Introduction
The problem of curriculum development stands out against the background of the U.S. educational system. Texas educators recognize the importance of curriculum adaptation to trends and beliefs that exist nowadays in American society and use the student-centered approach in the development of their curricula. Currently, several principles affect this development significantly. These principles are oriented towards technology, higher education, soft skills, and students’ engagement.
Nowadays, educators are encouraged to incorporate digital technologies into their curricula since the representatives of the post-Millennial generation are true digital natives. Educators are required to develop in their student’s such soft skills as communicability, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. Besides, the school curriculum should be aligned with higher education and motivate students to be engaged in their disciplines.
The U.S. educational system has developed into one of the most effective ones because educators clearly understand which areas require modifications and work to improve those areas. The Houston educators’ approach to curriculum development should inspire all professionals in the educational sphere.
Strategies for Maintaining School Facilities
The school maintenance is an important component of resource management. It aims to provide a clean and safe environment that is suitable for learning. As all effective organizational activities, school maintenance requires certain planning strategies. Among these strategies, one may single out preventive maintenance, external and internal communication, and stakeholders’ involvement in the facility maintenance.
The idea of preventive maintenance is that all equipment is checked on a regular basis in order to avoid emergencies. Preventive maintenance is possible when three stages of planning are employed: auditing, scheduling, and arrangement.
Communication in school maintenance helps to organize the maintenance process in a way that participants understand their role in this process. Internal communication includes administration, professors, maintenance staff, and even students. The external communication process presupposes contacts with any participants outside the school framework that are involved in the maintenance work.
The personal involvement of each participant in the maintenance activity contributes to a healthy, safe, and clean place for the educational process.
I believe that these three strategies are rational and effective and particularly like the idea of personal involvement of students in the facility management. This strategy not only contributes to the creation of a clean environment in schools but also shows that the public weal depends on each and every one.
Decision Making
Strategic management is an effective form of management that continues to gain favor among specialists. There are two types of decision-making strategies that are applied in strategic management: shared and rational-analytical decision making.
Shared decision making is based on the idea of the coordinated actions of a group in solving a particular problem. This strategy involves four components: autocratic, joint, consultative, and delegation decisions. The rational-analytical decision-making strategy uses evidence and rationality in problem-solving. In the process of solution development, a person evaluates some situations and factors that affect it, distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant facts.
Both shared and rational-analytical decision-making strategies are efficient. To my mind, decision-makers may well combine these strategies instead of using them separately. Such a combination will be useful in developing the best solutions in management activities.
School Board Meeting
School board meetings are a significant component of the educational institution functioning. Usually held on a regular basis, they welcome different participants. The board meeting of the Galena Park Middle School was not a regular meeting of the school board; however, the issues that were discussed at this meeting were of the important character and required the participation of the Board of Trustees. Those issues included the approval of personnel items, discussion of business (acceptance of the budget for 2016/2017 and adoption of the compensation plan for the same timeframe), approval of the student code of conduct, and student-parent handbook for the school year, the Board comments, and calendar reminders.
The meeting can be considered productive since the solutions that participants made corresponded and met the objectives, audience, and the content of the meeting. In order to achieve such efficiency, the participants followed such principles as clarity, cohesion in decision-making, compliance with the goals, concreteness, and efficient timing.
Educational Leadership
The school food services financing is challenged with a problem of proper allocation of resources and budgets. Because of the state’s low expenses in the school food services financing, schools save on healthy meals, making their choice in favor of junk and semi-processed food. It seems to be a critical issue since there is a direct connection between the food and academic performance of students. School leaders are responsible for the healthy future of the nation. By solving the problem of the prevalence of junk food in school menus, leaders will decrease the number of those who are diagnosed with such diseases as diabetes mellitus, obesity, and other diseases related to being overweight.
For this purpose, leaders should develop strategies for reducing the criticality of federal financial allocations and make the schools less dependent upon the state. Also, local and state authorities may consider the wide distribution of the Smart Snack system that meets federal nourishment requirements.