Franklin Schargel

Educational Leadership: Strategies for the 21st Century

There is a major concern in the United States about the loss of 2.2 million teachers in the next ten years; the rate of retiring supervisors and administrators will be greater. This presentation will focus on identifying the qualities that our educational leaders will need in the 21st century and how their leadership will impact on teachers, students, and parents. We asked 200 school leaders of high minority, high poverty, high achieving schools why they have been successful when most schools dealing with this population are unsuccessful.

We know that we are teaching a visual generation. Thanks to video games, television, movies and the Internet, more of our students and our faculty watch and interact with visual stimulation. This interactive workshop focuses on the utilization of visual media to improve classroom performance.

Today, over one-third of our K-12 students never graduate increasing the likelihood of their imprisonment, single parenthood, poverty and the use of alcohol and drugs. Yet the demands of No Child Left Behind, will inevitably increase the likelihood of children leaving school prior to graduation.

Dropout Prevention is Everyone’s Responsibility.

Educators realize that dropping out is a process and not an event. Few dropouts sail through their school career without problems. Most became at-risk for dropping out of high school long before then – some as early as the third grade. This workshop identifies 15 dropout prevention strategies which the National Education Goals Panel says are “the most effective strategies to help solve our school dropout problem. The workshop will not only deal with “what to do” but “how to do it” as well.

Using the 15 effective strategies developed by the National Dropout Prevention Center and tools developed as best practices by some of America’s outstanding schools and programs, workshop participants will not only learn what to do but how to aid at-risk youth to graduate. The strategies have been recognized by the National Education Goals Panel and the United States Department of Education as “the most effective strategies to help solve our school dropout problem.” (NEGP Monthly, August 2001 and www.ed.gov/dropout).

If we wish to improve schools we need to improve school cultures so that they support student learning, students, parents and staff. What do successful leaders of high performing, high minority, highly successful schools (“90-90-90 schools”) do to create a positive learning environment so that all students can and will learn? We sent surveys to the leaders of high performing, high minority, highly successful schools and asked them to identify what the school culture was before they arrived, what the existing school culture is today and what they envision the school culture will be in three-five years.

This session is designed for all people desiring to improve their school culture including teachers, school support personnel, administrators, parents and community members.

Students, parents and school staff want, need and deserve a safe learning environment and schools are supposed to be places where children are safe and secure. Yet recent headlines have shown the vulnerability of schools. Upwardly mobile parents had the incorrect belief that they were leaving school violence, drugs, and gangs and bullying behind. School violence had been happening in inner-city schools for a long time. Some people felt that since school crime and violence were confined to the inner cities and their ethnic populations, it was not their problem. Obviously, many were wrong. Imaginary boundary lines delineating the inner city, suburban or rural communities, whether school or societal, do not stop violence, gangs, guns and drugs. As incidents in Columbine, CO and West Paducah, KY indicate violence has occurred in rural as well as suburban communities. Who could have predicted a violent school incident on an Indian reservation (Red Lake High School in Red Lake Minnesota) or in an Amish community (West Nickel Mines School, a village in Bart Township of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania? It has taken place in colleges and universities (Virginia Tech, Oikos College, and the Texas Tower shooting). No community, large or small is immune. It is even taking place in foreign nations. School violence takes a variety of forms. This workshop will address school violence issues including bullying, suicide, gangs, and gun violence.