Achieving My Dream: Becoming a Program Administrator in School Health Programs - Paper Sample

Introduction

There is great pleasure and satisfaction associated with achieving a dream, especially one involved with an individual's vision. My dream leadership job is to become a program administrator. Specifically, working in school health programs, my title is a programming administrator. I consistently focus on satisfying my roles by ensuring that the school social workers and student intervention teams complete their responsibilities (Osing, 2016). Besides, the crisis response team, the Foster Youth Services program, health advocates in health advocate education, healthy choices AmeriCorps program, the internship programs, mentoring for success program, project improvement, and the student intervention team, in the Wellness initiatives in elementary in middle schools are programs under my leadership.

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Delving deeper into my responsibilities as a programming administrator, I strategize, monitor, and evaluate programs and services under my care to ensure their alignment with San Francisco Unified School District's (SFUSD) Premeditated Plan (Armentrout & Planning, 2014). Working with other leaders of the School Health Programs, we train and guide the staff, help in the setting, developing, and implementing the set objectives. Besides, due to my involvement in supervisory work with other employees, I have a responsibility to evaluate the performance of the staff and recommend suitable disciplinary actions when required to other administrators (Bridgham, 2017). I also must ensure that the presence of great relationships with parents, people in the community, community-based organizations, and other SFUSD departments.

Organization Description

As the program administrator for school social workers, my work exists under the school health programs Department which is within the student family in the computer support Department (Armentrout & Planning, 2014). The student family (SF) and community support Department (CSD) supports the youths of San Francisco and their families by ensuring that the Building Schools capacity addresses students' needs and achieve academic goals district-wide. The objectives of SFCSD include enhancing accessibility and equity within social justice, engaging high achieving, and joyful learners to record tremendous achievement and being accountable to students and their families. The purpose of School health programs involves the application of a broad range of specialized skills services and programs, including various research-based health and Wellness programs plus professional development (Osing, 2016). By working with other school programs, staff community, health outreach workers, school social workers, district nurses, school health workers, site nutrition coordinators, teachers on a particular assignment, and Wellness coordinators, the school health program supports school sites. Therefore, the success of school programs promotes the school's growth and accomplishment.

The SFUSD being the seventh-largest school district in California, serves more than 55,000 students yearly, speaking more than 44 documented languages in 131 schools across San Francisco. (Armentrout & Planning, 2014) Provision of equal opportunities to students for their success in education involves promoting intellectual growth, creativity, self-discipline, cultural and linguistic sensitivity, democratic responsibility, economic competence, and physical and mental health thus, enhance their potential. Success is at reach when working at SFUSD since the organization is inclusive, innovative, and equity-focused. Besides, the organization approaches public education as a social justice movement requiring broad collaboration across an array of strategic partners.

Stakeholders and Constituency Groups

The school site social workers, program coordinator social workers, school social work mentors, teachers, principals, assistant principals, assistant superintendents, the UESF union, students, families, and community leaders are my stakeholders. Besides, other staff under the school health programs such as nurses, other program administrators, and Wellness coordinators are part of my stakeholders as a social worker program administrator. Further, the school state social workers, students, families, and school community provided services to, are the constituency groups within my community (Osing, 2016). The creation of demographics and positions of the school's staff and faculty is by the overall school union or the heads of the program administrator department. Based on my knowledge of SFUSD, addressing social injustice cases, ensuring high levels of job satisfaction and security to stimulate other employees motivates social workers. Primarily, social workers have vast in social justice and social equality (Watkins, 2004). Also, ensuring the recording of high success cases within San Francisco through the achievement of personal and organizational goals, increasing a sense of responsibility among individuals, and individuals knowing their roles and responsibility thus, are self-reliant.

90-Day Plan

In the first 30 days, I will meet with my direct supervisor and chain of command to determine agreements regarding responsibilities, accountability, and priorities. I will then establish working relationships and identify my responsibilities with other School Social work program administrators, central office leadership team, site school social workers, and other staff members (Watkins, 2004). Assessing and addressing immediate needs for smooth commencement to the school year will be the next step through communicating with SSW's and school site leaders to solve issues of class loads, site placements, SSW's responsibilities, and their goals at the site. Creating an organizational chart for the office will provide precise data concerning the chain of command, the supervisor, the personnel involved with evaluations, and the requirements for each individual (Bridgham, 2017). Besides, I will work extensively with other SSW administrators to evaluate, prioritize, and solidify school social workers' professional development workshops, staff meetings, department meetings, and PLCs meetings, thus determine and enhance success levels.

The next 30 days summing up to 60 days, will comprise the clarification of roles and responsibilities of the elementary school social workers and identifying the essence of communication. Making school site visits while assessing previous evaluations help know the goals and developments achieved by the SSW in the past plus set objectives (Osing, 2016). While supervising meetings with each SSW, discussions are present on individuals' personal and professional goals, the challenges and barriers faced, and upcoming threats attained accomplishments, future opportunities to work on, plus the necessary support I can provide together with the entire leadership team. I will also observe and get feedback from the school community the SSW serves after holding meetings with School Site leadership to discuss the needs of the school and the existing partnership with site SSW partners (Watkins, 2004). The last 30 days to complete the 90 days plan involve meeting with the entire staff/faculty to address outstanding issues and report feedback from the site and program visits. The reports include the identified strengths, challenges, obstacles, and opportunities to enhance growth. Finally, I will start planning for the site observations/evaluations required within this school year.

Implementation of the 90-Day Plan

The first 30 days are vital for gaining knowledge about the function of central social workers (Watkins, 2004). Depending on collected assumptions, I will identify those correct, thus, plan on suitable ways to solve the issues. For example, the presence of one program administrator for 132 elementary school social workers is a problem due to little/no supervision from the administrator; thus, causing efficiency issues when working at sites. Despite the acknowledgment of the problem by the administrator, there are no resolving plans for the subject (Bridgham, 2017). Inadequacy feelings, burnout, and job dissatisfaction arise due to lack of supervision. As a Program administrator, I can supervise at least half of the social workers and plan regular monitoring.

Making site visits and getting feedback will help find excellent ways to meet the needs of the social workers and the school (Osing, 2016). Sites visits make building a relationship with the school administration easy hence identify the present atmosphere in the school. As a result, when moving social workers and assigning them to new school sites, it will be possible to match each social worker in a surrounding the can function tremendously depending on the school culture, their capabilities, and personality. Meeting with my chain of command will increase my understanding of my obligations to the district as the program administrator (Watkins, 2004). Building positive relationships within the department will sustain mental well-being and have a vast network within the area due to the existing school politics making it possible to implement better change for young people.

Reflection

Through the assignment, it is evident that I have a lot to learn about the inner workings of my school site and the school district. Creating the 90-day plan provided a ground for me to work on my assumptions and previous conversations held with other school social workers and program administrators, thus identify the crucial first steps (Osing, 2016). My military training in leadership helped create a plan to assess the situation and organize supervision. As such, I know the best way to supervise a massive load of people and ensure that the everyday workload does not affect their way of connecting, supporting, and building the capacity. Creating a plan and schedules is significant since it helps complete the present task. It is my obligation as a leader of individuals to support and ensure the satisfaction of other people's basic needs and social/emotional well-being. Most leaders focus on fulfilling the needs of students, their families, and co-workers, but forget a vital essence of caring for one's health, in turn, end up performing poorly (Armentrout & Planning, 2014). I want to be the leader that reminds my colleagues, shows them, and, if need be, strongly recommends they take care of themselves first by insisting on the importance of self-care in being a better leader.

Besides, looking back on my time as a school social worker, many individuals performed their roles exemplarily due to being people pleasers with vast fear that they will hurt someone's feelings in the process. It is important to consider people's emotional state as a social worker (Bridgham, 2017). However, the presence of a professional in the administrator position with the ability to balance feelings and duty will help individuals that he/she supervises to learn the best decision making ways thus, satisfy set goals at work (Watkins, 2004). Conversely, it is impossible to make everyone happy. For that reason, individuals should focus on treating everyone with dignity and respect to build consistent cases of mutual understanding to support goal attainment.

References

Armentrout, C., & Planning, S. F. U. S. D. (2014). San Francisco Unified School District Public Education Enrichment Fund 2012–13 Final Evaluation Report.

Bridgham, M. (2017, July 10). 7 priorities for a new leader in the first 100 days. ORG | Transforming organizations through collaboration: https://www.orginc.com/blog/7-priorities-for-a-new-leader-in-the-first-100-days

Watkins, M. (2004). Strategy for the critical first 90 days of leadership. Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 15-20: https://doi.org/10.1108/10878570410698871