Thanks for reading
OK, so the district itself is ranked "Continuous Improvement", which is really good, at least we're not going backwards! But I went to ODE's website and looked at the report cards for most of the schools in the district. I read there, and also heard here on the local news that we have several schools that are in "Academic Emergency", one of which is one of my childrens schools. To protect my children I am not going to name the specific school, but I will say that this comes at no surprise to me what so ever!
In the many dealings that I had with said school last year it became more and more apparent that this school wants nothing to do with a child that may need a little extra help. It actually took me better than half of the school year, and the threat of involving my lawyer, to get a meeting with the SAT team to try and help my child. There are many teachers that I came in contact with last year that were helpful with my child, but there were others, as well as those in charge of the school, who wanted nothing more than to simply tell me what I wanted to hear at the moment then not follow through with it when I was not present. They would then turn around and take their frustrations with me as an involved parent out on my child. I feel that the principal, vice pricipal and dean of said school are very prejudice against children that struggle, whether it be educationall, emotionally or financially. A childs race does not play a factor in their prejudice because I seen it towards students of every race. It just felt as if they simply did not want to deal with a child that was anything less that perfect and would simply call the parents and send a child home, which would cause even more problems for these kids.
I was very disappointed to see that the same principal, vice principal and dean are in this school this year as I had hopes that they would bring in some fresh faces to try and help this school out, but that does not seem to be something that is going to happen. I must admit that I really dread the thought of this child going back to this school, but I will put my best foot forward and have told my child that I expect the same from them so that we don't have a repeat of last year. My only hope is that my child is allowed to start with a clean slate and not have last year thrown back at them.
So, what are your thoughts about TPS's report card and your childs schools own report card? If you haven't seen them yet, you can find them at this link
Thanks for reading!
5 comments:
Continuous Improvement.......hmmmmmmmm
My class worked very hard on the 3rd grade achievement test, but collectively we are as a school CI. It's frustrating because it doesn't really take into account successses the children actually do have. I believe in teaching to different types of learning, different intelligences as put forth by Gardner. So, Pencil and paper work isn't always how I evaluate students. I am fortunate that my own children do well on paper and pencil assessments but not all students do.
We have a sat team meeting each month and believe me sometimes the pace frustrates teachers as well. (I had a student who needed glasses all year so was finally tested by the team in May.) Sometimes the sheer numbers get in the way of progress. I am sorry that you have had such trouble. I try to work with parents as I'd have liked to have been treated. More often my children were ignored because they were quiet. ;)
And we are not perfect either.... :)
I wondered what your take was going to be on the scores Jo, I was glad to see some of the schools move forward and hope that they continue to do so but the fact remains that we still have schools in academic emergency.
Personally I think the whole test system is nothing more than trying to force children to fit in a peg no matter what "size" they might be. Some children no matter what are not going to do well on these standardized tests. There should be a better way to guage individual and school progress if that's even necessary. The whole concept of "No Child Left Behind" sounds great in theory but children are being left behind, because we as a state don't finance schools equally. Not to mention the Federal Government mandating this but not fully funding it and then the whole question of special ed students. I noticed in doing a bit more detailed look at some of the local elementary schools that were listed in academic emergency that they did have more special education teachers which means most likely they had more special education students.
I'm still not clear on how that all fits into to this, I've been told both that they all have to be tested no matter what and that some of them can waiver out of the testing.
I don't think it's fair to use this report card system as a one size fits all way to judge schools. Smaller suburbian districts are going to do better in most cases than the larger public school systems from an over all average. Then the whole confusion over CI in the first place, some of the schools I looked at in other districts that were considered "Continuous Improvement" actually had lower scores than some of hte schools considered "Academic Emergency" or "Academic Watch". Given that the indicators are going to change again next year and be increased? I don't see how these schools are going to be able to move forward and I can't help wondering at the end of it all how much value this whole report card system has.
special ed students are assessed with a different instrument designed by their teacher. their scores are figured into the overall rating.
Anonymous, I agree with you that sometimes some kids need something different. My oldest child is a perfect example of that. The ultimate way to punish them would be to make them sit with pencil and paper and write. Although they are extremely intelligent and has a high IQ somewhere inbetween the brain and the pencil, things get jumbled. They do awesome on tests, nearly acing every one, but do extremely poorly on the day to day work because of the amount of writing it requires. They were offered the option of a laptop or typing assignments that needed to be handwritten, but at their grade level that brings in a fair amount of being made fun of by their peers. If you'll pardon my language here, it's one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations. As a parent they year was heart wrenching for me to see my child go through what they went through. This specific child is in Middle School, so alot of what goes on in their lives goes back to "how will people think of me because of this. I'm not saying that I am allright with them thinking that, but I do also understand.
I'm sorry if this post sounded like I was slamming teachers, if it did, then I need to go back and reword it. The vast majority of teachers that I have had in my childrens lives over the past 8 years have been awesome, as were about 50% of the teachers in this specific childs year last year. It was "funny", at one meeting we had with the teachers last year, the ones that were negative went first and were quite "verbal" in how they felt about my child. Then the ones that had positive things to say stepped in and we watched the reactions of the ones that spoke first. It wasn't what they said that made the biggest impression, it was their body language. On teacher actually rolled their eyes and went "HMPH" over one of the positive comments while another sat with their arms crossed, sloched down in their seat staring away from where we all were sitting. It was strange to see one set of teachers so very much against the other set. But, what I'm trying to say is that I could never be a teacher myself. It takes a very special person to choose to be a teacher, and I commend them all, even if I don't always agree with them ;o) So I hope I didn't offend you! Keep doing what you are doing, because as a parent, we like it when our chldrens teachers care!!
Lisa, I'm going to do a completely seperate topic on the blog about your reply, because it really got me to thinking, thanks so much for your points!
Jo
Jo,
Welcome to the wonderful world of TPS :-(
Don't let the a**h*l*S get you down.
After all, at TPS, mediocrity is our passion.
Well, maybe passion is kind of a strong word. . .
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