Principal Meeting

I briefly spoke to my principal on my action research plan. I am uncertain right now how effective my plan is going to be as I only have a few returned current e-mails from parents. I am thinking of having a call-out to all parents in two weeks telling parents of the newsletter and to remember to open it for current information on CLIS. The call out will include asking parents to make sure that all of their data is current and if not, then to call the front office to update their current information. I will speak to my principal about that this coming week.

So far though this is what my plan is looking like.

OUTCOMES	ACTIVITIES	RESOURCES/ RESEARCH TOOLS NEEDED	RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS ACTIVITIES	TIME LINE	Benchmarks/ ASSESSMENT	Revisions to SIP/PIP based on monitoring and assessments
80% opening of outgoing e-mail newsletter	Send out a weekly newsletter to parents.	Constantcontact.com	Myself	2 -3 weeks	No assessments manageable unless I see if parental involvement with a newsletter somehow increases student's grades.	Extend through October of 2012 to compare information from this year to the beginning of next year.
Current information on CLIS	e-mail teachers reminding them to include information that involves the entire school.	School e-mail and speaking to them during a staff meetings.	Myself and our TIS, Bridgett Robinson	By May 2012	Same as above.	By end of current school year.
Increase the number of openings of the newsletter	Continue sending out newsletter for the 2012-2013 school year	constant contact and current parent e-mails	myself	by October 2012	Same as above	Extending project into next year

CLIS Weekly Newsletter

I am in charge of sending out a newsletter via e-mail to parents and teachers of our school. I look at the sttistics weekly to see how many opens it had, bouncebacks, SPAM alerts, and non-existant e-mails there are. It is frustrating because I work hard on the e-mail, but only have about 5% of the e-mails being opened. I thought I could increase the number to 80%, but I am not sure that I can do that as I am not in control of that aspect. So what I ahve decided to do is see if informing parents of the e-mail newsletter before we send it out would make them more apt to opening the e-mail? I have sent out letters to 75 students to have them bring it back with their parent's e-mail address and name. Unfortunately at this time, I have around 25 responses. With these e-mails, I will create a target group and set them up as a different group from my current groups. I will then gather data on all three groups and compare the opening ratio of the target group to the other two groups. To go back a bit, when we first started this e-mail, we did not tell parents that it was coming. E-mails were just set up and the information was sent with the title of "CLIS weekly e-mail." So this is the reasoning behind communicating first with them about the newsletter and then seeing if that helps increase the number of openings. I wll gather data for 6 weeks, chart it and then present it in my Aspiring Leadership class that I am currently in. I am also using it for muy action research project as it dels with gathering information and communication with parents.

Proposed Action Research Plan

The last two months I have been in charge of sending out an e-mail newsletter to parents, faculty and staff. Included in this newsletter is information for parents that pertain to important upcoming dates, athletics update, library news, a counselor's corner, fine arts section, and any sections that teachers and administrators want me to put into the newsletter. There are weekly statistics to look at like how many people and who opened the e-mail, what e-mails were undeliverable, and what were sent back as spam. I have been noticing that not everyone has been opening the e-mail, of course I would like for it to be 100% open, but that is probably not realistic. But at this point I am wondering why they are not opening it? Is this weekly e-mail newsletter communicating pertinent information to parents, staff and the community? Is enough information going out through this means, or too much? How do I reach all receiving the e-mail that this is a great means of communication that will help them become more involved with their student?

I have decided that this is going to be my action research project. I enjoy using and learning about technology and I also enjoy the ability to communicate to each parent through this e-mail.

Getting started

I know this isn't part of the assignment, but I am excited to have my own blog site. This is definitely a first.