In the last day or so, Andres Alonso helped pass a revised policy that will give parents a formal input into Baltimore City schools governance. Ideally, this policy is putting more power into the hands of those directly affected by the education system- parents. Its intention is to help encourage parents and legal guardians to be more involved in their students’ lives, to advocate for their rights as learners in this city, and to try and promote more leadership in their communities. As usual, I believe this to be an amazing plan…on paper.
I work in a school where my room reaches temperatures of over 98 degrees because of faulty heating. Our girls’ bathroom contains five bathroom stalls, only one has a door. Of course, it does not lock. Class sizes are beginning to quietly steep above 36 per class, which I believe to be too high for a school that has not made AYP in numerous years. We still have three working copiers, but no longer receive shipments of paper to make copies. Students are beginning to run halls because of the increase in teacher/student ratio. And of course, there is always the occasional leak from my ceiling which has ruined student work, almost started an electrical fire, and has irritated a number of students when they get wet.
Ironically, the beginning of the school year did not look like this. It was not until the end of October, when we received word that our school would have to lose approximately 1 million dollars because of Fair Student Funding, that these issues became a problem. I remember sitting in a school board meetings analyzing the policy and reflecting with colleagues. What an amazing plan, this Fair Student Funding- on paper.
All the above mentioned problems are things that I have reported to parents- the occasional parents that come up to school. Please call North Ave. and report these problems, talk to my administration to get this figured out, make your voice heard and things will happen! There have been numerous parent/team meetings, even a community barbeque; but the turnout has always proved disappointing. I guess I have to ask myself then- do I really think this revised policy will actually have a great effect? Make more parents and legal guardians willing to make a stand and advocate for what their children deserve? I can’t say that I do-not the effect Alonso’s pushing for. I think that's one of the biggest problems in our system...there needs to be more parental advocacy! But how?
And as far as that Fair Student Funding and the money that was then pushed into other schools? I know we lost about 8 teachers- one who now teaches only one high school class, one who teaches with a co-teacher, and another who teaches three classes of about eleven at a higher performing middle school. The others I have lost touch with. So is this what Alonso was aiming for when he enacted this policy? I hope not…maybe some things are just better on paper.
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6 comments:
It sounds suspiciously like a lack of leadership at your school level. If every school is receiving the same amount of dollars per student, why are some schools able to have co-teachers in many classrooms and your school is not? Financially, it seems there is no inherent reason for this. My guess is the person making the budget is making some choices which are not in the best interests of the students.
I agree that these inefficiencies do not square with the seemingly straightforward logic of fair student funding. This makes me very curious about how these decisions are reached. I know of schools that suffer from excessive class sizes while also employing co-teachers. My own school has placed co-teachers in the classrooms of several extraordinarily skilled teachers who were more than capable of teaching the class themselves. And yet we do not employ a secretary because there's no money left. I suspect that contractual obligations are causing these situations because there is no way my administration would have made these staffing decisions if they had their free choice.
Conor--
What do you mean by "contractual obligations"? I have been through the budget process with my school (I was SIT chair last year) and attended the meeting where Alonzo addressed principals about FSF, but I've never heard of contractual obligations.
I have heard of what might be termed personal obligations--where principals don't want to let people go that they like but don't need.
The "co teachers" are on the district payroll and were assigned in a random manner throughout the city. The schools who have them are not to schedule them with their own classes, the are in fact free extra bodies. Last week they pulled 90% of them and put them on the brige projects in the "worst" schools.
Another note, many of the "co teachers" are those who no principal would hire.... there is a surplus in the system
Thanks for the explanation schoolalchemist, that makes a lot of sense. That is what I meant by contractual obligations, ie, the district has hired these teachers and now is obliged to give them positions whether they are needed/wanted or not.
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