L.

Walter
EA 743

Field Report

My internship experience took place at East Middle School, which is part
of Farmington Public School District. Farmington Public Schools is a suburban,
middle class district, in Oakland Country. It is comprised of 11,000+ students
and over 900 faculty members. East Middle School was recently restructured
from a 6-7 building to a 7-8 middle school in September 2010. It is home to over
1,000 students with relatively equal amounts of males and females. There are
56 professional teaching staff members and additional faculty to address special
needs. The demographics of the student population are predominantly
Caucasian (50%) although there is a substantial percentage of African American
(35%) and other Nationalities (15%). The demographics of the school have
undergone a significant change in the past several years. East is now a Title I
school with 33% of the students receiving free/reduced lunch. Additionally, East
Middle School has recently received Focus status by the State of Michigan,
which indicates a substantial gap between the 30% highest level of learners and
the lowest 30% of learners.

I had two mentors; Linda Fox who has been the assistant principal at East
for 10 year, with the last four years serving as half time assistant principal/half
time athletic director and Dave Beazley who has been the full time assistant
principal at East for the past four years. Both Linda and Dave were assistant
principals at the high school level before working at East. Linda is married to a
former police sergeant and tends to show a more legalistic leadership style when
working with students, while Dave was a world renowned wrestling coach and
uses the coach mentality as part of his leadership style. They both are
responsible for general discipline and teacher evaluation. Dave also supervises
the lunches and supports student relationship building while Linda is responsible
for reports and data analysis.

In many aspects their styles are quite similar. They both have excellent
relationships with the principal, faculty and staff. They are positive and outgoing
with respect to parents and community relationships and they clearly care about
the school and the students. Each assistant principal spends large amount of
time beyond the school day completing their responsibilities they are both vey
dedicated. Where they differ is in regards to their relationships with students.
Linda has a very structured, stricter approach to discipline and student
relationships. While she is very interested in student success, her relationship
with students is on a professional student/adult scale. Linda is the administrator
most teachers send their students to when they want administrative action taken.
She is the one who will not negotiate and strongly supports the teachers. Dave
treats the administrator/student relationship a little differently. It is him belief that
as administrators our responsibility is not just to discipline but also to teach,
mentor, and sometimes parent the students. The only criticism I have, if I may, is
that Dave has a tendency to be too friendly. As teachers, we often feel that he
is not hard enough on the students when he should be. To Daves credit, he
really takes the time to talk to the students, to get to know them, and to develop
relationships with them.

I have had the wonderful privilege of working with both of these amazing
administrators. Most of my two years had been working with Linda. In many
ways our leadership styles match the most. However, during April and May of
this year Linda was out on a medical leave and I was allowed to be the interim
assistant principal in her stead. During this time I worked extensively with Dave.
I now better understand what he is trying to accomplish and admire his methods.
After working with both mentors, I believe the right fit for me is a balance of both
of their methods. A bit less firm than Lindas style and a little more firm than
Daves.