Excerpt
SUMMARY: Karen Ritter, an assistant principal at a high school just outside of Chicago, wanted to see her school through a student's eyes. So she decided to follow 9th grader Alan Garcia, who came to her asking to be switched out of the many remedial classes in which he is enrolled, hoping to get a clear view of his experience in the classroom. Special correspondent John Tulenko of Education Week reports.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): High school students and parents sometimes say principals and teachers don't quite understand what it's like to be a student these days. It turns out there's an effort to change that. Some 1,300 principals recently took a day off from their usual role and instead followed one of their students for a day.
The approach came from two groups outside the traditional field of public education, the Design School at Stanford University, and IDEO, a design company based in Palo Alto, California.
Special correspondent John Tulenko of Education Week followed one principal through the first ever national Shadow a Student Day Challenge. It's part of our weekly education series on Making the Grade.
KAREN RITTER, Assistant Principal, East Leyden High School: My name is Karen Ritter. I'm an assistant principal at East Leyden High School, which is just outside of Chicago.
And, today, I will be shadowing a student.
JOHN TULENKO, Education Week: Why are you doing this?
KAREN RITTER: Just to get a sense of what students go through during the day.
I don't really get to spend a lot of time with students. Usually, I'm in charge of things that the teachers are involved in. So, this includes teacher evaluations, teacher attendance, professional development. I would say 50 percent is in meetings.
JOHN TULENKO: Do you feel like you know what goes on here?
KAREN RITTER: I — I do, just because I do observe a lot of classrooms. Now, I'm looking at it more from the teacher's perspective.
But now I want to know what it feels like through the lens of a student.
JOHN TULENKO: Her public high school serves some 1,700 students and is both racially and economically diverse.
Today, Karen is following a ninth-grader.
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