Dear Mayor Mitchell,
It appears that in your attempt to give the city of New Bedford's School System a new Superintendent to help improve the scores of New Bedford's children you have succeeded in totally dismantling the already crumbling foundation of our schools. A school is successful if it has leadership and qualified teachers teaching. The city of New Bedford has been riding on a merry-go-round. It's Superintendents of the past 5 years have come and gone like a fall breeze, and now the city has brought in what they feels will cure all that ails this system, Superintendent Dr. Durkin.
Most people would agree that worthwhile change takes planning and proper implementation. Yet Dr. Durkin has dictated that New Bedford's educators completely walk away from practices they have spent years developing and over night implement "rigorous teaching" and use the daily five ( a practice that no doubt may have great value) without any form of training in these practices.
Education is always in a state of change, practices come and go, and reappear again. So it is common practice for the educators themselves to be trained in and exposed to new theories often. The expectation that an entire school system can throw out old practices and begin new ones overnight and without any training or guidance is ridiculous. When new reading, math, science, or social studies series have been adopted by the city's schools in the past, educators have been trained in them and given a year to blend the new in with practices they are comfortable with and then in year two the old system has been laid to rest. This is logical, it allows the teacher to dabble and explore the new while ensuring they cover the needed standards in ways they have expertise in doing.
New Bedford's Schools have some excellent teachers, who give tirelessly of themselves to their students and in the long run to the city. The depression, sense of dread, fear, and anxiety these wonderful people are expressing now should be a huge RED LIGHT to you Mr. Mayor. Change is needed and the very same educators have been begging for it, but not at the price of their health, piece of mind, or the handcuffing of their abilities to use their well refined talents within their classrooms. Please listen to their deafening cries for help before it is too late.
Sincerely,
A NBEA Member
13 comments:
Well said ,Lou! We are working many hours before and after the work day to ensure our students are given the tools needed to be successful. We are being asked to add more onto our plate. Attend IST meetings after school for several hours a month without pay, plan lessons with very little planning time. Special educators do not get the same planning time as a classroom teacher. We get 1 1/2 hours a week on Friday. That is it!! We also have to load students onto buses so we lose part of the planning time whenever the buses are late (which is almost every week). Where is our support? We do not have it from the SC, administration, Mayor, and in most cases, from the parents. I have never thought about leaving the district until this year. Seniority is being slowly chipped away and that is the incentive to remain teaching in NB. Districts with populations that are comparable to ours do not have as many issues with their leaders.
Not only are we frightened to sit down to gather materials(or thoughts), some of us have been told we must give up 30 minutes of our sparse specialist times to co-plan with the principal. Really? The poor young learners of NB. The people that care about their education the most are being destroyed.
Special education teachers work under the same contract as regular education teachers. You have the right to take their art, music and physical education planning time as an equal amount. The other teachers in my building get 60 minutes over 2 weeks so I take a 30minute period each week. I have been doing this for over 10 years and never had an administrator question it They actually have backed me up on it when questioned. Noone can take advantage of you if you do not let them. You are just as entitled to planning time as anyone. We all need our planning time-do not give it up.
You should make the union aware of what's going on. The same thing was happening at my school and Lou talked to the principal and put a stop to it.
I am so sad hearing and reading about the additional stress being placed on my fellow educators. I have not slept a full night since school has begun, work every weekend day for hours, arrived early before school begins and have stayed for hours after school. Yet, still I cannot complete all that is required of me. Most of what I am being asked to do does not even directly impact my teaching students. My health has suffered and so has my soul. My students are overwhelmed, with only a 10 minute break from rigor. These are children, who are being asked to focus for four hours in the morning, not speak at lunch, ten minutes outdoors (weather permitting) and then focus for an additional hour and a half until dismissal unless they stay for extra help. Adults cannot even sit for a four hour period without a break. We have become a system of abusers, who show no mercy for what is developmentally appropriate.
That says it all....please help us to be the excellent teachers we have all been for the 32 years I have been teaching with the appropriate resources we need to do our jobs in the excellent way we know how.
I know for a fact that the Winslow School staff must meet with the principal for 30 minutes during one of their specials.
Not only do we have to continue with our "rigorous instruction" and all of the fears and anxieties mentioned above, but specifically at NBHS we are getting less and less support and more and more put on us. Every issue we have is ours to deal with now. We have more students than ever, larger classes, and more responsibilities. I've spent countless hours trying to call parents, since this is the only way you can ever write a child up for anything anymore. My classroom is disrupted, I've been disrespected, students roam the halls aimlessly without a care in the world, and it falls on the classroom teacher to call the parents. We need change, but not at the expense of what already worked. It is only a matter of time before the students realize they are not required to be accountable for themselves and then we will have lost all control.
This all sounds like one big trip to hell ,thanks to Jon Mitchell and Ms Durkin...send in Mitchell to get those disrespecting low life's out of there..who disrupt the educational process and bring the mcas scores down.
No teacher should be putting up with any abuse.
Where are the SRO officers to help?
All I can say is Mayor Mitchell must have some deep-seated internal hatred for his educator parents, because if he condones what our superintendent is demanding of our teachers, knowing that people are becoming ill over it, he is truly sadistic.
Perhaps, Mayor Mitchell, if you had gotten rid of block scheduling at the high school when you first got into office, the students MCAS scores might have improved. You definitely heard during your "Education Forums" the negative remarks about block scheduling from teachers and parents. Every other school district around the Greater New Bedford area that tried it got rid of it within a short period of time.
Talk to teachers and see what they need in their classrooms to better prepare their students. If we are to advance our students for the 21st Century, we can't do it is old 20th Century books, materials, and computers.
I have never seen NBHS morale so low. I am fearful for the health of my colleagues. They have so much pressure on them right now.
That aside, would like to take this opportunity to say that the New Bedford high school guidance department has done an outstanding job remaining positive, solving problems, encouraging students, and supporting teachers in less than desirable circumstances this year. They are working just as hard as the teachers and deserve credit for their hard work and dedication.
I think mayor Mitchell should donate his salary to the high school for books materials and computers..he doesn't need the money he's wealthy enough.
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