Leadership Project
First
Semester
This semester for my project I chose to be an ambassador and a leader of our Blue Valley High School branch of The Educators Rising Club. This was the first year we have ever implemented these clubs in the high school, so I helped to establish and get the clubs up and running in the school. Once we got the new branch established, we starting having meetings once a month. For these meetings, I would assist in creating the agendas at CAPS with my other fellow ambassadors of the different branches about teacher education related material, and then I would share it and teach it as the president/ambassador for the club. So far we have covered and shared with our clubs education related Ted Talks, like Rita Pearsons', different technologies that can be incorporated into the classroom, how to motivate students, and more! My club branch, and many others, started out small in attendance, but have been continually growing in size and number! I am very excited and looking forward to continuing to lead this program in the New Year next semester!
Research Project
Second Semester
This semester for our passion projects, our teacher implemented a more research-based approach. We were to pick a topic or an issue within education, research it, and try our own hand at trying to find a feasible solution.
The topic I chose for my passion project was focusing on students with chronic illnesses. More specifically dealing with discrimination and unfair treatment towards students with chronic illness in schools by faculty and administration. I choose this topic because I have been a chronically ill student for over half of my educational career. I have dealt with some terrible treatment within school environments from faculty and administration over the years due to an illness and a situation I have no control over in the slightest. My experience has been very disappointing and frustrating for me over the years as I always thought I should be able to count on my schools to support me, but I found out that I couldn’t. In fact, over the years the ways in which my schools have dealt with me made a situation that was already incredibly hard on me, a young child and teen, even harder. I am interested in exploring other cases of students who are chronically sick in school to see if they face the same problems I have, and if they do, what can be done to fix this ongoing issue? Research shows chronic illness affects up to 20% of school-aged children (10% of whom are severely ill) and helping these students is becoming a growing problem for schools.
The problem is that schools often don’t understand the complex struggles and situations chronically sick students go through, and they often aren’t patient enough to really listen to the concerns of the families of their chronically ill students. Another issue is that schools often don’t acknowledge or stay true to the 504 or IEP plans of students which is a serious concern and issue because “a 504-plan is a legally binding document that falls under the provisions of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. In terms of educational purpose, it is designed to plan an instructional program to assist students with special needs who are attending their school's regular education program” (educlime.com). As this states, a 504 plan is a LEGALLY binding document, and the fact that schools and teachers repeatedly ignore students 504 plans is not only disappointing but severely wrong and concerning regarding these chronically ill children’s education.
My plan, before the pandemic hit and put a stopper on our projects, was to present my research and testimonies of other families/students, along with my own, to some of the district's administration in hopes of bringing a new light and awareness to this issue. Along with bringing awareness to this issue, which was really one of the main problems, my other goal was to see what could be done in training staff or having physical written guidelines built into the district to aid these students and prevent further discrimination.