Reply to Feedback on Bridges PCS?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Feedback on Bridges PCS?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I can tell you that in my child's classroom, the two teachers both appear quite inexperienced for what they're dealing with on a day to day basis. A third of the class is barely to completely non-verbal. Nearly as many are not potty trained. They do not have kids who come in and out of the classroom during the day (as I have heard about the inclusion model in another class); rather, all the kids are in there all day.

The pros: my child is getting a richer, more diverse experience with other children than I think is available in just about any other public school. Learning to communicate and socialize with children who are non-verbal or have other profound special needs is really lovely to watch with kids this young, and there is a lot of compassion among the children. At the preschool level, so much of what they need at this age is about socialization, and in that way, there are some terrific lessons for the kids to learn.

On the flip side, we have no way to communicate with other parents, having never received a class list (despite multiple requests), so we have not been able to help our child foster any friendships outside of school. The parents we've met don't seem interested in connecting as a class, so there's no sense of community. I don't even know the names of all the kids in my child's class.

So, the cons: just about everything else when it comes to educating my kid. The teachers appear to be overwhelmed and under qualified for the challenge. At least one is out of the room much of the time to handle toileting or give one-on-one attention to the children with more serious needs. The typically developing kids seem to fend for themselves, which, while understandable given the circumstances, is not optimal. The classroom is messy, often dirty, and disorganized. The promise of doing child-driven units on different themes is pretty much a joke. Communication from our teacher is sporadic and limited to a paragraph long "newsletter" once every other week at best, although I was told by the assistant principal (who has since left) that it's supposed to be sent by email and hard copy a minimum of once a week. We've never received an all-class email all year. Our child, who entered school knowing all the letters and their sounds, does not appear to have had any support to go further in early literacy, as the class works on one letter at a time, and they are maybe halfway through the alphabet at this point.

I admit we are majorly disappointed. Our experience does not match what we were told about the school before choosing it, or even what seems to happen in the handful of classrooms with stronger teachers. When I met with the assistant principal about a handful of issues with our teacher, she seemed well aware of her weaknesses but nothing changed as a result--even the more concrete, easy fixes we discussed.

I think the school excelled in the past because it was small and focused exclusively on early childhood. Now I think they are stretched too thin, and have hired teachers just to have warm bodies in the classroom, despite the rigors of the job. Would I say you should take a chance on it if your child gets in? If you have no other choices, maybe so; you could luck into being in one of the classrooms with a good teacher. But definitely go in with your eyes open.
[/quote]

I have an idea what classroom you are talking about, but this is not the teachers fault at all. This is administrations fault for allowing that many kids with special needs in an inclusion classroom due to their needs in saving money by not hiring another floating SPED teacher. It's too much for a teacher and on top of that add the lack of support given to the teachers. I'm surprised they haven't quit yet with the lack of support and the workload they have.

I agree, I think they are really stretching themselves too thin![/quote]

If they haven't quit, they are close to doing so.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics