Problems in school By: Rory W, Alexis J, Lisa J, and Thomas C

Our group decided to research this topic because we wanted to know some of the problems that other students faced at this school and maybe solve them. In this presentation, you will hear about some of the main problems that students encounter at school.

Work Report  Team meetings- Every Monday, our group would get together and have a team meeting about what we plan to do that day and the jobs that each person is going to do. We could either interview or edit the videos.  Team Assignments- Everyday, we rotated jobs and tried to use time efficiently.  Team member’s effort- All members of the group contributed equally  Research- When we still had the plan of making a documentary, we watched several documentaries to get an idea on how to create one. We learned different ways to film and good angles to shoot at.  Work Plan- We planned to use 4 weeks to go out and interview people and the rest of our time to edit and put the video together.  Trials/ Experiments- We tried to film from different angles so every scene wouldn’t look the same.  Feedback- Vincent told us that the documentation of the process was good but we should add some charts to make the data more clear.  Documentation- (on wiki)  Any changes in process- In the beginning of the make project, Lisa and Thomas would be paired up to interview while Alexis and Rory edited but we changed it so it would be Lisa and Alexis and the Rory and Thomas would be together. Also, about 2 weeks before the project was due, we decided to quit the documentary and just make a collaboration of the interviews because we realized that we wouldn’t have enough time to finish the documentary. 3

We interviewed several kids from each grade and asked them the following questions:  Do you have any problems at this school?  Do you have a problem with the lunch aids?  Do you have a problem with the dress code?  If you could change one rule about this school, what would it be? 4

 These are our answers that we got for the first question which was; Do you have any problems at this school? Interview1

6 Analysis  Out of the people that we interviewed, there were a variety of answers that we got such as; Bullying, cafeteria food, dress code, lunch time, homework and classes.  Most of the answers that we got were based on the topic of lunch and dress code

7  These are our answers that we got for the second question which was; Do you have a problem with the lunch aids? Interview 2

8 Analysis  To sum up all the answers, almost everyone had problems with the lunch aids. They say that they’re mean and unfair.  We interviewed the lunch aids to get their side of the story and they told us that they aren’t mean because they just want to, they are only enforcing the rules but the students don’t listen which causes them to get frustrated and might make them yell so the kids will listen. They care about our safety.

9  These are our answers that we got for the third question which was; Do you have a problem with the dress code? Interview 3

10 Analysis  According to the answers, the dress code mostly effects girls in 6-8th grade  Some girls suggested that we would change the dress code so instead of the finger tip rule, it would be shorts that go between the fingertips and the knuckles.  To be honest, guys don’t get distracted by girls shorts. A lot of teachers make a big deal out of it which makes them so strict on the dress code policy. Even if they’re 1 cm off, they would make you change.  Also, we think that it’s unfair that guys don’t have nearly as many rules as girls do. They get off very easily.

11  These are our answers that we got for the fourth question which was; If you could add or change one rule at this school, what would it be? Interview 4

12 Analysis  The answers to this question were different per grade. For example, the 3/4 students answers were mostly immature, the 5/6 students answers were mostly about homework and dress code, while the 7/8 students answers were mainly about dress code.

We can do several things to fix these problems. One thing we can do is propose a new dress code rule to the principal and let her know that the majority of the girls in the school strongly oppose it. Also, if people would just not argue with the lunch aids, the students wouldn’t have a problem with them. 13

Conclusion  Was project successful? Why / Why not? We think that the project wasn’t very successful. Even though we interviewed so many people and got their views on the school, we still didn’t complete our first main idea which was making a documentary. Some problems that we had during this project were how we spent our time. For the first couple of weeks, we were still trying to figure out the process of making a documentary and we did a lot of interviewing and we only used about ¼ of all the interviews About 2 weeks before the due date, we realized that we weren’t going to be able to actually create a documentary because all the videos haven’t been edited properly and we had a lot of difficulties with the computer and iMovie.  What would you do differently? If we could redo this project, we would probably communicate more before we started. This way, we would have been more successful and saved a lot of time.  Based on your work what are your conclusions? According to all grades, there are several things that this school can improve on. One thing that can be changed is the dress code and make it so instead of the “fingertip” rule, it would have to be longer than your knuckles. Another thing that we could change is the rules during lunch. We can let kids use their electronics and have the lunch aids be less strict. 14

Q & A 15