I’ll begin this with a letter to the editor I submitted to the Northfield News, which I think is self-explanatory:
On Feb 9 the Northfield School Board entertained two options for next year’s school calendar. Both involve having a one hour late-start EVERY MONDAY of the year, so that teachers can have the time to meet in professional learning communities. These meetings would replace the four days that have traditionally been scheduled with 2 hours either late start or early release. Parents have one month to comment on the proposed calendar. (continued)
I strongly object to this change.First, it will further reduce instructional time for each student. We already have fewer instructional days (173) than other areas of the country (e.g., the Northeast, which has about 180); now we are chipping away at those fewer days. We are reminded each year by building principals that every minute of instruction counts. If true, then reduction in instructional time is a very big issue.
Second, this calendar, while perhaps convenient and congenial to teachers and principals, is problematic for working parents of elementary students. Working parents are unlikely to be able to stay home until 9 or 9:30 every week with their young children. They will now have to pay extra to have supervision for their young elementary children (or else leave them unsupervised). The plan is not “cost-neutral” as claimed by the district, but a new cost imposed unilaterally on parents.
My third objection is that the only options on the table contain this late-start provision. Parents had no voice in formulating these options, or discussing with the committee what effects this change would have on them.
Lastly, the justification given for this change is that “research” has “shown” that professional learning communities are beneficial for education. I find this statement vague and possibly misleading. Our teachers have been in PLCs for at least some time already, and our performance as a school district is heading down, not up. What exactly is the evidence, IN NORTHFIELD, that PLC’s are improving student experience?
My experience as a parent is that the Northfield school district is a very staff-centric one. We do (and fail to do) far too much to suit the convenience and preferences of teachers and administrators, instead of centering efforts, energies, and resources on students. Parental concerns are ignored far too often. It’s time for this focus to change.
I urge other concerned parents to make their views known to school board members, and to do so soon.
I haven’t yet heard back from the News—usually they publish my letters though sometimes it takes a few weeks. They also limit letters to 400 words, so there is not a lot of room for expansion.
But as I wrote the letter, and as I phoned and emailed school board members about the issue before writing the letter, I became increasingly clear about how I felt about a larger issue: The Northfield School district has become increasingly staff-centric, and that compromises the overall educational quality delivered to its students.
I don’t deny that having teachers be in professional learning communities has value. I question the relative value of those meetings against instructional time for kids. I also question why these meetings can’t take place after school or before school (in the case of Bridgewater, which already has a very late start). I suspect the answer has something to do with the large proportion of teachers who coach. But that raises the question, why is coaching more important a priority than teaching. And, coaching aside, I question why the burden of holding these meetings should fall upon families with both parents working outside the home, or single parents who work outside the home (like me).
For more information, see the ISD 659 website has PDF of background information and Frequently Asked Questions.
Another clarification. The proposal for the late start/early dismissal option did not come from the calendar committee. It was suggested by the local teachers association as a possible solution to the problems we have been having scheduling PLC meetings after school across the district.
The calendar committee discussed this as a possible option for next year. The school board makes the decision about the calendar based on our recommendations and other input.
I am not interested in submitting names of who is on the committee. The district can submit names of committee members as it sees fit.
There was never any intent to sneak something new past parents in the district. We saw this as an opportunity to have some top notch research based staff development in the district. If there is no way to work together with the community to do this then so be it.
Please stop bashing the work ethic of teachers in this district in this discussion. It is not conducive to what we all want to accomplish for students in Northfield.
Griff (#50). It’s too bad a regular blogger wasn’t elected to the board!
I don’t think there’s a massive conspiracy going on here. I first heard the idea of weekly PLC meetings on Monday mornings floated at a District Educational Program Advisory Council (DEPAC) meeting last year. I (along with Kari Nelson and Ellen Iverson in her pre-board member days) was on the assessment sub-committee. One of our perennial concerns was how to make it possible for teachers to use assessment data (results from MAP tests, for example) in a way that would benefit classroom instruction. The recurring problem is that teachers don’t have enough time in a normal day to mine data, and periodic training sessions throughout the year haven’t been entirely effective in helping teachers to make the best use of the data available to them.
Each year, DEPAC makes recommendations to the board for action to improve the district’s educational program. Our subcommittee always recommended that the schools make it possible for teachers to use data more effectively. Weekly PLC meetings are one effective way of acting upon those recommendations.
DEPAC is a council made up of staff, administrators, board members, parents, and other community members. There is nothing deliberately secretive about it, and it seems like a good way to bring all stake-holders together to improve our schools.
That said, I had a Griff-like frustrations trying to find anything about DEPAC’s recommendations on the district website. I eventually gave up. Does the district website even have a Search function?
The district does have collaborative processes for making this kind of decision, but it does a terrible job of keeping the wider public informed.
Finally, I should add that my experience on DEPAC is that there is a certain level of groupthink. Certain fundamental assumptions, about the importance of standardized test data, for example, are difficult to question. I got dirty looks from a staff member at one meeting for suggesting that people in Northfield would probably not be pleased if the district decided to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on state-of-the-art data warehousing.
It’s important to hear other voices, and to take them seriously early in the process, to avoid alienating people who feel they have been left out of the process or disregarded for voicing an opinion that contradicts the groupthink.
Citizens of the district need to be kept informed, need to feel that they are part of the process, need to fee that these decisions are decisions of the entire community. The school district, and the school board, need to work harder on that.
Kathie G: Your description of the flying wedge play is fine for giving readers an understanding of your metaphor, but metaphors can be misleading. The argument is about PLC’s and scheduling, and not about flying wedge plays.
Analogies are only useful to the extent that they reflect some insight about the reality, or sometimes, the way the perceiver perceives reality. I get the sense that your strong analogy about wedge plays (which have been banned, and which cause injury and death) says more about your perception or emotional relationship to the issue than it does about the reality of the situation.
Analogies can be misleading and misinterpreted. To my knowledge, people on these committees have not locked arms and trampled anyone yet. They did not consult with a military planner to get the idea for this game.
So false or misleading analogies can be like lies. If you pick a fresh apple from a tree, hold it out to a young child an laugh a fiendish laugh, and compare it to the poison apple offered by the witch to Snow White, the child may become afraid and refuse to eat what might be a harmless apple.
“Wedge play” as an analogy is very limited and inflammatory. An option for scheduling PLC’s has been offered. You don’t like the way it might inconvenience families like yours and mine. You are voicing your concerns, and teachers and school board members are noticing.
The original proposal of PLC’s was probably a more important topic of discussion, and a greater priority to its advocates, than the particulars of how it might be successfully scheduled. But now you’re making one scheduling proposal, and its possible disadvantages, the primary focus.
Where is the wedge play here? In the scheduling proposal, or in your use of an inflammatory analogy?
Here’s what I sent the 5 members of the school board who make their e-mails available on the district website -- each of them responded with at least an acknowledgment and some with more. It reiterates some of the points already made above, but thought I’d share it anyway:
proposed calendars contain the weekly one hour late start/early release, although you mention several times that this decision had not yet been made.
What would the calendar look like without that? Is that not up for discussion?
I would prefer that Professional Learning Communities meet:
Once a week at the beginning of a shortened school day
Once a week at the end of a shortened school day
Four times per year during two hour late starts and early releases (current practice)
No opinion
I do have an opinion, but none of those choices is my opinion. Again, the survey would not let me proceed without answering, so I was forced to say I had no opinion. Question after question is phrased under the assumption that this will happen and asking how we would best like to implement it. We are forced to pick an option to implement the late start/early release or say we have no opinion. And yet you assure us this is not a done deal. It certainly seems done to me and everyone else taking this survey. You don’t want our input about the one hour late start/early release. You want our input about how to implement this decision you have made. Don’t try to pretend it’s something different. I was concerned about this issue upon hearing about it and reading the various press and blogs and your information documents. But I wasn’t angry until I started taking that survey. The survey is misleading and insulting and the results are useless in determining what people really think. Not letting people skip a question or at least read through the entire survey without responding first to each item is ridiculous. I sincerely hope you all are reading the various blogs and listening to what people are saying [I wrote this before Ellen's post #35 above] -- because your “survey” is not soliciting the true responses people are having to this -- there is no opportunity to respond to what the website says the survey is about: “We would like to know what you think about various calendar issues. Please take a moment to give us your thoughts by completing the survey. ” What a joke. More like “Either agree with our plan A or our plan B to implement this program, or tell us you don’t care (read: we don’t care what you really think).”
I did not submit my “no opinion” responses and decided to write this e-mail instead. So, here are my opinions about the questions you pretend to be asking:
In conclusion, several of you know me personally and I hope you realize I am not an unreasonable person. I found the way this was presented to the public to be incomplete, hurried, not comprehensive enough in its outreach, and the survey itself inexcusable in its format and its content. Like I said, I didn’t really get upset about this until I saw the survey… I don’t say this as an unreasonable response, I say this as an educated, informed citizen and parent of three children, one in each elementary, midddle school, and high school. The survey is really bad.
In return, I know several of you personally and I do not believe this was done maliciously or with intent for secrecy. I honestly don’t know much about how this all works, but I think perhaps you were misguided by staff and may have been rushed into decisions that were not fully informed. At least I hope so. I understand the urgency for setting the school calendar for the coming year, but I do hope you are reading these e-mails and blogs thoughtfully and are weighing the consequences of your decisions deliberately. We have a highly educated, involved, and concerned community here that is generally well-intentioned and supportive of our schools and our teachers -- as are you. Let’s work together to find good solutions rather than force decisions at us and pretend to solicit input with poorly designed surveys. That’s what we elected you to do.
There has been a lot of talk about the survey, and I can agree that it is not a professional survey. What would you all have thought if, given the current state of the economy and school budget, the district had spent $20,000 for a professional firm to do an unbiased and scientifically valid survey?
It seems to me that all of the frustration with the process is partially due to the limited resources of time and money. As Rob stated in #52, I don’t think there is an enormous conspiracy. The District cut the communications person during the first round of reductions. There was reasonable effort to get input as indicated by Rob in #52. We have 14,000 people in Northfield. I think we can all agree that communication is tricky at best.
As Paul points out in #53 the functioning of PLC’s was probably focused on more than when to schedule or how.
Susan, I don’t know you but I like what you did by emailing the board members. The fact is that the survey is more flawed due to the sampling method than anything else. This is a volunteer survey and is one way to weigh in. This blog is another, the Northfield News is another (although I hate the fact that it is anonymous, because people get mean) and contacting your board members is another (and I would say the best) way to be heard.
Kathy, I am not averse to your plan as described in #44 but I worry that tabling for a year would be a detriment to the current momentum of those who are up and running. Is there a way to somehow immediately address the major concern of hardship to families while addressing other concerns over the coming year?
As others have said, Northfield already compares well to other districts (and often comes out ahead) on instructional hours with children in the classroom.
Yes, there’s a difference between voluntary faculty development participated in by only the most interested, and required participation, but I am a firm believer that PLC, and staff development in general, if built into the schedule (in some way, not necessarily Monday mornings) could benefit students:
Higher quality education might do more effectively and efficiently in less time what now takes more time, so I’m not grieving over lost classroom hours.
Teachers should be conpensated for their time. That is fair. If you require teaching staff to attend a PLC, you don’t schedule it before school starts, before contract hours begin, and expect teachers to attend as a required gift (a contradiction in terms) to the district.
Scheduling is always a difficult issue: teachers already have a certain number of classroom hours, and a certain amount of prep time. Prep time has already been cut back over the years, as have paraprofessional hours from staff who used to help in the classroom.
I wonder if it would be possible to have a certain grade level (or part of a grade level) meet one day of the week, and another on another day of the week, so that every PLC gets a chance to meet, but it’s integrated into the day somehow during student recess time, or when students are going to “specials” or in study hall--so in other words, have school start and end at the same time every day, but integrate PLC into the existing schedule somehow. If it takes away a small bit from classroom instructional time, compromise. There will be trade-offs, but time invested in PLC’s specifically, and in staff development in general, could pay off in rich ways. I would think this may require a committment of at least 2-3 years as teachers get used to the process and learn to use it for maximum benefit.
I think the bigger picture solution is to have regular school hours four days a week year-round. Teachers would have time each Friday to do class prep and parent meetings and activities and staff development without cheating their families and parents would have a permanent schedule for child care instead of the amazingly difficult mix of full weeks, holidays, early-releases and late starts.
I realize that the unions will demand vastly more money to work year-round, but the actual work hours wouldn’t be much more, and spreading them over 12 months actually would make their lives more like everyone else’s. I totally understand how hard teachers work during the school year, and I understand how everyone else looks at 12 weeks off each year and sees an easy life. If I worked full-time and had 12 weeks off, I’d have to work 12-hour days or six-day weeks the rest of the year to accrue the vacation time.
School calendars started out conforming to the needs of parents who worked on farms. It’s about time school conformed to the needs of parents and the community of today.
Anne, that is an interesting idea. What is the reality with year round school? I don’t think that Education Minnesota (of which I am a proud member) has very much to do with that scheduling.
You are right when you point to our agrarian heritage; in our current age, the tourism industry from Northern Minnesota has a big stake in not having year round school. The economic impact for that industry would be enormous. Ask your local Representative or Senator why there is law requiring a post labor day start and you will find this to be true. That industry requires families to have the opportunity and young people to be available to work.
I’d like first to respond to Griff’s #50
“It’s troubling to me when new issues like this come before the board if school board members don’t make transparent their own questions, their thinking, their biases, their learning process on the issue, etc. Without this, the citizenry has a tendency to believe that things are a done deal, that the board is beholden to the administration or to the teachers or to whoever.”
I received Griff’s email on Feb 18, 2009 7:33 PM letting me know about this blog. As I said in my email to Kathy G. I wanted to have the time to give all of the responses my full attention. I’m the type that sits quietly during meetings taking all of the data and discussion in before making any comments.
As a new school board member I freely admit that I am still coming up to speed on issues. That being said, I am supportive of Professional Learning Communities. In my work as an evaluator for one of the MN Math and Science academies getting schools ready for the 8th gr algebra requirement, I’ve seen the success of PLCs in giving teachers the opportunity to focus on best practices and student learning needs. Each of the districts in that region handles the PLC time a little differently.
I agree that the survey is far from perfect. In my position I have been involved in the sort of rigorous survey instrument that are required for peer-reviewed research. They are expensive and take significant resource. This survey was more of an opportunity to get a pulse of where parents might be. I agree that “no opinion” vs “none of the above” is frustrating and I think everyone is learning about how the process of gathering input could go more smoothly.
Kathleen, your flying wedge analogy is right on--and it was deployed with the abandonment of the LINK program and 5th grade Wolf Ridge program, as well as other school board decisions. I have also attended the meetings where the decision is made and the agenda is loaded with administration presentations that are as slanted as the calendar survey.
Ray Coudret, you and all teachers should take this personally. Parents believe the best use of the teacher’s time is in instructing students. You and all the teachers and administrators need to prove that there is some benefit for our students in having PLCs that take away instructional time from our students, and that that benefit is worth the trade off.
I believe the meetings are a direct result of onerous benchmark requirements of No Child Left Behind and responding to the plethora of statistics that result from focusing on those benchmarks-and these meetings might help the few students who are not meeting the standards but that does not mean that the meetings are helping most of the students.
At the same time, I think there is great merit in having these meetings--just not during what would be normal class hours. I think they should be one hour before school starts every Monday and that we should either compensate the teachers for the additional time or trade off on work-days to make up the hours to the teachers. I do not believe that instructional time should be sacrificed for these meetings.
As for the survey, Ray in comment 55 says that it is a result of the school district saving money by not spending it on a survey professional. Sorry, Ray, but we have plenty of school-district employees with more than moderate intelligence. I really don’t think there is an evil conspiracy, but based on other surveys and information gathering by the school district, there was a definite decision to slant the survey information. A high-school student could have designed a survey that provided more and better information than this. These results should be thrown out and a new survey provided. It is obvious that the decision-makers already decided and just needed to fine-tune how it will work--they did not ask for meaningful responses to disrupting every week for all students and all parents.
I would suggest having PLCs meet one day every week one hour before school--I think Mondays are best because there are fewer Mondays (due to holidays) and I think we should pay for it by trading off teacher work days--and at the end of the year, if we can measure that they worked, we should consider disrupting everyone’s schedules and incorporating them in a one-hour late start. Until I see some proof, I don’t think we should give up a single minute of instructional time.
I’d like to throw in my 2 cents, having done some teaching during the 90s and in my usual mode of let’s everybody have cake, eat it and then run it off-wouldn’t there be a way to get the kids in school on some given morning, assemble in their large auditorium or study hall,as the case may be, and ask them to do some creative thinking exercise or networking for an hour or so with a couple of overseers, so that the teachers can get to whatever meetings they need? When I taught, I found one of the best ways to teach was to simply set the format down and let the kids go at it. They usually come up with some pretty surprising solutions to problems if you let them think on it awhile.
One last post for the night and I promise to not use any football analogies because they would inevitably involve the GB Packers and alienate folks from the get go. Here’s what I have to say: No hidden agendas are going on. I’d like to offer an alternative perspective on the relative silence of board members on this blog and the comments about this board member responding to email and this one not: Competing Demands. Not to be snarky but mine are named Ian and Emma and I work outside the home. Some weeks are better than others but it isn’t always possible to stay on top of the blogs and be as responsive or substantive to emails. No hidden agenda -- just life. I’d argue that being a working parent also gives me the perspective to understand some of the views discussed on this blog.
And why am I not chiming in with more opinions. I expressed one. I’m supportive of Professional Learning Communities. I’ve read the research, seen them working in other districts, think that Northfield has successful stories for the short time they’ve been implemented. Not only do I think parents deserve to know how the time is being used, I think teachers deserve to be recognized for their success and efforts toward student attitudes and learning.
Any more opinions -- no sorry I’m still forming them. I’m still gathering information, trying to understand the implications of the different options, seeking input.
And the survey -- full disclosure: I was psyched when Dr. Richardson mentioned the idea of seeking input through a web survey. I liked the idea of getting a broader response than those of you brave enough to blog. I still like the idea. I knew it wouldn’t be a random sample, we couldn’t follow up for non responder bias, etc….but I thought it was a new way to be proactive about seeking input and get a read. I think it’s unfortunate that something that I thought would be proactive in seeking input is being perceived as a means to push an agenda. Do I get why that’s the perception -- yes I do, but as I said in my earlier post we are all learning and it’s worth trying new things.
After lurking for the past several days, I want to chime in on this issue.
I am OPPOSED to the one hour late start. I am not opposed to weekly PLCs, I am against the belief that the only way that this can happen is by cutting instructional time (i.e., the one hour late start every Monday).
As a Sr. Program Manager for a Fortune 100 company, one of my responsibilities is to look for ways to do things better while maintaining balance between the bottomline (which the shareholders expect), employee satisfaction, and customer expectations (because they are always right).
Sometimes, at the onset of an “issue”, stakeholders will stand firm on their stance; similar to what is going on here. Ray, as the ‘for one hour late start’ spokesperson, is saying “yes” it has to be this way and Kathie, representing the ‘against one hour late start’, is saying “no”. There has been so much energy placed on which side is right.
Again, in my job, the expectation is that I don’t bring forward issues/problems to the executive leadership; only constructive options for solving them. At this point, the School Board will meet tonight with each side still standing firm on how this should be done. In other words, each side is leaving the “issue” to the Board to solve. In my world, this would be unacceptable. It is time to redirect everyone’s energy to see if there is a better way and be part of the solution.
To Ray Coudret, who appears to understand the realities of what might be in the way, I ask:
If the customer, in this case the students and their families, won’t accept reduced instructional time, what other options could be considered?
Just back from the school board meeting. Only two members of the public addressed the board during the public comment period, Ray Coudret and another district employee who favors the weekly PLC plan. Dr. Richardson gave a long presentation, including preliminary survey results (970 responses so far, plus 90 emails). The results so far (unless I understood incorrectly) show 48.4% of respondents favoring some sort of shortened day to accommodate weekly PLC meetings, and 45% favoring the status quo (6% no opinion). There is more about PLCs currently on the district website, and there will be more information posted tomorrow. The current plan is to make a recommendation to the board on March 9th, and allow another two weeks for public comment before a final decision is made by the board on March 23rd.
I may have misrepresented myself. I am not meaning to be the advocate for a one hour late start or early release.
I have tried to put forth both professional and personal research for the use of a Professional Learning Community model for staff development. The research as I have cited previously, indicates that the expectations surrounding this concept require the time to be built in and not added on.
As Paul stated, that is fair. No teacher should have to make the false choice of doing the best they can for their craft and doing the best they can for family. I believe that is also Ellen’s point in her well crafted reply to critics of the board. With that stated, release time is a viable option because it is cheaper than options that have been used by other districts. If there are other options that will build in added time to during the school year and school day, they should be considered.
I would also like to join the fray -- I am a parent of 3 young Northfielders and have spent the last 15 years as a secondary teacher and administrator. For clarity, let me state I am in favor of weekly PLC meetings -- it could be mornings or afternoons, but I don’t have misgivings about the loss of instructional time. If that’s a dealbreaker, perhaps the district should consider adding 2-3 days on to the end of the school year. However, PLC’s that are functioning as they are supposed to will have a significant impact on the way teachers work with students. In my opinion, the benefits will far outweigh the loss of instructional hours. Yet, Kathleen, your question about other compromise solutions is certainly a fair and prudent one.
I also feel I need to speak up with my opinion on the broader topic of the Northfield school district. I DO NOT feel it mishandles information, in fact I believe it handles it responsibly and with transparency. I think its leadership is principled and I believe the district has well-intentioned aims. It is also in the best position to weigh the various considerations of student needs and family preferences, stretched budgets, federal or state mandates & expectations and reams of data on student learning. I choose to defer to those who are more expert than I on these matters and trust their decisions are made with the interests of what is best for students as the top priority.
If I didn’t trust this process, or had serious doubts about the direction the district was planning to go and how that might ultimately affect my children and others, I would feel compelled to show up at one or more school board meetings to gather more info and share my concerns. I wonder why some of the most vociferous voices in this forum didn’t take advantage of that opportunity tonight? Is it that you would rather generate more heat than light?
Casting aspersions toward “all teachers” or accusing the district of wedge plays or being “staff-centric” strike me as red herring wordplay that is mean-spirited and not thought-provoking. I also don’t feel it is productive to bring up the LINK or Wolf Ridge decisions -- both quite defensible from the standpoints of equity, student learning & curriculum and budget -- as evidence the district is playing games with process or the truth in this particular matter. Jane, do not claim my proxy when you speak for parents -- you don’t speak for this one.
I don’t think that it is the PLC benefits that are being criticized, I think that it is at what cost to achieve those benefits.
Again as a parent and commuter, this will be an expensive program for me. And I am not convinced that you understand the costs clearly. If the benefits to my kids outweigh the costs then I would be happy to make the sacrifice. But I do not believe that the sacrifice you are asking families to make is clearly represented. A weekly adjustment to my work schedule is not feasible. I cannot risk my job for the PLC. If there is not free daycare I am yet again paying.
You can get people to help for the 2 hour early releases, but a regular weekly late start would be difficult to arrange.
Are you convinced that my kids would recieve enough benefit to 31 weeks times $10 dollars plus stress of being at KidVentures. Is the extra cartoon time in the morning for other kids really going to benefit them in the long run. Doesn’t it take time in the morning to get the kids to settle down. On 2 hour early release days you already sunk that cost once not twice.
I can’t believe as people are losing their jobs the school district is making changes that are hard for parents without flexible schedules.
My sense of last night’s meeting was, first of all, that there was strong support on the board for weekly PLC meetings, however they might be scheduled. Board members Maple, Nelson and Cirksena made explicit comments in favor of the broad proposal to implement weekly PLC meetings. The details still need to be hammered out. The district seems sincerely interested in working out a plan that won’t place a burden on families. Supervised, non-classroom time in the morning is an option, and might provide a time for weekly mentoring meetings, tutoring, gifted and talented programing, etc. I’m not really concerned about lost classroom time, if PLCs really do deliver on their promise of improved pedagogy and better individualized instruction. I’m more concerned with making the final plan workable for someone in Kirsten’s situation. It would be a bad public relations move, to say the least, for the district to implement a plan that doesn’t successfully address those concerns. But I do think the district is acting in good faith to work something out.
Rob Ryden,
I didn’t go to the school board meeting because I think it’s pointless to do so. School board members won’t engage in dialogue. I think I posted about that extensively already, so “nuff said.”
Paul Fried and Rob Ryden,
Head unbowed, I absolutely stand by my flying wedge metaphor. You are certainly free to disagree, but I think it is clear that ONCE AGAIN (yes, Jane Moline, you are completely on target with reference to past school district rammed-through decisions) the district will ram through whatever the hell it wants to ram through. The hell with parental concerns. Heads down, helmets forward, chanting the mantra.
Ray Coudret,
Why can’t we all just move forward now and implement this? Well, you’re about to get your wish, I think. You’ll win, many families will lose. And, eventually, some of those families will open-enroll their kids elsewhere. (Some parents I’ve talked with are in just that spot now--or have already done so--and its often over issues of trust and communication).
But if your question is why won’t I personally support moving forward? The answer is, we are not done. You have repeatedly argued in favor of PLC time, even if at the cost of instructional time. You’ve posted some links, but as far as I can tell, none of them report empirical evidence that instructional time is irrelevant to learning. And, some of the “evidence” is anecdotal and self-report. You HAVE persuaded me that PLC’s are more focussed and targeted than I originally thought, so yes, I’ve come around to thinking they are worth more time to investigate, and not to get too rigid in opposing a tradeoff with instructional time. Which is different than saying I’m absolutely convinced to make that tradeoff now. Particularly with no assessment/accountability component added in.
The current proposal is a “trust us” proposal. Trust that the benefits that people think (strongly) MIGHT come to pass ACTUALLY will, across the curriculum. TRUST that if they don’t, you’ll go back to the current model.
Given the repeated breaches of trust of the school district to parents, I’m not feeling all that trustful.
Again, I’m not opposed to PLCs. And, if we took the time to work together, I bet we could come up with something mutually acceptable. But it doesn’t look to me that that will happen.
Anne Larsen,
I have appreciated most of your comments. I don’t believe the calendar committee is at fault for the poor communication--but I DO believe that the district HAS, intentionally, tried to keep the issue out of the light of day (look at the misleading agenda item, look at the survey) so that parents wouldn’t have the heads up to object. It was only when they were caught that they started backpedaling. The only comment you made that disappointed me was the one about “if the community doesn’t want to do this then so be it”. I DO want to discuss it. I WOULD like to work together. But, if my options are take it or leave it with no room for negotiation, then, I guess, I vote to leave it. That’s too bad, AND that’s symptomatic of how the DISTRICT treats parents.
Everyone:
It doesn’t take $20,000 to create an unbiased survey. Particularly if you are using Survey Monkey as the platform (which was what the district used for the biased survey). Here, as another volunteer service to the district, is a shell that can be used:
The rationale for this change is [insert rationale here].
The benefits of this changer are [insert perceived benefits here].
However, as with any change, there will be some costs. Those are [insert costs here].
For more information, go to [insert links to pdf files here].
Based on this information, are you in favor of, or opposed to, this proposed change?
(insert radio buttons for in favor, opposed, no opinion)
Please feel free to elaborate on this answer. (insert comment box here).
Simple, easy, and straightforward. My 15-year-old could have done this (except for the spelling). The cost of doing this, though, is that you might actually find that the majority of parents disagree with the proposal, in which case you’d have to admit you were ramming something through, instead of reporting responses that are artificially inflated in the direction you originally wanted.
Stunning, in an educational institution, that a critically flawed and biased survey would be used by the Superintendent to create the appearance of community support. It’s actually easier to take if they just make the decision with no public input than devising a faulty instrument to misrepresent public sentiment and then use it to sell the idea back to us.
This issue frustrates me greatly. As a supporter of public education and teachers, I can only ask why, with an issue that everyone knows will have a significant impact on family schedules, this wasn’t aired more openly and over a longer period of time?
That would have given everyone more time to talk and listen, hammer out compromises, etc… If the school board approves this change, I sure hope they do so with a meatier rationale than the results of what was really an insulting survey.
Okay, the survey stinks. But what I don’t understand is how a process that involves a survey, information posted on the front page of the website, an invitation to contact board members, emails from building principals to parents, stories in the Northfield News, a story on Northfield.org, a guest blog on LoGroNo, and several open school board meetings can be accused of being somehow closed or secretive.
One problem is that proponents of the proposed calendar are motivated and mobilized to show their support. It was mostly staff members in the audience at last night’s board meeting, and only staff members who spoke during public comments. I wouldn’t be surprised if a majority of the respondents to the survey have been staff members (perhaps accounting for the higher percentage of respondents favoring the weekly PLC—either late start or early dismissal—option).
On the other hand, it seems that opponents, like Kathie, feel disenfranchised. They feel that this thing is a done deal, and there’s no point in attending a board meeting to speak out against it. The education insiders, they feel, have already made the decision.
How can this situation be remedied? How can the school district make itself feel like a real community, instead of education insiders vs. outsiders?
To quote Rob Hardy:
Rob,
I think all of those things happened in a pretty rapid-fire fashion. A schedule change effecting this many families should have been done more deliberately.
And, like it or not, a survey seemingly designed to shape responses toward a particular conclusion gives the impression that all other methods of public notice were done as window dressing -- especially when the Superintendent uses the data from the quasi-survey to back the proposal.
Like others here -- Kathie G. and Susan C. (both of whom are professional survey people) -- I am not against PLCs, but to design a survey that purportedly seeks to ascertain public opinion in such a way, and then actually USE the results as if they have any validity… wow, that’s weak.
If a high school student were to design a survey like that for a class project, they should deservedly be asked to do it over or get a ‘D’ at best.
If PLCs do increase teaching efficacy, then I’ll be for them. I’d like to see them given a chance, but I’d also like to know how they would be objectively measured and how they’d be terminated if those measurements show that they are not working.
Ellen: thanks for your helpful comments and disclosures. I’m glad I voted for you, and glad others on the board are still interested in PLC’s.
It seems clear that the school board is till listening to parent concerns, and able to keep the issue of PLC’s and their merits seperate from late start, and from possible loss of classroom hours. This is good.
Jane (60): I have no idea why you’d claim Ray and “all teachers should take this personally.” Ray didn’t make the survey. Ray admitted it was a poor survey. If someone is trying to do a wedge play, it’s not Ray or “all teachers.” Maybe the survey writer (and supervisor?) messed up and tried a wedge play, but not all teachers.
Kathleen V (63): I appreciate your effort to find “constructive options” and more of a win-win resolution, but I don’t recall Ray ever being that committed to late start. He was mostly commmitted to PLC, not necessarily late start to facilitate it. And yet, something in your comments seems off.
You write, “one of my responsibilities is to look for ways to do things better while maintaining balance between the bottomline (which the shareholders expect), employee satisfaction, and customer expectations (because they are always right).”
Yes, it’s helpful to have a business perspective, and certainly school boards and PTO’s are ways to help citizens and taxpayers (like customers) have the voice that is their democratic right. School systems should be accountable to taxpayers in the same way that companies, ideally, are accountable to their customers (while realistically, some are merely exploiting or riding the wave of fads and making a fast buck, I think; do we really want to apply consumer culture analogies?).
On the other hand, education is a process that some democracies commit to for the common good; this sort of thing is not exactly the same as the business-customer model. The analogy may break down in a variety of ways.
With education, the parent “customers” can demand certain things of the system, but if a child doesn’t want to learn, or if conditions in the child’s life run against the grain of educational needs, simply making a better or different product sometimes doesn’t do the trick.
Ideally, parents are integrally involved in the education process of their children; and wouldn’t it be nice if all parents read up on the success with PLC’s, as Ellen Iverson has? If they had, perhaps there would be more support for finding SOME way to schedule them, and the late start option, by itself, would not be the main focus.
Yet most parents don’t know what PLC’s are, and some (what percent?) are only peripherally involved in their children’s education. This is nothing like the businesss model, where the customer comes for the product or service, and the customer is right, and the company has to perform.
In education, the parents have to perform too. When they don’t, when they fail to help kids with reading or homework, when they get their child to school late, or take them out on random days, or have them walk in below zero weather without the needed winter coats and boots, and then the kid gets sick --gosh, you have to twist the business-customer analogy a bit to make it fit the educational system.
Some in the movement to privatize education like to treat it like just another business to manage, and yes, it’s helpful to a point, but in some ways, the analogy doesn’t quite fit.
(Or is it like the parent who buys paint guns and BB-guns for the kids, but doesn’t supervise, and then some of the kids go blind in one, or both eyes? Is it like the child of Republican parents whose kid who buys a copy of “War is a Racket” by Republican and decorated Marine General Smedley Butler, but ends up arguing with his father about the war in Iraq and the crimes against the constitution committed by Bush, and they argue, so they’re dissatisfied--but more educated--customers? What are we paying for and getting with education, and what are parents and children participating in, or not, for its success?)
Besides the valuable and necessary support of parents, to some extent, for those who send off their children to schools (who don’t home-school), we want teachers to be experts, to know more about the process, and what works, and how collaboration or PLC’s may help. It’s their job.
To this extent, if parents are like “customers” and if teachers and administrators (in the strained analogy) are like salespeople, perhaps teachers and administrators have not done their job in explaining PLC’s and their possible benefits? Perhaps the survey designer screwed up, and the person dreaming up the limited options for scheduling?
If we stick with the business and Fortune-500 model, perhaps public schools should hire PR firms to communicate, and outsource their scheduling tasks to scheduling experts, and taxpayers should then pay more, as customers, for the costs involved in producing the product?
As it is, we have “customers” (citizens) who have been trained by some politics to think minimalistically in terms of tax support for government in general, including education; so we get what we pay for, don’t we, as customers, in terms of lack of PR and scheduling genius? We are reaping what we have sown--don’t you think?
If we want accountability, we might ask the school board who in heaven created such a bad survey, but considering the way we fund education, I’m not sure it would be right to be too harsh on that person. We’re getting what we paid for.
Shall we fire the person, and perhaps that person can get a job managing Credit Default Swaps for the financial sector?
Maybe the person who did the hands-on work of creating the survey was not to blame so much as the person responsible for supervising and approving the draft before it was to be used?
How high up the chain of command do we go before we have to fire Rumsfeld or impeach Bush over Abu Ghraib, or accuse the American people for being asleep at the wheel of democracy, instead of merely blaming Army Spc. Lynndie England and a handful of other underlings, and calling them “a few bad apples”?
The trend in recent years is to go after the underlings and then claim a feeling of catharsis. The higher you go, and the broader, when spreading the blame, well, you have to be willing to pay, not in money (business model), but in other ways. It’s cheaper to go after Lynndie England, and we are a Wal*Mart culture in some ways.
So in other words, instead of blaming citizens for not supporting education with tax dollars, and teachers with salaries competitive with the private sector, and parents for watching too much TV or not knowing what PLC’s are (for crying out loud, if you’re a parent, shouldn’t you care about education?), it would be cheaper to blame the survey writer.
And if that’s all the customer can afford, the customer’s always right in the business model, so let’s get her, or him, and fire him/her. There’s plenty of strong feeling in favor of it.
Shall we fire the district PR team that has not made a good case for how the reduction in classroom hours might pay off in higher quality instruction and more accomplished by the end of the same school year?
Or-- don’t we have such a PR team?
OR-- shall be blame Richardson, where the buck stops, for not writing columns in the newspaper about PLC’s over a period of months before the options for scheduling them were even discussed?
How much do we want to pay?
In Faribault, they’ve had overcrowded schools and tried to pass measures for more funding in many elections, but usually failed.
In some districts, if you get some Ray Coudret guy coming along talking about his experience with PLC’s and how they can improve education, they might think he’s talking about a hazardous chemical that will harm the ozone (if that), and call him an elitist for thinking these PL=-thingamajigs can improve education while taking away from classroom hours.
After all, any parent who gives his kids BB-guns and paintball-guns, unsupervised, and sends the one-eyed kids to school, knows better than these dang elitist liberal teachers, and knows from common sense that hours in the classroom are what count.
Or do they?
You get what you pay for.
Kathie will be on the Locally Grown radio show/podcast tomorrow, flying wedge included. We record at 4, the show airs on KYMN 1080 at 5:30 PM, and I’ll have a blog post with Flash audio posted in the morning, followed shortly by the addition of the audio to our podcast’s RSS feed.
Ellen/Anne,
Can you post an approximate timeline on the process? This conversation has made it apparent that some of my assumptions are wrong. For example, I assumed the school board has been discussing this issue for months, that board members were part of the calendar committee, that the proposal for the late start/early dismissal option came from the calendar committee, etc.
For example:
Rob wrote:
Rob, that’s both a very good observation and a very good question. I’m pondering it as I weigh whether or not to return the District’s Key Communicator Network Training invitation I got in the mail a week or so ago. I’ll post the info here as soon as I can because, ironically, there’s no information about it on the District’s web site.
Paul,
I’m not advocating FIRING anyone.
I don’t give my kids BB guns, and last I checked, they both have two working eyes. (The vision of the teen-ager being somewhat selective).
I spend an incredible amount of time at home evenings and weekends with the first grader doing book-in-bag, math-in-a-bag, and now (god help me) science-in-a-bag. I also spent the summer trying to develop my high schooler’s writing skills--they’ve been sadly neglected from 6th through 9th grade, although it turned out that despite many hours and three papers produced, the improvement was modest at best (and our personal relationship soured). So, sometimes my efforts help and sometimes they don’t. But, at least I try--hard--to be involved in my kids’ education, to be thoughtful about educational decision-making, and to support the efforts of the classroom teachers whenever I can.
I don’t think I know better than teachers.
BUT, I don’t think TEACHERS are the only ones who know anything, either. And I think parents AND teachers have a point of view worth considering in formulating proposals.
Hey, what about having an extra hour of recess on Monday morns?
Today’s NY Times: The 3 R’s? A Fourth Is Crucial, Too: Recess
Dear Paul,
Somehow I think my message took a twist I did not foresee. I wasn’t trying to morph the education system into a business model. My point was that there are many intelligent and knowledgeable individuals posting here (and lurking in the wings) arguing one side or the other. If we could redirect that energy somehow, we could be part of the solution.
I, for one, am very involved in the education of my children. In fact, I go to work at a ridiculous hour of the morning so that I can be home at the end of their school day to help them with homework. As the parent of a Special Ed student, I spend an extraordinary amount of time reading to/with my children and being an advocate for literacy. I can often be found at the public library pouring over books in order to find those “just right” books that will engage my children to read. But, I am not posting here to talk about my situation…
I will state my position one more time: I am NOT opposed to weekly PLCs, I am against the belief that the only way that this can happen is by cutting instructional time.
In the recently posted document “Additional Calendar Q&As” on the District website, for the first time I see that they are considering extending the school year by an additional day (174 student contact days). This is the type of compromise I feel some folks are seeking. For me it’s still not enough but it is a step in the right direction. This, unfortunately does not help folks like Kirsten, but it gives me hope that they are willing to work towards a win-win solution. (And, just for the record, if additional days are added, educators should be compensated accordingly. No freebies expected.)
Finally, I applaud Kathie and Ray for having the courage to step up and voice their opinions openly. Instead of tearing down analogies (real or perceived); let’s work together to build solutions.
Griff,
I am not sure of the timeline, but I need to make a few points.
First, I have blogged on my behalf (read my first post); and second I believe that Rob posted that he was on a committee (with pre-board service Ellen Iverson)that talked about this quite some time ago.
Nfld News website: School board delays decision on late start.
(Sorry, I’m a newbie here, don’t know if I did that quoting correctly…)
One concern of mine is still for people who don’t have computers or e-mail and don’t read the Northfield News (gasp! do such people exist? YES!). My son’s second grade teachers put the notice in their weekly PAPER newsletter home last Friday (thank you!), but I don’t know how many teachers may have done that, or if it was at other grade schools. And even that said to check the district website for details. Within these past 10 days, middle school families received both an e-mail (if they’ve signed up for the service) and a paper letter mailing from the district’s Community Services telling about the immediate suspension of further Saturday Night Live activities. I’m wondering why they didn’t do that for this issue. If a letter did go out specifically to families for whom the district does NOT have e-mails, then my apologies for this.
Another relevant population that may not be informed about this are first-time parents of soon-to-be kindergarteners.
I realize it’s not possible to reach everybody, and not everybody is going to read it or care, but I am concerned that not enough effort was made in this direction.
February 2nd Meet and Confer I believe there were 6 different calendars being considered with various options.
During that week I met with Dr. Richardson and he explained the significant items related to the calendar that were being considered. He indicated that they wanted to get input from the community and were looking into doing a survey
February 9th School board meeting with calendar as information item. Dr. Richardson explained that the district wanted input from the community and that FAQs and a survey would be posted soon after.
February 23rd School board meeting which Rob Hardy (#64) did a nice job of summarizing
Brendon (#70) I was glad to see you on this blog. It would be great to have your Prairie Creek parent perspective. How did Prairie Creek arrive at their Monday early release? What was that process like? What do you see as the strengths and challenges so far?
Ellen
Last night I finished grading midterms from the statistics class I am teaching. I was struck by the fact that the students were doing exceptionally well on a hard problem--one I’d used on tests before in years past, and one in which previous students made a lot of errors. I was pondering the reasons for the dramatic improvement, and suddenly realized (slow thinker that I am) that one of the reasons for the improvement MAY be relevant to this discussion--more class time.
Our department reconfigured our statistics course sequence since the last time I taught the course. Instead of having a full course one course and a half course the next, we made it into a lab course, which is essentially given the equivalent of two full class periods during one term. What this means is that I see my students five days a week instead of the three I used to have (the Tu/Th classes are longer).
At first I was a little intimidated by having so much class time. In fact, a few weeks ago, I didn’t have anything new prepared for the long meeting time (it was one of those snow days--I had the 7-year-old trailing me all morning). So, in a moment of desperation, I brought in a few problems, had them solve them in teams, and awarded points (in a sort of Jeopardy format with buzzers).
Lo and behold, students liked it. And since (at their request), we’ve spent a lot of Tues and Thus sessions “just” having them solve problems and me walk around watching them, meeting with pairs of students as they get stuck, intervening when common error patterns emerge. In fact, students have started to make requests for more problems to work on together (be still my heart!)
Here’s the relevance: I would never use class time this way if I were tight on it. I never did, in the 25 previous years when class time was a lot tighter. But what I used to think of (in my academically entrenched way) as sort of “wasted time” (after all, if I wasn’t talking, nothing important could be going on, right?) has turned out to be VERY important. Because I am there, with my students, as they solve problem after problem, because I can give them immediate feedback, they are learning, better than before, as evidenced by their performance on tests, specifically on items I have used before. And they are growing more confident. And a few of them actually like statistics (you have to be a psych major to understand how unusual this is).
None of this negates Ray Coudret’s point. An hour could probably be given up without harm to students, but on the other hand, there are costs to making one’s teaching time tight. There’s definitely a tradeoff between planning time and teaching time. It’s worth not giving up “seat time” lightly.
I’ve blogged about the district’s Key Communicator Network which I mentioned above in comment #76.
79 -- thanks for the heads-up about the additional materials on the district website! I haven’t had a chance to read it all yet, but it does seem to address some of the concerns here and specifically address the questions about instructional time etc.
But again…who’s going to know it’s there, and have access to read it?
If this information has already been posted here, forgive me. I don’t have time to wade through this whole thread. High School Principal Joel Leer sent out this email earlier this week to parents on the HS emailing list.
[...] I’ve turned off comments on this blog post. Continue the discussion (over 80 comments thus far) attached to Kathie’s blog post, My objections to the proposed changes to the school calendar. [...]
As you can see from the pingback above (#88), I’ve blogged yesterday’s radio show/podcast with Kathie.
Katie (77) and Kathleen (79): It makes sense that the two of you would be assertive-consumer parents and spend time helping your children with homework. Never questioned it, explicitly or implicitly. My comment was about others affected by such conversations.
Consider: Someone did a sloppy job designing a survey, and the district did a poor job thinking through timeline, and methods for soliciting input. These choices may have been simply sloppy, or a hidden agenda of a flying wedge, on the part of someone--but not by all teachers and students who may benefit from PLC’s, which was the original point of the scheduling change.
If enough people raise enough ruckus about the survey, or the poor communication, or the timeline, there are folks OTHER than you, who may spend less time with their kids on homework than you, who may know less about PLC’s by now than you.
Then start talking about business and customers being right, and it’s as if you’ve prepared the spring garden earth for planting seeds of education funding cuts. We’ll show those teachers with their P’s and their Q’s and their LCD’s.
Just as the careless choices of a survey maker have consequences, and sometimes unintended consequences, the way you shape your contribution to the discussion here and elsewhere can just as easily have unintended consequences.
You both say you’re open to PLC’s. What if “flying wedge” and “customer, who is always right,” online here, have consequences you didn’t intend and do not desire, just as the choices of the district’s online survey designer have had unintended consequences?
That would be a shame. But both of you seem more convinced of the importance of your intentions — which may be the same way the survey designer is feeling about now: “But gosh, I never intended all this.”
When I speak of the diversity of parent involvement, I’m not saying the two of you don’t spend enough time with your kids, but hinting at the vast universe of communication in which your rhetorical choices here may have repercussions.
Well, ok, Paul, fair enough. If I am understanding your point (and I hope you will correct me if I’m missing it again), you believe that I should be more careful criticizing the district, because, even if (some of) my criticism has (some) merit, the criticism could be used by (bb-toting) opponents of education to derail an otherwise important proposal.
I guess I feel that the district gets a “pass” on its poor communication way too often, and that all of the “passes” it gets have caused us to get to the point we are now: a group of teachers and administrators pitted against a group of parents who are pissed off.
I’ve been asked why I can’t just let the issue go. And here’s my answer: because the poor, slanted communication have become a repeated way of doing business for this administration. Information is hoarded at the district level--I just became aware that the agenda the PUBLIC sees is quite a reduced version of the agendas the school board and certain privileged others get. At some point--and I submit that point is now--parents have to stand up for their own point of view, interests, and rights--even if it has side effects.
I’ve gotten “fan email” from a number of parents in the district--some of whom have posted to this blog and some of whom have not--but MANY share my view that there’s a great deal of “district spin” going on here. And that this spin is a habitual thing. And, they don’t like it and neither do I. And we would like it to stop. Many of us are tired of sitting quietly by while the district does what’s good for its staff at the expense of kids and families. That route’s been tried, and all it does is invite more spin on future issues.
Lastly, and specifically to you, Paul. I think you are also saying in part that I’m painting with too broad a brush--not ALL teachers and administrators are responsible for the communications snafus. You’re right. And in particular, it’s my view that the elementary schools do a MUCH better job of involving parents and inviting their feedback than do either the middle or high school. The difference between the two levels--elementary and secondary--are like night and day--I’ve remarked to friends and administrators that it’s like they belong to two separate districts. I do think the elementary schools value parents and think first about students--and I should have been making that clearer.
So, I take responsibility for my words. I’m sorry it’s come to this. But it HAS come to this, and it’s time to say so.
Paul,
The fact that you feel it’s necessary to walk on egg shells lest you rile anti-public school factions in the community, hardly means Kathie or Kathleen need to do so.
Writing this:
and…
…seems to be a more erudite way of telling them to shut up.
I hardly see why they have to contribute to the discussion in a way that only accords to your rhetorical standards, especially when doing so would mute their views to the point of negligibility.
Neither of them has made calls for education cuts or similar drastic measures. If others take their comments as fodder for such, I’m sure they can defend themselves against such misinterpretation.
The school district directed parents toward the online survey as a means of discerning parent opinion on the issue, but, upon accessing the survey, many parents found it to be skewed toward garnering favor for the one-hour late start rather than an instrument that truly accounted for or allowed expression of parent opinion.
Either don’t produce such a horribly flawed survey, or, at the very least, ignore the invalid results -- rather than touting them as the Superintendent did at the recent school board meeting.
If the school district wants to steer clear of the anti-school bogeymen you hint at, then they would acknowledge the very legitimate issues raised by the survey. But the problem doesn’t lie with the nature of discussion exercised here by Kathie, Kathleen, me or you. The problem resides in how the school district handles a very problematic survey.
Design a new survey. Throw out the useless results. Start over with that method of public input.
I commend the school board members, high school principal, Joel Leer, Ray Coudret and others for continuing to seek public input on the matter.
Again, I say all this as an ardent supporter of public schools and education funding, but this doesn’t mean school leaders should be given a free pass. Why should the school district not be accountable for designing such a flawed survey and then holding up the results as legitimate?
As long as the school district leans on those results, they will face bigger foes who will take the opportunity to over-generalize that the district is unresponsive in all matters and unworthy of current funding.
Paul F, speaking of funding
. You should reread post 84 carefully as Kathie points out how reorganizing (which in itself costs nothing) can have a huge positive impact. In business there is an expression that ‘more businesses fail from too much money rather than too little.’ (note big banks and dot com blowups) The reason for this is rather than being creative to solve problems (as shown in 84), all problems get solved by spending more money in an unsustainable fashion. Sorry but your posts were simply begging for the conservative view point.
Fact: Current 2008-09 Approved Calendar has the following “Teacher Duty Days”:
172 Student Contact days (note: normally this would be 173 days; the 172 days was agreed to for this year only due to when Christmas and New Year’s fell)
12 Non-student contract days (plus 1 for new teachers) [aka, teacher workshop days]
Total = 184 working days (would have been 185 if not for the “unique” holiday situation)
Fact: Proposed 2009-10 Calendar has the following “Teacher Duty Days”:
173 Student Contact days
10 Non-student contract days (plus 1 for new teachers)
Total = 183 working days
The teachers will be working 2 less days than previous years. What’s up with that?!
More time away from students due to one hour late start AND less working days. Something just doesn’t seem right here…
Kathleen,
Are you SERIOUS????!!!!! Are you sure there’s no mistake? If not, how did the district manage to “forget” to tell us that??????
Unfortunately our public school administrators (and most public officials) have adopted a “Rovian” approach to engaging the public, which is based on “spinning” the message, omitting important facts, and emphasizing false information. (In this case, the claim of wanting parent input, designing a skewed survey, and claiming that the largest number of responders prefer a late start when, in fact, the survey does not allow a responder to prefer no late start or early dismissal.)
Of course the 2009/2010 calendar already incorporates an assumption that they will go to weekly PLC with one-hour late start on Mondays. They have already decided. They can eliminate the teacher work days because of the PLCs.
The have become so adept at this method of “communication” that they forget to stop using it--all of their messages are suspect.
Jane,
The Rovian approach has been standard fare for government since the beginning of time. Karl Rove just used it to get his client elected.
The fact that the extra day is already in the calendar for next year, clearly illustrates the power and self interest of the NEA.
Now even more powerful with having the backing of an ultra liberal government.
Be careful what you wish for.
Apparently I’m not the only one interested in length of instructional time--Obama’s education czar is proposing a longer school year:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/27/education.school.year/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Peter: the Rovian approach is a strategy developed by KARL ROVE and used in the Bush II elections and fine tuned during Bush presidency--it has not been “standard fare” in the USA until Rove came along. Same with “swift boating.” This is Republican political strategy, and as long as people claim it is standard and expected fare from politicians, it is what we will get. We should be able to demand that it NOT be standard fare and that we will not accept it from our school superintendent and that we will expect our school board to demand more and better information instead of rubber-stamping his Rovian rants.
Weird how you can blame a Republican-originated political strategy on the union. The teachers union should be as outraged as parents for being “used” by the administration--they are going to have to do a lot more explaining because of the crude way Richardson tried to force this decision--and the school board should be advocating for the parents here--why was the survey allowed to be so sloppy? Why did Richardson claim the results (48% for the one-hour late start) when the school board AND Richardson knew that the results are not valid? Why didn’t the somebody ask Richardson about the validity of the survey? This is not the first time that this type of decision-advocating was done by Richardson--all the while claiming to present valid information to the school board for a rubber-stamp.
Richardson should be working for US--the parents and students--and we should be asking how such a highly-compensated employee gets away with such sloppy work.
No mistake. Go count them if you are in doubt.