My First day
...s. The main office consists of 3 secretaries all containing different duties or job descriptions. The guidance office has 2 secretaries and the alumni/advancement office consists of 1 secretary as well. We also have a large cafeteria staff. This consists of approximately 15-20 people. Our maintenance staff has approximately 6-7 members. We do not have security at Spellman, however, we do have 3 police officers from the 47th precinct that have keys to our building and stop by on a daily basis. In order for Spellman to be successful, we must all work together. This requires a lot of interaction between groups. There are many different interacting groups, between parents, administrators, children, teachers, secretarial staff, cafeteria staff, and maintenance. Each one has a different protocol of interaction. For example, when a parent calls to speak to a teacher, first the main office gets the call, once they assess that is the goal of the parent, they transfer that parent to the guidance office, it is our secretaries’ that assess which counselor that child belongs to and does the appropriate transferring to that counselor’s voice mail. It is then my job to leave a memo in the mailbox for the teacher that the parent wishes to speak to. It is in my opinion that the teachers and administrators interact for the most part pretty well. Nonetheless, there are some more then others who have a hard time mixing well. There are many different personalities interacting and there are bound to be a few that don’t blend well. In my opinion, you can divide the staff in half. There are “cool” and “uncool” teachers and/or administrators. I think you need to be able to relate to the children in order to get through to them. I think it is important for the kids to know that you are human and you know how to laugh. There are many ways of viewing various groups in Spellman. There are formal and informal groups. Formal leaders could include the president, principal, deans, directors and chairpersons. Informal leaders can include some secretaries with special roles, or our head maintenance man. Overall the formal group tends to be partially laid-back, dedicated and structured. On occasion they can over step their boundaries. For example, the academic dean is looked at as somewhat unapproachable. This can lead to the informal group having a little too much authority. For example, the secretary to the academic dean has a lot of power. This is given to her primarily by the academic dean and faculty who go through her as opposed to going through the academic dean. She over exerts her power almost always. Another person who has informal power is the head maintenance man. He has master keys to all rooms in the building. He does not overexert his power at all. For the most part, the informal and formal groups work together for the goal of the students having a safe, clean, challenging environment to learn in. The Spellman curriculum is a very competitive one indeed. For the purpose of this paper, I asked a few different teachers from various departments their opinion. For the most part the answers were that same. We are flexible. For example in the English department, the teachers are told they must teach 4 major works, however, and then they get to select 3 out of 8 on a list of other works to cover. For the most part I was told the departments tend to work as a democracy. Nonetheless, when it comes to change, they told me some want change in the curriculum, but others do not. Unfortunately, those who do not want the change tend to be the loudest in opposing. The end result is the change never takes place, instead it’s placed on the back burner and those who wanted change are silenced. There are also many informal norms at Spellman. For example, sometimes it’s not all ways the case to complain in the normal hierarchy of chain of command. There is also something that occurs that makes a lot of people angry and that is the “deals” that are made with certain students. For example, certain kids who were on the verge of getting kicked out due to academics, are given a “deal” to save them, with out the consensus of teachers and administrators involved knowing about this deal in advance nor approving of it. When asked to describe the “in group” of faculty, it depends who you ask. You will get different answers. I would describe the “in group” as those who are respected by their students and able to relate to their students. Someone else may say the “in group” is described by those being members of the teachers union. Or even the “cool” teachers/administrators. There are definitely rivals. The non-union members, the “uncool” staff, and the stiff teachers/administrators, they are the rivals in this case. For the most part we all get along, but there are a few who just can’t get past those categories sometimes. In Spellman’s case, I think it needs the formal and informal groups. Each one is important in their own ways. For the most part, one department can count on each other (although there are exceptions to this). For example, with out the two secretaries in our office, the counselors would not be able to do their jobs correctly or completely. As for my role in Spellman, since I am a guidance counselor, and already ...