal and assistant principal, the problem of girl bullying on my campus is increasing. We want to know for sure, if this trend that is true and increasing and what is the data for this problem is showing. The stereotype of bullying has been traditionally based on the concept that boys only harassed other boys, but adolescent girl-to-girl bullying is a pervasive concern in schools across the United States, and it is getting worse. The negative effects of girl-to-girl bullying on adolescent females’ development and well-being and describe wellness as it relates to personal and social, academic, and career development of adolescent girls. We want to know if the anti-bullying program we have currently at my middle school is effective in this problem. At the moment, we don’t think it is having an impact into decreasing the girl to girl bullying. We want to know why it isn’t being effective as it should be. We want to know if there are other anti-bullying programs that other school districts have implemented that have been successful in decreasing girl bullying at their schools.

2. Analyzing data- As schools engage in more research they are discovering that girls too often act as powerful bullies; however, their bullying behavior is overlooked due to the often quiet and passive negative actions that are associated with these activities. Most girls tend to engage in more verbal and/or social confrontations and bullying among females, as it is often unnoticed, tends to be more evident as girls engage in behaviors such as: ostracizing others, holding grudges, sabotaging relationships, manipulating others and plotting mischief. Bullying amongst girls reveals some startling statistics. “A girl is bullied every seven minutes in the school yard, playground, stairwell, classroom or bathroom. Girl bullying statistics show that 43% fear harassment in the bathroom at school. Also, intervention accounts for only 4% among teachers and 11% among the victim’s peers” (Banks, 2007). “Sadly and quite shockingly, 85% of the time there is no intervention by anyone in authority whatsoever. The girl bullying statistics, once again, brings up the point that school girl bullying is either dismissed or not considered dangerous. But the fact remains, bullying amongst girls is rampant. Girl bullying statistics reveal that only 15% of girls who are bullied actually tell someone” (Olweus, 2003). This is an alarming yet consistent statistic which underscores the need for a program designed to bring about awareness of just how serious school girl bullying has become. In today’s middle schools, school girl bullies are difficult to discipline a lot of times. Moreover, catching them in the act is almost impossible since they are not as direct as boy bullies who overtly choose to fight. Since bullying amongst girls is subtle, it is usually done by passing along rumors, leaving the victim helpless in locating the source. The data and research shows that this problem is getting worse in our middles school and we must come up with an effective solution to decrease or eliminate it at my middle school.
Banks, R. (2007). Bullying in Schools. Retrieved August 11, 2004, from http://www.powerofonefoundation.com/ Bullying%20in%schools-Ron%20Banks.htm
Olweus, D. (2003). A profile of bullying at school. Educational Leadership, 60(6), 22–25.

3. Developing deeper understanding- After gathering the initial data for girl bullying in middle schools, I went back to collaborate with my administrators about the pros and cons about using a possible solutions that I have for this problem. I realized that teachers and parents need to be more involved in what goes on at school. I think that teachers do care of course, but they need to be proactive and go the extra mile to help any students, especially girls, that might be bullied on. This goes the same with parents; parents must not allow their kids to be bullies on or off campus. One plausible solution that I came up with is how to approach the problem of bullying; most researchers agree that effective programs are comprehensive, targeting students, schools, families, and the community. Attending to the needs of victims is as important as intervening with bullies and assessing school climate. Unfortunately, bullying will continue to be tolerated in schools until there is a philosophical shift among school personnel in how they view and respond to coercive behavior. Many researchers have found that many schools try to prevent bullying by using packaged programs that lack support from teachers and do not meet the specific needs of the school. They recommended securing cooperation from key personnel as an important first step in successful intervention. Many researchers have provided suggestions for important components of bully prevention and intervention programs, but few have actually collected data with regard to program effectiveness. The cons of this solution is that some teachers and parents might be offended that they don’t care enough to stop the problem of bullying, since I said they need to be more involved. Another con is that this plan requires the support of all stakeholders of the campus. This might be a problem because all of the stakeholders might not what to be involved in this plan or willing to put in the time to make it effective. The pros include that if this plan works, all stakeholders on campus have accepted the idea and its implementation, and therefore it has affected the bullying among girls on campus in a positive way.

4. Engaging in Self-Reflection-
1. Do I know the consequences in implementing a new school anti-bullying
program on my campus?
2. How can I make teachers become more effective in stopping classroom bullying?
3. Can the teachers develop these new skills?
4. Do I have the necessary resources to get the whole school community to partner up to stop this problem?
5. How can I get the school community to promote an anti-bullying climate, also to demonstrate to all students the concern and support of the community by providing resources and supporting positive school projects, sports, and field trips
6. How can I get the parents be positive role models and get involved in promoting anti-bullying?
7. Campus wide interventions- Can I develop strategies that include implementing a campus wide anti-bullying policy, a survey of bullying problems at each school, increased supervision, school wide assemblies, and teacher in-service training to raise the awareness of children and school staff regarding bullying.
8. Classroom interventions- Can I develop strategies that include establishing classroom rules against bullying, holding regular class meetings to discuss bullying at school, and scheduling meetings with all parents.

5. Exploring Programmatic Patterns- What skills and resources do they think are essential to successful project implementation?
After engaging in self reflection and talking with my supervisor, the skills and resources I think are essential to having my project implementation successful include the following: 1. Campus Improvement Plan. 2. Student Code of Conduct. 3. School Based Decision Making Committee. 4. Parents. 5. Community Partnerships. 6. Teacher’s Lesson Plans. 7. School Website. 8. Principal’s Blog. 9. Local Newspaper. All of these Resources are important and essential for me to have a successful project implementation.

6. Determining direction-
A. Are you clear on what you are attempting to solve (your research questions)?
Yes, I am clear on what I am attempting to solve, I want to find a solution to the increasing girl bullying problem on my campus. To find this solution, I must implement an anti-bullying policy and associated program that is carefully formulated and is communicated to all members of the school community. For this to be successful, all members of the school community must accept responsibility for carrying out the program. In particular:
• Work is done on bullying with children in classes, as part of a planned curriculum
• There is thoughtful attention continually paid to how children relate to each other, especially when there are indications that bullying is taking place.
• Action is consistently taken to deal with cases of bullying in accordance with an agreed policy

Thorough implementation is likely to occur when:
• Teachers care about the problem of bullying- the need for surveys and discussion.
• Teachers are meaningfully involved in the development of anti-bullying policy and know what they are expected to do.
• Leadership in a school produces a whole school approach in which coordinated activities to address bullying actually occur on campus.


B. Have you adequately addressed the skills and resources questions?
Yes, I have adequately addressed the resources and skills necessary in implementing a new anti-bullying program that will focus on decreasing bullying among girls. All resources and skills identified must assist all stakeholders with the understanding and implementation of the new program. An effective anti-bullying program addresses the unique needs of the particular campus, it involves a school-wide approach which engages all affected stakeholders (students, staff, parents and community), develops social and emotional competencies, provides skills to prevent or intervene in bullying situations and responds to bullying behaviors consistently and appropriately.



C. Have you established a collaborative approach to the issue?
Yes, I have developed a collaborative approach to this issue by getting advice from my supervisors, talking to members of the SBDM committee, getting information from other teachers and by talking to students about how they feel about bullying. By talking to all of these resources, I think it gives me a good idea how to approach the problem.


D. Are your timelines realistic?
Yes, my timelines are realistic for the implementation and evaluation of my program in decreasing the bullying among girls on my campus. The program will start at the beginning of the upcoming school year, 2010, and will be completed at the end of the school year, 2011. This is enough sufficient time to determine if this new program is working, that the program promotes a school culture that reflects the values, beliefs and traditions that have been instilled in the community. This is important because you need to reinforce this culture to have success in the day to day functioning of your school campus, which will lead to less bullying among students.


E. Do you have a reasonable plan to monitor the project?
Yes, there is going to be a monthly evaluation of the program by the anti-bullying committee. They will look at the data that is provided by the administrators, teachers and students. They will review the data for patterns, concerns, trends, and questions which would impact the new bullying prevention and intervention plans. The results of the data analysis will guide decision-making for establishing or adjusting bullying prevention and intervention programs or lead to new questions to be addressed by additional data collected by the committee.


F. Do you have a reasonable plan for determining the level of success – how do you evaluate if the plan is effective?
Yes, when the anti-bullying committee has their monthly meeting, they will look at the data for patterns. After this first evaluation of the program, they will be looking for substantial reductions in self-reported bullying and bully victimization among girls, significant improvements in the social climate of the classroom (as reflected in girls’ reports of increased satisfaction with school life and school work, improved order and discipline at school, and more positive social relationships) a dosage-response relationship at the classroom level, such that those classrooms that implemented essential components of the program saw greater reductions in bully/victim problems. If this happens, then we know that the plan has been effective.
G. How will you revise and improve the plan based on monitoring and evaluation?
I would revise and improve my plan by using three main types of evaluation: needs assessment, process evaluation, and outcome evaluation. Needs assessment is a helpful first step in identifying program outcomes for outcome evaluation and can provide a baseline to which yearly program results are compared. The process evaluation provides a picture of how implementation actually looks in my setting at school. Then I would check the outcome evaluation, this would help us determine whether program objectives have been achieved and which need to be altered or reevaluated.

7. Taking action for school improvement-
A written plan for this project is under part 2 of this assignment. A formative and summative evaluation of this new program at my campus of decreasing bullying among girls at my middle school campus is under part 2 of this assignment also.

8. Sustaining improvement- An effective bullying prevention and intervention programs target not only the classroom, but also the school environment, students, parents, and the community. If the new anti-bullying program for girls at my campus is being successful and the trend of bullying is decreasing, I am going to share this information with all stakeholders that are involved. This is important because you want the stakeholders to know that the plan is effective and that they will be more supportive of it. I would share these results by a variety of ways; one way is by using my personal blog that parents can log onto to check on the status of the program. I would also use the local newspaper to show the data on how effective it has been and I would send letters home with the students. I think that these are the three best ways for me to send the information out, so that all stakeholders involved see the new data results and they are more motivated to participate in it.

I have had many ideas bouncing around in my head. The question of inclusion has always been on my mind. I hear complaints about it and praises for it. I would like to do a project that examines student performance at my school for the past year to determine if 1. special education student performance has improved and if 2. regular education student performance has been effected at all. This data could be used to determine the future alignment of inclusion classes.
Another idea was to determine what classroom management techniques and instructional models were different in the classrooms of effective first year teachers, as opposed to ineffective first year teachers. That data could be used to prepare incoming teachers as to effective techniques and strategies for our unique student population.
The last idea was to examine our anti-bullying campaign to determine its effectiveness at reducing incidents. This data would be useful to the councilors to determine if we are using resources effectively and if we need to expand, continue or revamp the program.

In the end I choose to examine our anti-bullying campaign because it has a direct impact on every student, teacher and administrator on our campus and it is a program that we CAN modify and implement on our own

Action Research

Action Research is an method of inquiry in which questions are asked and solutions formed and inacted. Action Research is frequently utilized in an educational setting. A question is formulated, data is collected, data is analyed, the question and data are examined in terms of one another, a plan of action is put in place and finally that plan is examined to determine its effectiveness.

Traditional research askes a question, gathers data and creates a plan of action. The difference in the two types is that Tradional is outside based and Action is inside based. Action research utilizes the teacher or administrator as the main participant. Traditional utilizes an outside obesercer as the main participant. Another diffence lies in the constant reevaluation and tweeking that occurs with Action Research. As data changes actions change. Tradional research is a snap shot. Action research is constantly adjusting and changing.

Action Research creates a Professional Learning Community of active shareholders. By incorporating others opinions, questions, and data, principals and teachers become active members of the research. This leads to greater buy in and support. They seek out change by reflecting on their practices. They do this by posing questions, analyzing the data, reading relevant literature, making changes in practicess based on new understandings developed during inquiry and share findings with collegues (Dana & Yendol-Hoppey, 2009). Inquiry has always been used by teachers in the classroom. The question and answer, evaluate responses and incorporate change strategy has been a corner stone for classroom instruction. It is now being incorporated into administrative leadership in the form of action research.

Communication is the cornerstone for understanding and advancement of any idea. All stakeholders need to provide and receive feedback to help solve problems. A web blog provides stakeholders with an opportunity to have a running discussion and provide each other with questions, data and feedback. It provides a medium for the exchange of understanding and knowledge. Blogs can be set up by departments, subjects, mutual interest or be item/action specific. This would allow all shareholders to contribute to each discussion and broaden the level of understanding.

Resources:
Dana, N.F. & Yendol-hoppey, D. (2009). The reflective educator's guide to classroom research: Learning to teach and teaching to learn through practioner inquiry (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin

Off into the wild adventure of Action Researching for my Graduate class at Lamar Univeristy Online