Challenge Project:

School Wide Reading Initiative for March is Reading Month

Reasoning/justification for selecting challenge project:

Building lacks cohesiveness in school initiatives
There is an uneven distribution of school spirit and participation in school initiatives.
Each teacher celebrates and participates in activities as much as he or she would like.
This creates hostility amongst teachers and concern amongst parents.
As a building administrator, there needs to be a balance between promoting creativity
and independence among teachers with fair and equal opportunity for all.
Summary:
Star Basketball Readers from both high schools (South Lyon East and South Lyon
High), both boys and girls teams represented
School wide bracket- students submitted reading logs each week. Minutes per class
were averaged per student. Classes moved through bracket play.
The class within each grade level with the greatest averaged minutes per students win a
pizza party
Individual incentives- students who participate in March Madness by completing a
reading log are entered in a school wide drawing. Those names selected each week are
able to come to the office and take a free throw basket with the principal. As a
participation award, students receive a Chipotle reading award gift certificate.
The two final teams will participate in a shootout in front of the entire school. The winning
team will participate in a staff versus student basketball game. This pep assembly will
include cheerleaders from both high schools. The game will be reffed by the physical
education teacher and principal, and coached by the classroom teacher.
All students are receiving a free t-shirt to celebrate our madness for books! Students will
wear their t-shirts to the school wide assembly on Thursday, March 30th.
Rotate-a- Reader Event, Friday March 24th. To build cohesiveness amongst staff, staff
will visit other classrooms and serve as Mystery Readers.
Students are participating in spirit week every Friday. Spirit week days include: Reading
Exercises your Mind- How else do you exercise?, Hats off to Reading- Hat Day, Go
Crazy for Reading- Crazy Outfit Day, and Dress like your Favorite Book Character
Teachers are also decorating their classroom door in honor of March is Reading Month.

Lessons Learned/Key Takeaways:

Every staff has cheerleaders: find these people and utilize them. Sometimes people
surprise you; let these surprises be positive. Who will rise to the occasion? Find ways to
celebrate these people and their dedication to the cause.
Identify staff members who need extra motivation. Find ways to support these staff
members so they feel as if the task is manageable and they are able to participate.
Realize there is no way to to please everyone
Obstacles: Union contractual teacher leave time
 School wide initiatives require not only staff participation, but staff buy-in and staff
cheerleaders.
Utilize collaborative forms of technology (Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Forms,
etc)
Recognize that communicating clear expectations does not mean that all will run
smoothly.
There is a fine line between delegating tasks to make a project feel more manageable
and too many cooks in the kitchen, making the same project feel destructible.