Where Do Students Go When Teachers are in TBTs?

Before the year started, we decided that teachers would meet weekly on Tuesdays while students were in all school assemblies from 2:25-3:05 (the end of the school day).  With this decision came the question, how do we organize all school assemblies?

Preparing for all school assemblies is a mighty task. Some questions needed to be answered. Who will be responsible for the assemblies? How will the students sit in the assembly? Where will they put all of there stuff for dismissal? What will dismissal look like after the assembly?

In the last blog, I shared that the guidance counselor had agreed to do two assemblies a month, the music teacher another assembly a month, and the teachers the other assembly each month. Originally, the idea was that we would do things in the assembly to improve behavior and discipline. Our guidance counselor incorporates this in to her lessons, and we incorporate it into the other assemblies as well. We have had a lot of guest speakers come to assemblies including a town judge, a probation officer, a fireman, a museum guide, 4-H leader, and many others. The teacher led assembly has so far been a guest speaker every time. This allows the teachers the flexibility to continue on with their Teacher Based Team work rather than having to attend the assembly.

Getting 350 students in a gym all sitting on the floor can be quite a task. I drew out a map of where students should put their book bags and coats in the hallways before coming into the gym. The first day was a little hairy. We made adjustments to what made sense, and my original map went into the circular file.

Let’s skip ahead to dismissal. How can we make sure the four staff members we have can dismiss all of these students and be outside to cover bus duty and parent pick-up? Well, we recruited the after-school care program manager who happened to be in the gym waiting to set up her program. She agreed to help us dismiss children by groups using the microphone while the other teachers took their places at the bus lines, a parent pick-up point, and in the hallway. Here are some problems to avoid that we learned through trial and error. Make sure the other teachers are where they need to be before students are dismissed, and make sure that the hallway monitor is in a central location, so all boys and girls understand they are to walk in the hallways. It turns out we needed to recruit the school nurse to step out in the hallway and help with monitoring students walking in the hallway on their way out of the building. Oh, and did I mention review with boys and girls that they need to walk in the hallways.

Now, let’s rewind to the actual assemblies. The behavior of the students in the weekly all school assemblies were exceptional at the beginning of the school year. Students were commenting on how much they were looking forward to what the next assembly might be. We enjoyed the honeymoon period (while it lasted). As time went on, some students began to test boundaries. We decided to have a pullout room for students who were showing us they could not participate well in the assemblies. These students were to write apology letters while they were out of the assembly. As time progressed, it was apparent that this was not enough of a deterrent for a portion of our boys and girls.

The teachers operating the assemblies came to me with some great ideas they had to help our boys and girls along. So, I shared with the boys and girls that if they need to be pulled out of the assembly they would be seeing me the next morning, and they would be receiving a consequence. We reviewed the form that would be used and explained that the more times a boy or girl is pulled out of the assembly the greater the consequence would be. Of course, we shared that there would be rewards for classes that did a good job in the assemblies. Happy to report, the guidance counselor said that everything was “100% better.”

As a principal, I knew that I needed to support the teachers who are helping with the assemblies. Without their work, Teacher Based Teams would not be happening on a weekly basis. We may need to adjust our work again; and so, it’s important to keep the lines of communication open.

The guidance counselor and the music teacher do a great job helping me with flexibility. When we had a guest speaker call out sick, the guidance counselor had a back up assembly ready to go. Another great reason to say thank you ask much as possible.

The general lesson with weekly all school assemblies is to think ahead as much as you can. Have a system of consequences and rewards ready to go from the start. Finally, understand that you will need to learn from your mistakes and make adjustments as necessary.

In the next blog, I will share how intervention was organized in each grade level.