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Greenville City Schools
Students Making a Difference
By Chris Mortensen, Greenville Middle School Principal
As educators engaged in making the school the best that we hope it can
be, we are continually looking for ways to improve what we do. We have
spent time over the past few years meeting with parents through a
Parent-Teacher Partnership initiative for the Middle School. Through
these conversations, we have been able to identify areas where parents
from all walks of life see needs for improvement in the way we do
business as a building. We also identified methods for improving these
areas during these discussions.
As we continued to move forward with these efforts in improvement, we
determined that we needed to hear from our students about how we might
improve the building and the work we do daily for them. We decided on a
theme for the year of being “All In” and determined to engage our
students in similar conversations as the parents for school
improvement. We decided to meet with students from different groups
from within the building. The staff provided names of students who
might be willing to participate. From this group, selections of diverse
students were chosen. Students have been met with individually to
inquire as to whether they had an interest in participating. Letters
were sent home to parents requesting permission for the students to
participate with us. All of the students returned the forms and we were
ready to begin discussions.
In November, we had our first meeting with this group that we decided
to call the Student-Principal Advisory Council (SPAC) group. These
students now represent the student population in providing information
on how we can make the climate of the school better. At our first
meeting, the students were provided pizza and drinks and participated
in some ice breakers for us to get to know the students and for the
students to get to know us better. We played some small games where
students shared about aspects of their own lives and discussed why they
were interested in being a part of the group.
Before the end of our first meeting, we had learned a great deal about
the students and identified that they all had an interest in making the
school a better place. We finished our discussions with having the
students share ideas that they had in mind to help improve the climate
and mood within the building for all students. One aspect that they
brought to the discussion was that they would like for the passing
periods to be longer, so that students were able to reach their classes
without feeling so rushed. They discussed specifically that students on
the second floor had difficulty in making it to specials classes at the
core of the building. It was shared that students felt stressed because
of being late to classes. Other ideas were presented and as we were
running tight on time we tabled the ideas for our next meeting asking
the students to check with their peers in order to bring more ideas for
discussion. The group left with a plan and ideas on who they wanted to
get information from.
The administration shared this information with the Building Leadership
and Positive Behavior Teams. It was discussed as to how this would
impact the building class schedule. At this time, the discussion is
still occurring on whether this adjustment will be able to be
implemented in the future, but it was so impressive seeing young
students engaged in leadership roles to improve the building community.
They are gaining skills to identify needs and methods for seeking
change to provide improvement for all and not just for themselves. Our
students are “All In” for making Greenville Middle School the best
place for students to learn every day and we are proud of each of them.
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