An interesting audio on the problems black students have in schools. The audio can be heard by clicking here.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Mind the Gap: Why Good Schools Are Failing Black Students
An interesting audio on the problems black students have in schools. The audio can be heard by clicking here.
Fundraiser For Back The Pack - and other Rock Hill School District News
Special needs students in Saundra Booker's class at Saluda Trail have designed Christmas cards (example on left) that will soon be for sale. Family Trust Federal Credit Union plans to print the cards, 10 to a box, with different designs and sell them for $10.
Textbooks and instructional materials that have been proposed for use in S.C.'s public schools will be on display for the public through Nov. 8 at 23 colleges and universities, including the Richard W. Riley College of Education at Winthrop. The materials will be recommended to the State Board of Education for adoption on Dec. 9.
The Northwestern Troubadours been invited to perform on a PBS special on March 10. The special will coincide with "Music in Our Schools Week."
Needy students at Mount Gallant were recently surprised when they received brand new shoes from "Steppin High," a local non-profit group.
Rock Hill High will take orders through Nov. 16 for Boston Butts. The cost will be $25 with the proceeds benefiting the school's wrestling team. To order, contact Coach Cain Beard or Gary Partlow at 329-3034. The roasts will be available for pick up on Nov. 20 and 21.
South Pointe's literacy magazine staff continues to receive rave reviews. One student's work was selected to be on the cover of the Scholastic Review magazine which has been distributed to all high schools in the state.
Orchestra teacher, Kimberly Le's article titled "Finding Your Musical Oasis", can now be read in the October issue of Teaching Music, a publication of MENC, the national association for music education.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Are Parents Always To Blame?
John Spencer has an interesting comment on his blog, Musings from a not-so-master Teacher, about why he doesn't complain about parents as much as some teachers do. It's an interesting angle which you should read by clicking here.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Should Teachers Know Their School Board Members
The Successful Teaching Blog has some interesting comments on why teachers should get to know their school board representatives. Enter the discussion by visiting the site here.
I think that all teachers should be registered to vote and exercise their civic duty. Contacting board members is very acceptable as long as the Board/Superintendent relationship remains in place - boards set policy and hire the superintendent while superintendents administer policy through school operations.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Rock Hill School Board October Business Meeting To Be This Monday
Meeting of the Board of Trustees
Monday, October 26, 2009
6:00 p.m. – District Office Board Room
A G E N D A
I. Call to Order
Approval of Agenda
(Under consent agenda, all action items will be voted on after one motion and second to approve them without discussion. If a board member wants any action item discussed or voted on separately, the board member, before the agenda is approved, must ask that the action item be moved to the discussion item section.)
II. Citizen Participation
III. Special Business
A. Recognition of Rock Hill Elks Lodge for their dictionary project
IV. Consent Action Agenda
A. Approval of Minutes
1. September 28, 2009 business meeting
2. October 12, 2009 work session
B. Approval of Personnel Recommendations
V. Communications
A. Chip Hutchison, Junior Achievement of York County
B. Jeff Blair, parent on 3rd grade report cards and availability of textbooks for additional study.
VI. Report of the Superintendent
A. Announcements
B. Budget Report
C. First Year Teacher Report
D. Gifted & Talented
E. Two-Year Financial Plan
VII. Review of Work Session
VIII. Action Agenda
A. Policies IKF, IJ – 1st Reading
B. Policies GBEB, GCF, GCQA/GCQB, GDF – 1st Reading
C. Policy JCR – 2nd Reading
D. Policies JIH, JLCEE, JIHC – 2nd Reading
E. Suspension of Policy DFAC
F. Point of Sale – H.3272
IX. Other Business
X. Executive Session
XI. Adjourn
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Evaluating Teaching
The 'Successful Teaching' blog has started an interesting discussion on Quality Vs. Seniority in the Teaching profession. Visit the blog to join the discussion below:
Quality vs. Seniority
“As budget cuts loom again in many states, employee termination, seniority, and ‘bumping rights’ are in the news. The essential issue is whether organizational leaders should be able to retain the employees they think are the most highly-skilled or whether seniority (or some other factor) should be employed instead. ‘Highly skilled’ in this instance means ‘employee quality’ or ‘best fit for employer needs,’ both of which are typically defined by the organization, not the employee or union.”
I truly believe that in our efforts to protect teachers from illegal personnel practices, we have gone overboard. I think we have done this to the point where we are doing a disservice to our students. Good teachers should keep their job and if they have seniority and experience, it shouldn’t be hard to show they are good teachers. The problem is that there is no uniform measure on what makes a “good teacher.” What one principal may consider high quality teaching may not be the same for another principal. I still think that is okay because maybe that school was not the right fit for them to be on the same team.
I have worked at one school where my efforts to communicate with parents and develop a rapport with them in order to help my students be successful were applauded. My students were successful and discipline problems with my class were practically nonexistent. At another school, I was told that I was too close to the parents and the community. In fact, the principal felt that because I lived in the same community as my students, I should go outside the community to do my grocery shopping. He obviously did not feel I was a “good teacher” so it was time to move on to another school where the principal had the same values as me.
At another school, I worked with a teacher who had been teaching for about 17 years but she was terrible. She did not teach her self contained students effectively, showed lots of R rated videos, and basically did very little teaching and even though the parents complained, it took three years to go through the process of firing her. Three years is a lot of wasted time in a child’s school life. They have wasted ¼ of their education years and they don’t have that time to waste! The reason it took so many years to fire her was the fear of litigation, so the school had to document and offer time to improve, and then more documentation that improvement was not happening. I’m sure there were many highly skilled newer teachers out there that could have been more effective in this classroom but because she had seniority, she was given benefits that brand new teachers are not given.
Our state does not have unions and we are a right-to-work state but I think teachers are protected pretty well due to fear of lawsuits. Lawsuits will cost the school district lots of money at the expense of the taxpayer. We need to get out of this fear mentally and make sure we are having good effective teachers who are offering a high quality education to our students. If teachers are not doing so, they are making the rest of us who are trying to do this look bad.
I do not have an answer to how to evaluate teachers in order to find out how well they are teaching because I know that an administrator is already stretched too thin. There is also the problem of personality conflicts and the impossibility of uniform evaluating. I do think administrators need to be in the classroom observing more. My school had 2300 students and even though there were four assistant principals, it was impossible to deal with discipline problems, day to day operations, and get in all of the classrooms more than once a year if that much. I think observing in the classrooms is the only way administrators will know what is going on in the classroom.
Maybe they need to put cameras in the classroom. I think it has helped with making sure state troopers follow the rules as well as protecting their rights too. If there is any doubt about a teacher’s teaching practices, a video would show evidence. This would protect students and teachers from false accusations as well as evidence to prove otherwise. If the video shows the accusations are true, then the student or teacher should be dealt with immediately.
I do not believe that seniority should be more important than high quality teaching if we want our students to be successful in life. What do you think?
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