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Some situations occur in education in which decision-making can be on the borderline of
being based on ethical principles. The situations that are included have occurred over the course
of my educational career. Throughout every situation, there is a lesson that is involved. As an
educator, it is crucial to evaluate yourself and how you interact with your students, coworkers,
and parents. Every situation can teach a pivotal lesson. As a third-year teacher, coach, and
educator involved in the school system, several situations require decision-making that affects
ethical principles.
Some situations occur in education in which decision-making can be on the borderline of
being based on ethical principles. A situation that comes to mind, in particular, is when I was a
student teaching in a Social Communication classroom. The student behaviors and
communication needs in this unit were severe. We had behavior intervention plans to implement
and ABA strategies to help our students in the classroom. As we adjusted to our student’s
behavior, the Intervention Specialist was unexpectedly out for 2-3 weeks. During this time, I
understood how vital classroom structure is to our students, and I quickly stepped into a
leadership role. I was managing and overseeing classroom protocol and procedures.
Simultaneously, I was helping our Intervention Specialist virtually plan the classroom
curriculum. The most challenging part about her absence was not the students or the lesson
planning but managing the paraprofessional staff. I wanted to honor the classroom expectations
that were put into place for our students, but the paraprofessionals in our classroom disagreed
with a few of the Intervention Specialist protocols. Our classroom is devised as a structured work
system. Our students need and thrive off structure and clear guidelines. I noticed immediately
that no one was willing to keep this in practice, but I knew how vital it was to maintain them. I
coordinated with the Special Education Department Head to discuss behavior plans, general
classroom expectations, and what was required of us as a staff moving forward. Because of this
initiative, we could maintain the same structure and work systems as if our entire team was at
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school. I collaborated with the two other paraprofessionals to create a solid plan to move forward
throughout our school day. We created a plan for who was with which student and at what time,
and what everyone's role looked like for classroom procedures and data collection. In the future,
it would also be beneficial for the principal and department head to recognize that the classroom
leader is out for three weeks and that there should be daily check-ins and communication with
the team providing support to keep the classroom running smoothly. It felt like a massive
compliment for my principal to trust me to run the classroom independently in the student-
teacher role. However, I ended up feeling more unsupported and stressed with managing co-
workers that were more experienced and felt that I had no control over the classroom. The
students were also not made a priority in this situation. The students were put at risk for
behaviors beyond their control. With some of the practices that could have been put in place,
some students could have been put in danger because of the lack of support being provided to
them. In the future, to deal with this situation, I would schedule a team meeting with all of the
team members. As a team, we would define our goal for the classroom and redefine classroom
expectations. We would review each student's files and together make a plan for how we are
going to support each student in the classroom best.
I coach track and field and cross country at my school. One of the challenges of coaching
is dealing with the parents and their expectations for their athletes' participation. I had a parent,
in particular, this past season who would rebuttal and disagree with every decision I made. The
parent was verbally abusive and crossed boundaries by calling my person's cell phone. The
parents called during the school day while I was teaching students and started to scream at me
about their daughters' participation. The argument was made that the coaches ran a circus, and
the parent felt their daughter should correct their form and running lane. The coaches and the
parents had a few instances during track meets and practices. In the future, I would like to have a
sit-down meeting with the coaching staff, the parents, and the athletic director. In this meeting,
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we would discuss expectations for when you can contact a coach. We would also discuss
requirements that are to be fulfilled by the athlete when participating in their events. This would
help the athlete to have the confidence to compete to the best of their ability. The pressure from
pleasing coaches and a parent is a burden that no athlete should have to overcome.
Lastly, the situation that occurred two years ago that I’m still unsure of how to navigate
appropriately deals with a coworker that is breaking school policy. In my first year as a
classroom teacher, I shared a classroom with another intervention specialist. This was during
COVID, so we were required to wear masks. My coworker would chew tobacco during the
school day. The coworker would always have tobacco in his mouth. There was an instance when
the school psychologist was in the room, and under his mask, he had tobacco in his mouth. There
were several school days when the coworker would have tobacco in his mouth with students
present in the room. I felt this was extremely unprofessional and disrespectful to the school
policy, students and staff. This creates a very unsafe environment for the students that were
impacted by his usage. Unfortunately, I found out that the principal knew of this usage and was
okay with it. This negatively affected the students, me as a professional, and the overall
classroom environment. Looking back, I should have communicated with the board of education
and reported this behavior. In the future, I will communicate with the coworker that is breaking
school policy and first give them the chance to fix it. But, then I would communicate with my
school leadership so that this is dealt with and no students can be harmed. There is a zero
tolerance drug policy in schools. There should not have been an exception to this teacher.
Moving forward, if I had to collaborate with this teacher in the future, there would be clear
boundaries and expectations for what would be considered allowed in my classroom.
There are several future goals that I have for myself. Most of the goals surrounding
communication. This includes communicating appropriately with my students, coworkers, and
parents. I want to work through a process of communicating with parents that may be
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disagreeing with something that I am doing or parents that are more difficult to interact with. I
also want to work to better collaborate with my coworkers. As a new, outgoing, ambitious
educator it can be difficult to work with educators that have been teaching for several years. I
would like to work to gain more insight on past processes that worked very well and also
processes that seemed to not work for my coworkers. I would like to create a plan of action for
myself when dealing with conflict with my coworkers. I want to work to quickly define the
problem that needs to be dealt with and together collaborate to find a solution. I plan to meet
with my current administrators and learn key ways to develop skills for when interacting with
various stakeholders. I would also like to create a blueprint for how I will communicate with and
deal with situations that could take some time to resolve. The blueprint would allow me to be
reflective in how I make my decisions.
When communicating with parents for sports, I plan to create a list of rules and
expectations. The rules and expectations would outline what to expect from me as the coach, but
also what to expect from each athlete. Each athlete and family would have a good understanding
of how to communicate with me and when I am available to communicate with. This will create
boundaries with my work schedule and personal life to deal with the conflict that arises with the
students and their families.
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