Writing Effective School Policy and Procedures

Writing policy and procedures for schools is a part of an administrators job. School policies and procedures are essentially the governing documents by which your school district and school buildings are operated. It is essential that your policies and procedures be current and up-to-date. These should be reviewed and revised as necessary, and new policies and procedures should be written as needed. The following guidelines are tips and suggestions to consider when you are evaluating old policy and procedures or writing new ones. Why Is the Evaluation of School Policies and Procedures Important? Every school has a student handbook, support staff handbook, and certified staff handbook which are loaded with policies and procedures. These are vital pieces of each school because they govern the day-to-day occurrences that happen in your buildings. They are valuable because they offer the guidelines for how the administration and school board believe their school should be run. These policies come into play every single day. They are a set of expectations that all constituents within the school are held accountable by. How Do You Write Targeted Policy? Policies and procedures typically are written with a specific target audience in mind, This includes students, teachers, administrators, support staff, and even parents. Policies and procedures should be written so that the target audience understands what is being asked or directed of them.  For example, a policy written for a middle school student handbook should be written at a middle school grade level and with terminology that the average middle school student will understand. What Makes a Policy Clear? A quality policy is both informative and direct meaning that the information is not ambiguous, and it is always straight to the point. It is also clear and concise. A well-written policy will not create confusion. A good policy is also up-to-date. For example, policies dealing with technology probably need frequently updated  due to the rapid evolution of the technology industry itself. A clear policy is easy to understand. The readers of the policy should not only understand the meaning of the policy but understand the tone and the underlying reason the policy was written. When Do You Add New Policies or Revise Old Ones? Policies should be written and/or revised as needed. Student handbooks and such should be reviewed on a yearly basis. Administrators should be encouraged to keep documentation of all policies and procedures that they feel need to be added or revised as the school year moves along. There are times to put a piece of new or revised policy in effect immediately within a school year, but the majority of the time, the new or revised policy should go into effect the following school year. What Are Good Procedures for Adding or Revising Policies? The majority of policy should go through several channels before it is included within your proper district’s policy book. The first thing that has to happen is that a rough draft of the policy has to be written. This is usually done by a principal or other school administrator. Once the administrator is happy with the policy, then it is an excellent idea to form a review committee made up of the administrator, teachers, students, and parents. During the review committee, the administrator explains the policy and its purpose, the committee discusses the policy, makes any recommendations for revision, and decides whether it should be submitted to the superintendent for review. The superintendent then reviews the policy and may seek legal counsel to make sure the policy is legally viable. The superintendent may kick the policy back down to the review committee to make changes, may kick out the policy completely, or may send it on to the school board for them to review. The school board can vote to reject the policy, accept the policy, or may ask that a part be revised within the policy before they accept it. Once it is approved by the school board, then it becomes official school policy and is added to the appropriate district handbook.

Review and Critique of Gender in Cross-Cultural...

Review and Critique of: Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective A book by Caroline Bretell Carolyn Sargent By Introduction In this book the focus is on how gender is constructed around the world. The book demonstrated many different areas in which women either ruled or ruled together with man. It leaves people with hope that the world is capable of an equalitarianism society. Many topics in the field of anthropology of gender are covered. The authors feature not only information from classic sources but also include recent literature from around the world. This book gives readers an awareness and understanding of the sociology of†¦show more content†¦The women are actually so scared to be alone with a man that this tradition is not questioned. This tradition is considered the most important event in a girls life, if there is blood on the cloth it will no longer matter what anyone may say about the girl. It is also important because the girls virginity is inseparable from her familys honor. This tradition also speaks to the honor of the mans family. If the man acts quickly and unafraid he will be praised. The author states Given this group investment in the brides virginity, the central rite of the wedding becomes a drama of suspense and relief that must powerfully shape peoples experiences of sexuality as something that belongs to the many, and especially to ones family. This article clearly shows how culture can shape sexuality which in turns shapes gender identity. It is evident that the mans virginity was not of any concern, demonstrating a double standard. Men are given more liberties in this community. However with such stake riding on their own virginity women are in a since forced to comply. It is clear by the above articles alone that the authors of the book have explored and included a wide range of information exploring gender studies from many perspectives including an anthropological one. Cross-Culturally Comparing Gender Issues Brittell and Sargent set out to explore

Evaluating the Causes of Uncertainty in Logistics Operations

Question: Discuss factors that will influence the decision on outsourcing or to keep it in house by using the performance objectives and Risks involved in the process of decision making and the recommendations that will help in mitigating the risks? Answer: Basis for optimal outsourcing solutions Tasks which are strategically unimportant but have important operational performance are to be outsourced. For e.g., an auto manufacturer may outsource the delivery services to a dealer. How delivery affects customer is not a matter of strategic importance but it smoothens operations hugely. It is to be checked whether the operational performance come to a standstill if its to be outsourced. Besides lower value services like back office and human resources, the oil companies also outsource higher value serves like the entire gamut of technology or the IT Vertical completely to gain efficiency and improvements in productivity and also cost cutting through operational excellence. Figure 1: Outsourcing Decision Matrix Source: (Dey, LaGuardia and Srinivasan, 2011) The doors are open for oil majors to take benefit of cost minimization like outsourcing of verticals like IT and back office operations are seen as proven sustainable policies. Globally according to Forbes Global 2000, about 36 % of oil firms have resorted to outsourcing policies (Dey, LaGuardia and Srinivasan, 2011). Sophisticated cost minimization policies, like application portfolio rationalization and applying cloud infrastructure, are to drive further more cost reduction. About 75% of times, higher value is generated from outsourcing of IT verticals in Forbes Global 2000 study. This particular figure helps in knowing the overall operational performance against the strategic importance which will help in the decision making process. Shell: A case study in Outsourcing As a part of the global IT Outsourcing wave, Royal Dutch Shell has entered a$ 4 billion multi supplier outsourcing deal with EDS and ATT that tends to catapult Shell to the next higher level in customer service. It is considered that the deal will cover 150000 users in over 100 nations that will cause EDS managing Shells computing services. EDS, that is over 45 years ago, will act as a custodian of IT services of all other Outsourcing companies. Emails and Internet phone services will witness a sea change in terms of achieving robustness and integration as Shell embodies rise in efficiency and improvements in productivity (Dowle et al., 2015). In the IT infrastructure team of Shell there is seen massive restructuring as 600 workers will stay in house and remaining 3000 jobs will be outsourced to the IT consulting majors. In order to thrive in the world of competition and volatile crude oil prices, Shell aims to increase its hydrocarbon reserves while keeping marketing and distributio n channels of products and services streamlined and efficient. Shells Endeavour to outsource from IT companies emphasizes the oil majors desire to innovate by leveraging on technology and turn out to be a winner by implementing end to end IT solutions from oil discovery to managing human capital(Stevenson, 2012). Thus IT services and products will traverse the entire spectrum of companys verticals crisis crossing the various functions successfully. This will result into streamlining of the processes and better productivity, lower costs and higher bottom lines. The companys IT Infrastructure Outsourcing deal was considered to the most complicated and most innovative program launched by the company ever. As a result, end to end services have been streamlined and standardized and innovations have lowered costs and made the company sharper and leaner in the highly competitive environment. Shell in 2012 has renewed its IT Outsourcing deal with Deutsche Telekoms T-Systemsannounced for another five years towards worldwide hosting and storage services.T-Systemswill provide Shell with data infrastructure and computer services across the world (Grant, 2012). Shell has implemented SAP and cloud computing successfully, boosting efficiency and lowering costs. Shell has signed a $ 300 million deal with Logica for 10 years that will take over Shells in-house IT delivery team across 35 countries in Europe and Asia. This is a move towards cost cutting and better efficiency. Factors that will influence the decision on outsourcing or to keep it in house by using the performance objectives The first factor that needs proper consideration is the political factor because government intervention can be noticed in regular intervals which may cause problem by imposing various legislation, rules, tax policy restrictions that will force the business to implement in the business activities. Political stability which is recognized in Malaysia as it practices high level of Parliamentary Democracy on the basis of monarch in constitution. Another political factor is the tariffs, policy on tax as well as trade control(Sanchez Rodrigues, 2010). It can be noticed that Malaysia has introduced innovative plan on investment strategy in the year 2010 which was established in order to promote natural gas as well as oil exploration. This policy was made by the Shell so that they only needed to pay lesser tax to the government which will definitely be helpful in reducing the overall cost of this company. The last factor which was recognized in the political term is the government policie s on this company. It was noticed that Malaysia was providing subsidies to most of the companies which was involved in the petroleum as well as energy industry. This wills the company to check on their operating cost which was necessary to sustain in the market. The next factor will be the economic factor which includes the rate of interest, inflation rate, unemployment, which will have a direct impact on the performance within an organization (Hill and Hill, 2012). One of the economical factors will be the growth rate of any country. This will help in increasing the investment pattern and spending habits of customers. Therefore, it was noticed that the revenue of Shell was noticed to have an increase in the growth rate. Inflation rate is another economical factor which states that if the inflation rate is kept low, then company can easily make long term plans as because they believe that the money engaged is not wasted rather it can be helpful in the purchasing every year. Social factor is another issue that needs proper attention which includes the cultural as well as demographic issues related to values and attitudes which changes with the change in trend and fashion. This factor will change as per the customer needs as well expectations which will be according to the size of the market potential. Another factor that can lead to change will be the technological factor which includes research and development activities, automation which will give rise to incentives on the basis of technological changes. It will be responsible for taking decisions on outsourcing whether there is any barrier to entry or not, and the level of efficiency in the production area. Last but not the least, there is the ecological factors which includes building relationship with human beings. It has been seen that Shell products can have an adverse effect as far as environment is concerned as because its business activities are to deal with oil and gas (Schonsleben, 2012). Petroleum is the major cause of acid rain, which is responsible to cause various environmental problems like, dead coral reefs, lakes in acidized condition and dead coral reefs. Another destruction issue will be if the petroleum will be burnt, then a large of carbon dioxide gas will come out which will cause heat in the atmosphere which will have effect on the greenhouse. Risks involved in the process of decision making and the recommendations that will help in mitigating the risks Risk should be mitigated as far as possible which will help identifying the various goals which was pre planned in the contingency model. It is advisable that the risk need to be reduced in way of forecasting by supply as well as demand which has to be connected directly with the supplier (Jones and Robinson, 2012). Risk has to be properly managed and it has been classified in three broad categories that have been explained with proper justification: The management should focus on the strategy in order to minimize the risk with the help of capacity as well as managing with the availability of concerned resources as far as possible. Another process in which risk can be reduced will be having proper security which can provide information, privacy in order to compliance in the most effective manner. Process which will involve in the risk management which will be helpful to have a continuous flow of information from the supplier to its customers which helps in building healthy relationship between them (Myerson, 2012).. It can be understood from the above points that outsourcing is all about maintain relationship by various risks, areas of concern, which further includes perfect knowledge of the business activities, in source relationship as well as control with the management as a whole which will lead to maintaining confidentiality which are even beneficial to maintain a healthy relationship with the offshore vendors (Sternberg, 2011). It has been noticed that the IT infrastructure has put more emphasis on the structure of the organization, joint process in fields as well as shouldering the responsibilities to indicate in the control level in the most efficient manner. Other recommendations which should be taken into consideration will be the maintaining the relationship with the outsourcer in order to co operates with them which will definitely helpful in mitigating risk in the framework of this particular company. Another vital issue that can be noticed will be the lack in innovation which may have an adverse effect; rather it should make effort in carrying certain responsibilities by which the insourcer can innovate which will be helpful in carrying out the business activities. If the products are outsourced in the most efficient manner, then a healthy relationship can be built between the company and the outsourcing company and the risk can therefore be mitigated to a large extent as the responsibilities will be divided which will help in the smooth functioning of the Shell Company in order to carry out the business activities. Conclusion Outsourcing embodies a multiplier effect in profits and productivity gains by reduction of risks. Mitigation of risks by adhering to privacy rules and continuous dissemination and uninterrupted flow of information assumes centre stage in a successful outsourcing deal. A leaner organization is in the making after cost cutting is undertaken and outsourcing of low strategic, high operating performance tasks has been dealt with. While marketing and distribution channels could also be outsourced just in the case of an auto manufacturer, higher value verticals like IT too may be outsourced to achieve significant ramp ups in productivity, cost cutting and efficiency. The case of Shell is a win-win deal with its outsourcers with huge improvement in profitability and ROCE. Technology outsourcing in Shell is hailed as an ecosystem. The holistic outsourcing deal of Shell with EDS and T Systems is a stride towards achieving bigger returns on equity. Social, economic and political factors are als o relevant and intertwined in measuring the success of an outsourcing deal. Imposition of taxes and tariffs as in Malaysia is also crucial step by the government and is seen as a political economic development. In crux, Shells outsourcing success story is a profound delving in organizational strategy in the backdrop of outsourcing policy. Reference List Decaro, N. and Buonavoglia, C. (2012). Canine parvovirusA review of epidemiological and diagnostic aspects, with emphasis on type 2c.Veterinary Microbiology, 155(1), pp.1-12. Dey, A., LaGuardia, P. and Srinivasan, M. (2011). Building sustainability in logistics operations: a research agenda.Management Research Review, 34(11), pp.1237-1259. Dowle, E., Morgan-Richards, M., Brescia, F. and Trewick, S. (2015). Correlation of shell phenotype and local environment suggests a role for natural selection in the evolution of Placostylus snails.Mol Ecol, p.n/a-n/a. Grant, D. (2012).Logistics management. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd. Hill, A. and Hill, T. (2012).Operations management. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Jones, P. and Robinson, P. (2012).Operations management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jumonji domain containing 2C (JMJD2C; KDM4C). (2012).Science-Business eXchange, 5(45). Lin, C. (2011). Management Performance Evaluating in Distribution Center.Contemporary Logistics, pp.3-8. McLaughlin, D. and Olson, J. (n.d.).Healthcare operations management. Myerson, P. (2012).Lean supply chain and logistics management. New York: McGraw-Hill. Pienaar, W. and Vogt, J. (2012).Business logistics management. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. Sanchez Rodrigues, V. (2010). Evaluating the causes of uncertainty in logistics operations.The International Journal of Logistics Management, 21(1), pp.45-64. Schonsleben, P. (2012).Integral logistics management. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Sternberg, H. (2011). Effective trailer transport operations: using information sharing.International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 10(1), p.1. Stevenson, W. (2012).Operations management. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Xu, X. (2011). Quality Control and Management of Plum in Cold Chain Logistics.Contemporary Logistics, pp.28-31. Zuba, D., Sekua, K. and Buczek, A. (2012). Identification and characterization of 2,5-dimethoxy-4-nitro--phenethylamine (2C-N) A new member of 2C-series of designer drug.Forensic Science International, 222(1-3), pp.298-305.

Macbeth Essays (1340 words) - Characters In Macbeth, Macbeth

Macbeth MacBeth - This dead butcher and his fiend like queen, is the way in which Malcolm describes Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Describe the way in which these two characters changed during the course of the play. At the beginning of the play Macbeth is seen as a courageous soldier who is loyal to the King but is corrupted from the witches prophecies and by his and Lady Macbeth's ambition. This is because of the weakness of Macbeth's character and the strong power of Lady Macbeth and how she is easily able to influence him. Her strength motivates him at the start but after he realises what he has done it is himself that continues in his murderous, bloody path. At the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth appears as a kind wife of Macbeth's but underneath lies a scheming and treacherous woman. In the beginning of the play Macbeth is a strong soldier who fights for the King without mercy but his strive for ambition and his curious nature leads him to the witches who give him a prophecy. Banquo realises that there must be a trick hidden in the witches prophecies somewhere but Macbeth refuses to accept that, and when Lady Macbeth finds out about the witches her strong desire for ambition and her cold nature leads Macbeth astray. Macbeth is a little ambitious at first, but Lady Macbeth's far exceeds his and so she is able to get Macbeth to agree with her to kill King Duncan. Macbeth still has a conscience at this stage because he is very hesitant about killing the King but his weak nature over comes him. He has a conscience throughout the entire play as this is seen by the hallucinations of the dagger and the ghost of Banquo and his vivid imagination and his constant worry also provokes him. This is also evident in his terrible dreams which gives the solid theme that he has indeed murdered sleep. Throughout the play we see the character of Macbeth change not from just the way he thinks and what we hear from the play, but from the actions he takes in the play, from killing Banquo, then having Lady Macduff and her children murdered, shows the insecurity that was present in Macbeth. After the murder of Duncan Macbeth becomes paranoid and his first step of killing the guards is one of many that Macbeth takes to secure himself. Macbeth is also very superstitious and this is shown when he believes the prophecy the witches told him that Banquo's offspring would become Kings. Towards the end of the play when Macbeth's wife has died and the battle is drawing closer Macbeth shows some good which may have been. He wishes for a normal life for which he would have lived to an honourable age but he recognises that he has denied himself of this. Even when Macbeth hears that the prophecy has become true of Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane, he rejects this idea and fights on until he realises that Macduff wasn't born in a natural birth but instead was Untimely ripped from his mother's womb. When Macbeth hears of this he realises what he has done and how he has been tricked by the witches but instead he realises that it is useless and so he fights on only to be slain. Macbeth can be summarised into a character although strong physically he is very weak mentally and it is this weakness which causes the downfall and change of Macbeth. Other factors do however also contribute to this change such as his wife whose ambition is very strong at first and is much more stronger mentally than Macbeth but it is also Macbeth's ambition and his trust in the witches which ultimately change him. Lady Macbeth seems to be almost opposite compared to that of Macbeth in physical and mental power. Lady Macbeth is the person who is able to persuade Macbeth into killing Duncan, assuring Macbeth that it will succeed, as Lady Macbeth's ambition is far greater than that of Macbeth. This change in the character of Lady Macbeth is apparent after she reads the letter from Macbeth as she goes and talks to the evil spirits to make