Saturday, January 4, 2014

Listen to the people who speak up ... Submitted top NBEA

The story of elementary students not being prepared from middle school, and middle school students not being prepared for high school is decades long without a solution. I taught a middle school for over 30 yr. and faced this situation. Our principal would go over the grades and then harass, threaten teachers who would not change the grade. Who ever thought of that? Many teachers fought the principal and stood up to their principles. If a team failed a student and that student was held back, that student was not given a different team to have a fresh start, but put with the original team. I guess this was the principal's way of punishing the team that refused to change that child's grades. It seems like there was a competition amongst principals not to have a high retention rate since then they wouldn't look successful. Aren't we in the business of helping KIDS be successful?

I'll never forget when I had to attend an IEP meeting of a student entering middle school. The principal was glad that this student was coming to our middle school since we had a specialized reading program in place. The principal said that this 6th grader could not read(but she was promoting him). I asked if that student had moved around from school to school during the last 6 yr or had he been a student at her school from 1st through 6th grade? Her response was that he was always a student at her school. My next question was, "well if he was a student at your school all those years and he was on an IEP, what programs, interventions did you try to help him learn to read? She looked at me like a deer staring into headlights, and just said, well we don't have any such programs here. So the poor boy was allowed to meet with failure for 6 years! And people have the nerve to constantly bash teachers, what did this do to the child's self esteem? His future success?

I don't understand why this is allowed to happen. The administrators and mayor shouldn't be saying, "well! we didn't know this is going on." Well, with this blog, you all should be opening your eyes to the reality that exists. All the bloggers can't be wrong! Listen to the people who speak up,

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are absolutely right. Students are moved along this system all the time. It is not the teachers who do this. The teachers ,who some love to bash, are the people advocating for the students to receive whatever help is needed. The public should be thanking us because without us admin would go unchecked.

Anonymous said...

Our school recommends quite a few kindergarten students be retained every year. But since Kindergarten is not mandatory and many parents do not want their little one left behind, the principal pushes the teacher to promote that child. Well then when they get to grade one they are even further behind. Now the grade one teacher has to retain the normal grade one repeaters AND the kindergarten students who should've been retained previously. Guess what? They are told no! Pick two and pass the others on. If a student is on an IEP that child automatically gets moved on to the next grade. Do not blame teachers for systemic issues created by our administrators. We do not have the support that we need. Our time and energy is put into each and every child during the school day. We are not asking to retain these children as a form of punishment. We want to retain them so they have more time to develop the skills necessary to be successful. We want them to love school and do not want to push them ahead when they are not ready. When you start running, you do not start with the Boston Marathon. No, you have to qualify to run the marathon by entering smaller less difficult races and then prove yourself. Special education teachers have been cut to the point where they are pretty ineffective as they service so many students. If these teachers were available in the classrooms to help the gen. ed. teachers. we could make a world of difference in the life of a child. Our administrators want to put the blame on us.

Anonymous said...

that middle school sounds familiar...would this be the same one in which the Principal would offer to students who had failed two or more subjects to attend a six week summer school? Here students learned that they could refuse to do work ALL YEAR long, yet be able to pass those subjects in just SIX short weeks! Now, that summer school was only a half day with a snack break and gym time built in! They would even ride their bikes and skateboards in the halls...no one was reprimanded. Talk about speed learning,....talk about teaching the wrong lesson. These students were not being prepared for the real world.

Anonymous said...

I as a former student remember plenty of friends of mines that got a pass into 8th grade and where told they had to have good grades in order to stay in 8th grade. I can definitely tell you those good grades never happened, yet they still remained their. Also to my shock their they were again freshman year. This happens a lot & something needs to be done and not just ignored!

Anonymous said...

In the elementary level what we need is a para professional in every classroom and decent supplies.
We also need special education teachers to help and also to have their own classes and take children that need special attention.