Alexandria HSs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ACPS teacher here (hopefully not one of the "deadweight" ones). There seem to be many calls to throw out the school board, overhaul the whole system, etc. What are some specific proposals that you'd like to see implemented? Here are some suggestions that I think would make a difference: expand summer school; hire more reading/math/EL/SPED specialists and assign them to individual schools; lengthen the school day; provide funding for great classroom libraries (this is in the works); stress the importance of choice in reading and move away from a focus on reading levels; and reduce class size.

Alexandria is an incredibly diverse city with a school population with a wide variety of needs. There are some children that live in such chaos that completing an assignment is the last thing on their minds. Other children come to my fourth grade class midyear not speaking a word of English. We teachers (and administrators) face difficult instructional choices.

What can you do? Donate great books to your local school. Volunteer through the Alexandria Tutoring Consortium. Join the PTA. Start up an after-school program to provide a supervised time for kids to read, do math, or play chess. I am incredibly lucky to have a retired teacher help me in my classroom every week as a volunteer. The kids love her, and she is a much better teacher than I am!

Thank you for weighing in! I'm very curious as the parent of a pre-schooler in Alexandria... what do you think is the core of the problems we face in Alexandria as someone on the front line? Is it an issue of demographics? Is it management? Is it impossible to run such a small school district well?

I have definitely heard there have been real problems of consistency of leadership and vision, that have caused ACPS to do less well than it should, not sure if that is changing. But I think at least 80% of it is demographics. For the most part our "bad" schools are not significantly worse than schools with the same demographics in other jurisdictions, and our schools with "good" demographics are sought after. I have even heard that ACPS does a better job with some immigrant populations than some neighboring jurisdictions do, but that is no comfort to the people choosing between ACPS on the one hand, and say North Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ACPS teacher here (hopefully not one of the "deadweight" ones). There seem to be many calls to throw out the school board, overhaul the whole system, etc. What are some specific proposals that you'd like to see implemented? Here are some suggestions that I think would make a difference: expand summer school; hire more reading/math/EL/SPED specialists and assign them to individual schools; lengthen the school day; provide funding for great classroom libraries (this is in the works); stress the importance of choice in reading and move away from a focus on reading levels; and reduce class size.

Alexandria is an incredibly diverse city with a school population with a wide variety of needs. There are some children that live in such chaos that completing an assignment is the last thing on their minds. Other children come to my fourth grade class midyear not speaking a word of English. We teachers (and administrators) face difficult instructional choices.

What can you do? Donate great books to your local school. Volunteer through the Alexandria Tutoring Consortium. Join the PTA. Start up an after-school program to provide a supervised time for kids to read, do math, or play chess. I am incredibly lucky to have a retired teacher help me in my classroom every week as a volunteer. The kids love her, and she is a much better teacher than I am!

Thank you for weighing in! I'm very curious as the parent of a pre-schooler in Alexandria... what do you think is the core of the problems we face in Alexandria as someone on the front line? Is it an issue of demographics? Is it management? Is it impossible to run such a small school district well?

Poor, uneducated, public housing inhabitants drive the direction of the school board and set the pace of teaching. Sounds cynical but it's true. Ask anyone that has 10 years experience with ACPS and they will say the same.

[Anonymous]

9:00 teacher here. I agree with the above. Our biggest issue is our diverse student population. On one hand, this provides great opportunities, as each classroom is a microcosm of the world. I had students from Bangladesh, Norway, El Salvador, and Ghana. Homeless students work on projects with students that vacation in Italy every summer. On the other hand, it is very difficult to provide engaging, differentiated learning experiences for everyone in the classroom, given the variety of needs.

[Anonymous]

9:00 again. I agree with 9:59 -- NOT 10:10. I've had ten years of experience and that is absolutely not true, at least at my school (and not at TC).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:9:00 again. I agree with 9:59 -- NOT 10:10. I've had ten years of experience and that is absolutely not true, at least at my school (and not at TC).

I put 4 kids through ACPS at two different grade schools as well as GW and TC. They most certainly are teaching to the kids in impoverished, single parent, uneducated households.

[Anonymous]

It's true that these kids need more resources. My DD, however, was able to take multiple AP classes at TC and get into an Ivy League college. She loved her teachers at TC and did not feel that she was ignored or unappreciated.

[Anonymous]

When does ACPS just admit for decades they have not turned around their smallish public school system? They should have admitted this so long ago and hired a Superintendent and special school board designated just to address it's low state academic rating and sworn to improve it.

Will another decade pass by and we still be talking poor academic standing of ACPS ad nauseam?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When does ACPS just admit for decades they have not turned around their smallish public school system? They should have admitted this so long ago and hired a Superintendent and special school board designated just to address it's low state academic rating and sworn to improve it.

Will another decade pass by and we still be talking poor academic standing of ACPS ad nauseam?

Yup, we will. It's infuriating, and it doesn't have to be like this, and it didn't used to be like this. But it is.

It has been going since the early 90s, when the school board converted from appointed to elected. The school board used to be Council-designated. The board members reported to people who were politically responsible for overall school performance. A useless board member couldn't stick around forever, because s/he would be a political liability for Council. And Council could reign the school board in when necessary. Love Council or hate Council, there were adults in the room.

Since something like 93 or 94, the school board has been independently elected. Unheard-of people with no qualifications and no common sense run for the job; the job duties expand every year as the school board adds inefficient tasks; the decision-making becomes more and more questionable; and the results get worse every year. Nobody knows who these people are and it's time for every single incumbent to go. And in the future, Alexandria should return to an appointed school board.

[Anonymous]

14:04 and 16:06: We hear you. You are angry. What are your concrete proposals for improving Alexandria schools? What would a new school board do? Please give specifics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:04 and 16:06: We hear you. You are angry. What are your concrete proposals for improving Alexandria schools? What would a new school board do? Please give specifics.

Dramatically simplify the 4-scale, 24 step pay system for teachers, which extends top pay so far out that teachers never see it. The scale is a fraud. No step above 12 is even budgeted for the average position, 13 for special ed.

Quit the new building projects - all of them except for the ones that are almost finished. First, maintain and build out existing facilities. At least four schools are condemnation-level right now and the school board has known it for ears. Why weren’t there summer construction bids taken in the most critical work?

For performance measurement, look at TC and find out where the failing students are coming from. Quit the constant measurement in elementaries and middles. Pay attention to those elementaries whose graduates are flunking at TC. That’s where the weakness starts.

Right now, today, declare a 20% cut in the total number of CO personnel. Require consolidations of positions and elimination of multi-layer reporting structures. Implement by September 30. If a job is not necessary but the person is useful, transfer the person. The CO never educated anybody.

Eliminate the school board salary and go to an expenses-only system for all members.


There’s a start.

[Anonymous]

Dramatically simplify the 4-scale, 24 step pay system for teachers, which extends top pay so far out that teachers never see it. The scale is a fraud. No step above 12 is even budgeted for the average position, 13 for special ed.

Quit the new building projects - all of them except for the ones that are almost finished. First, maintain and build out existing facilities. At least four schools are condemnation-level right now and the school board has known it for ears. Why weren’t there summer construction bids taken in the most critical work?

For performance measurement, look at TC and find out where the failing students are coming from. Quit the constant measurement in elementaries and middles. Pay attention to those elementaries whose graduates are flunking at TC. That’s where the weakness starts.

Right now, today, declare a 20% cut in the total number of CO personnel. Require consolidations of positions and elimination of multi-layer reporting structures. Implement by September 30. If a job is not necessary but the person is useful, transfer the person. The CO never educated anybody.

Eliminate the school board salary and go to an expenses-only system for all members.

As someone working in ACPS at the boots-on-the-ground level, I don't see instructional recommendations from you that would significantly improve our educational results. All I see is "pay attention to those elementaries whose graduates are flunking at TC." I like that idea, but I want specifics. I'm happy to rally support for ideas that will work. What are your ideas? What should a new board do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Dramatically simplify the 4-scale, 24 step pay system for teachers, which extends top pay so far out that teachers never see it. The scale is a fraud. No step above 12 is even budgeted for the average position, 13 for special ed.

Quit the new building projects - all of them except for the ones that are almost finished. First, maintain and build out existing facilities. At least four schools are condemnation-level right now and the school board has known it for ears. Why weren’t there summer construction bids taken in the most critical work?

For performance measurement, look at TC and find out where the failing students are coming from. Quit the constant measurement in elementaries and middles. Pay attention to those elementaries whose graduates are flunking at TC. That’s where the weakness starts.

Right now, today, declare a 20% cut in the total number of CO personnel. Require consolidations of positions and elimination of multi-layer reporting structures. Implement by September 30. If a job is not necessary but the person is useful, transfer the person. The CO never educated anybody.

Eliminate the school board salary and go to an expenses-only system for all members.

As someone working in ACPS at the boots-on-the-ground level, I don't see instructional recommendations from you that would significantly improve our educational results. All I see is "pay attention to those elementaries whose graduates are flunking at TC." I like that idea, but I want specifics. I'm happy to rally support for ideas that will work. What are your ideas? What should a new board do?

You're looking for instructional changes. That's a typical ACPS approach - design a bad fix before even knowing what the problem is. And it never works, it just leads to needless expansions in staffing. First, find out who is flunking, from where, from which modal or non-modal curricula, from which schools.

[Anonymous]

Agreed. Find out who is flunking. Then what?

[Anonymous]

We probably already have that info by looking at SOL pass rates broken down by subgroup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. Find out who is flunking. Then what?

Then change their home/family circumstances. Turn them from low SES to high SES. Make their parents college-educated instead of maybe having a high school diploma. Make the kids native English speakers instead of ELLs. Their scores will improve dramatically after you implement these changes.