Chapter 4: Schools as the Workplace for Students and Teachers

My school and the school of the United States are very similar.  The staffing and organization is exactly the same. We have a principle that oversees everything; we don’t have assistant principals because my school is was too small. We only have one teacher for every subject again because our school is so small. Although we have many volunteers that come in from the community to help us in any way they can.  We have an open door policy, if we have already checked them out, and made sure that they will benefit our school, not bring it down. We also have a student teacher almost all year round in all subject areas, because we value the process of education. We do not have Department chairs or team leaders; instead the whole staff gets together every week to discuss problems, concerns and achievements. We do have a superintended that comes once a month to the meeting as well. We do have the chain of command but its not as intense as the book entails. My schools community voted for their teachers and principle so yes our principle oversees everyone, but he never makes decisions without conferring with his teachers first; so our chain of command if not so much of a vertical line but a horizontal. We of course have the looping factor in our school because again we only have one teacher per subject area. My schools school district is very small it consist of two schools, Healthy Living and Green Planet (which is an elementary/middle school) in the same area. So in some states in may be the same but the states with “two hundred or more schools”, it is very different. Our Superintendent gets very involved in our schools, which is a good thing. We as a community also vote every year for a new or existing superintended which makes for good work ethic if they want to stay. Unlike the United States we do not have to follow state rules. Because our school is a charter school we do not have to follow state guidelines. The role of federal government is the  exact some for my school as it is for any other school, except for the fact that the only assistance we get form the federal government is given to our state which eventually trickles down to us and that is to help pay for our few school personal. Our school like the others in the United States were built by our income taxes and property taxes,. Although the state did indeed help fund the school to be built, the only money we get from them now is the money to pay the teacher and other personal. We as a school have prided ourselves on being self efficient, and with the help of our community we make the food and car pool to the kids. Yes we are the same in many areas to others smaller schools in the U.S, but not other school is so self efficient than our school.