For my third project of action, my class and I made a student constitution. How we came to this process is, we all pick things we did not like about our school and came with proposal to change them. After we all came up with our own proposals, we then took a vote to see which ones will be put into our student constitution. 9/14 proposals passed. Below is my proposal(in the bold) and the GCE Student Constitution:
Global Citizenship Experience
Student Constitution
Preamble
We the Global Citizens of the Experience, on this day of February the 22nd, hereby propose these contributions to the current school systems in the form of a student constitution.
Article I: Tardies
The new rules are if you are late three times or more during the term you have to do at least 30 minutes of community service. Also if you are absent more than three times during the term without a valid excuse(i.e. sick, family emergency, etc) , then you will be mark as an unexcused absence.
When a student is tardy, they would be put on a chart. Whatever day they are tardy, it would line up with the assignments needed. Therefore, there is no bias based on what each student can and can’t do. Before, students would work on service based on how hard they were willing to work. Those willing to stay and do work, spent much more time working than those who weren’t willing to. My rule would eliminate this, and any student can get as much work as the next.
GCE created Code Of Conduct (CoC) that made the school system for both fun and good learning Experiences. In life known to man, there has always been things to improve and things to improve more. Our amendment or proposal are methods that can support existed codes.
One is to create a permission or late class excuse that makes things easier and for the sake of time, to avoid any misunderstandings between teacher and student. Two is to install alarm clock for every class duration to avoid the situation in the first place. There can even more solutions for this problem, we hope in the future it could be upgraded.
Article II: Classes/Scheduling
We propose that we get rid of Service and Blogging, two forced classes that aren’t necessarily required and could instead be outside clubs in which role they would be more effective and interesting to those who partook in them.
A student can create their own curriculum for an independent study that would replace a class, as long as they have a weekly lesson plan, they can prove that they can connect it to the course material they are replacing, and they have an adult supervisor that they check in with weekly. This would require a proposal process and they would need to prove its connection to whatever course they are replacing or adding on to.
1 of the 2 teachers must be available for the last half of lunch to let kids go to the gym. Unless if the privilege is lost due to bad behavior or lack of clean up, 1 teacher suffices to handle the remaining lunch duty. The other teacher (must be agreed upon in advance to not waste the small amount of time we already have) will take whoever is ready to go, half way through the lunch period on Mon,Wed, and Fridays.
General Rule: Students are allowed food and drinks during instruction time.
Thus the purpose: The students of the school should be allowed to eat snacks during class breaks and before school. Scientists have proven that while eating food your it will be broken down into glucose which then goes to the blood stream and brain. While this happen its allows the brain to be more active and alert. Students should also be allowed to drink coffee, tea or water in class at any point of the day. However If something were to destroy a computer all responsibility should be taken by the person who made the mess. If drinks were to become distracting in the group the teachers have every right to say no to a specific student.
Article III: Dress Code
Our school shall implement a new dress code that will be decided upon by representatives from the teachers, students, and parents. Using feedback forms that will be given to everyone at orientation a poll will be created that will show the opinions of the community. A few members from each cohort will join a week before school starts to discuss, debate, and define what the dress code will be that year. Dress code shall be signed by students, parents, and dean of students before school starts.
Article IV: Code of Conduct
We propose that every amendment that teachers want to make to the code of conduct should be discussed with the community upon which it is enforced. This can be done by utilizing the system that we already have, either through community circle, service, or study hall. All of these are perfect windows of opportunity where we can have these discussions.
Come together as a class to mimic the work of constitutional conventions of years past.
You will need to identify certain students to fulfill roles, in addition to individuals making
the case for their individual abductions, among them:
______________________________________________________________________________
Minutes from the Drafting of the Constiution
February 21st, 2013
Roles
GF, ZF – LMS Explanation / Percentage / Unanimity / Process / Veto? How many
does each student get?
DC, HP – Secretary(s) – Records minutes of the proceedings, assembles the approved
abductions into a single Google doc shared with all;
ZF, JP, GL – Facilitator(s) – Moderates discussion of each abduction;
LN – Time Keeper (s) – Budgets the time allotted, keeps time of each presentation
and resulting debate;
SM – Cat herder
Proposed Rules
KB
The argument: Homework Assignments-teachers need to explain the purpose of
assignments
The Votes: 10 against || 2 for
Audience ideas: people feel it can’t be enforced and that its already clear
Final decision: Not Passed
ZF
The argument: Independent Study-students can create their own curriculum and
class
The Votes: 9 for || 3 against
Audience Ideas: when would you do this, people already do this, paying to do
something independent, during study hall
Final decision: Passed
JP
The argument: Rules in the code of conduct-rules aren’t in the code of conduct
that we signed can’t be enforced: specifically, the current tardy and absence policy
The Votes: 12 for || 0 against
Audience Ideas: people love the ideas, snaps, claps, agreements, and questions
about the difference between absent and tardy
Final decision: Passed
JH
The argument: Tardy-every minute you’re late you owe a minute, when you get to
fifteen total you have week to make it up.
The Votes: NA : Overturned in favor of JP’s Amendment
Audience Ideas: should time be specific?
Final decision: Overturned in favor of JP’s Amendment
HP
The argument: Gym at lunch- longer lunch periods we should be given gym time
The Votes: 12 for | 0 against
Audience Ideas: How will this effect lunch schedule
Final decision: Passed
SM
The argument: Tardy community service system- makes a chart and where ever
thing you land on you clean
The Votes: 9 for | 3 against
Audience Ideas: what is a lesser task? Why is it your fault? Who should do what? Its
not our fault? MUCH DEBATE!!!
Final decision: Passed
AW
The argument: Tardy-once a week you should be allows, community service is an
option or a chance to make up the tardy/absence.
The Votes: NA : Overturned in favor of JP’s Amendment
Audience Ideas: no questions
Final decision: Overturned in favor of JP’s Amendment
GL
The argument: Drink appropriate drinks anytime of the day, food during breaks,
scientifically proven to help your brain be more active, if something happens
to someone else stuff, they assume responsibility.
The Votes: 12 for | 0 against
Audience Ideas: what if you can’t afford it? The loss? Sign a paper and have parents
sign, if you can’t afford
Final decision: Passed
DC
The argument: Dress code agreed upon by parents, students, and teachers.
The Votes: 8 for | 4 against
Audience Ideas: Difficult to pull off?
Final decision: Passed
GF
The argument: rules and amendment are put in place- we have to hear it and
discuss it through community circle, service, and study hall to create harmony
peace and accountability
The Votes: 12 for | 0 against
Audience Ideas: what if the rule is reasonable but students disagree.
Final decision: Passed
HM
The argument: blogging and service aren’t required- they extend our day by an
hour, they are unnecessary, it’s not working, your blog your business, never
our responsibilities, we have school, and work outside plus administrator
issues?
The Votes: 10 for | 1 against | 1 abstain
Audience Ideas: agreement snaps, clapping
Final decision: Passed
LN
The argument: A permission slip should be ready in case a student is late because she or he was held by a teacher, that way time and space is healthy.
The Votes: 12 for || 0 against
Audience Ideas: no questions
Final decision: Passed.