Research Paper on Democratic Action Plan

Introduction

A Democratic Action Plan (DAP) is an approach that addresses concerns regarding an educational environment that is derived from the school's stakeholders thus it is based upon the voice of the people (March, 2016). My school takes a proactive approach to multicultural diversity as it has policies in place to create an environment where all students and teachers respect each other regardless of their backgrounds, race, gender, religion and political affiliations among other critical actors relating to diversity (Hyde & LaPrad, 2015).

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The school has structured classroom activities that accentuate diversity because teachers take a proactive approach to teaching whereby they acknowledge different perspectives. For instance, teachers in my school structure diverse group assignment by devising activities that allow every student to contribute without feeling judged. Besides, the stakeholders of the school are very different because there are equal opportunities for anyone willing to invest in the welfare and success of the students, including teachers, administrators, parents, community members, local business leaders and the board of directors. For this reason, visitors acknowledge the school's effort to prepare children for the future in a multicultural democratic environment, which makes their view of the school positive (Hien, 2016).

An interview with the school's stakeholders indicates that they are pleased with the organization's approach towards diversity. They feel that the stakeholders well represent issues concerning race, gender, religion, political views and color (Rojas & Liou, 2017). The members of the school's board, parents, teachers, and students are pleased with the school's approach to diversity, and they feel good to be part of the organization because they think that they are part of an organization that priorities mutual respect. Besides, the school has several action plans that encourage and support students to enhance their success (Day, Gu & Sammons, 2016). For example, the school has a no child is left behind the policy to ensure that all achievement gaps are sealed to encourage all students to attain their full potential.

This policy has pushed the school's administration team to ensure that every student succeeds despite their race and ethnicity because it requires the teachers to meet the goals of the school's adequate semester progress (Louis, Murphy & Smylie, 2016). These goals consider demographic subgroups, economically deprived students and students with disabilities. Teachers are put on probation if they fail to achieve these goals for two semesters. To attain these goals, all the stakeholders work collectively (Ioannidou-Koutselini & Patsalidou, 2015). Parents are supposed to collaborate and communicate with the teachers regularly to know their children's progress and discuss the action plan for the ones lagging behind. Consequently, each class has a parent, faculty, staff and student representative to plan and direct the development of each level and all the stakeholders are involved in the decision-making process on how to assist the teachers in meeting the goal of helping every student succeed (O'Grady, 2014).

Conclusion

However, even with the school's effort to manage multicultural diversity, some parents are reluctant to promote a positive environment that fosters achievement for every student. Some parents believe that it is not their duty to ensure that their child is performing well in school, but rather it is the school's responsibility. This kind of thinking has made it hard to foster achievement for some students who lack moral support from their parents. I noticed this problem because some students whose parents do not show up at the parent-teacher conference do not perform as well as others. I also saw that the parents of these students are going through some hardships such as financial constraints and lack of education. For this reason, some parents and teachers are not very supportive of such parents due to their social status, and this makes them, even more, resigned from their children's academic progress (Payne & Calton, 2017). The only way for this problem to be addressed is by teachers and parents changing their perception on all the parents' social status and focus on the agenda of the school, which is to ensure that every student succeeds regardless of their differences (Hachfeld, Hahn, Schroeder, Anders & Kunter, 2015).

References

Day, C., Gu, Q., & Sammons, P. (2016). The impact of leadership on student outcomes: How successful school leaders use transformational and instructional strategies to make a difference. Educational Administration Quarterly, 52(2), 221-258.

Hachfeld, A., Hahn, A., Schroeder, S., Anders, Y., & Kunter, M. (2015). Should teachers be colorblind? How multicultural and egalitarian beliefs differentially relate to aspects of teachers' professional competence for teaching in diverse classrooms. Teaching and Teacher Education, 48, 44-55.

Hien, T. T. T. (2016). Why is action research suitable for education?. VNU Journal of Science: Foreign Studies, 25(2).

Hyde, A. M., & LaPrad, J. G. (2015). Mindfulness, democracy, and education. Democracy and Education, 23(2), 2.

Ioannidou-Koutselini, M., & Patsalidou, F. (2015). Engaging school teachers and school principals in an action research in-service development as a means of pedagogical self-awareness. Educational Action Research, 23(2), 124-139.

Louis, K. S., Murphy, J., & Smylie, M. (2016). Caring leadership in schools: Findings from exploratory analyses. Educational Administration Quarterly, 52(2), 310-348.

March, A. (2016). The democratic plan: Analysis and diagnosis. Routledge.

O'Grady, C. R. (2014). Integrating service learning and multicultural education: An overview. In Integrating service learning and multicultural education in colleges and universities (pp. 17-36). Routledge.

Payne, S. L., & Calton, J. M. (2017). Towards a managerial practice of stakeholder engagement: Developing multi-stakeholder learning dialogues. In Unfolding stakeholder thinking (pp. 121-135). Routledge.

Rojas, L., & Liou, D. D. (2017). Social justice teaching through the sympathetic touch of caring and high expectations for students of color. Journal of Teacher Education, 68(1), 28-40.