Student Management Specialist, Osseo Area Schools

My name's Al Noland and I'm a student management specialist at Osseo Area Schools Park Center High School. Basically, kind of, sort of, like a I support students academically, socially emotionally, behaviorally, coming up with academic plans for them to be successful in the classroom as well as dealing with when, you know, they're having trauma or emotional meltdowns at times. Also trying to help them make sure at providing transportation, making sure they're getting to and from school. Meeting with families to come up with a plan to communicating what's going on with their student. Involving all of those different areas. I'm meeting with at least two to three students per hour. You know, they come down, whether it be "Hey, Mr. Noland, "I need to talk about, you know, "my busing and my transportation, "my mother wants to know about x, y and z "because we moved." Whether a teacher wants me to talk to a student because they're having trouble in class with their academics or they're having trouble in class with their behaviors. So I'm typically seeing students quite often. So a lot of times they come hightened up, so I have to de-escalate them, depending on the relationship I develop with them and that's key when working in this position is developing relationships with the students, depending on their relationship, you know, they have a different type of approach to me. Some will be upset, and not necessarily directed towards me, so I can't take it personal. But just de-escalating them and, and helping them work through the problem but also holding them accountable, and helping them understand that they have to take responsibility for some of their actions that they produce within the classroom to get them removed. The majority of my students I see quite often, and like I said, you come up with plans and you're consistent and work with them and seeing their progress, also communicate with the teacher to let the student know, hey, I'm supporting the teacher and you know what she's asking, her expectations for you in the classroom. And, typically I follow up with them, follow procedure, how's he doing, ask the student how they're doing. Are they making any progress? And they tend to as the year goes by make progress and every now and then they might go a little backwards, then they come back down and meet with myself and we come up with a different way to motivate them, different type of intervention to help them be successful.