Reply to Fairfax County: McLean Citizens Association demands smaller class sizes

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Many years ago –when Title I was relatively new—I taught Title I kids.  In those days, the kids were Title I—not the school.  We were given quite a bit of money.  However, we were required to spend it on equipment.  That meant tape recorders, filmstrip projectors (I said this was a long time ago!) etc.  The teachers were livid.  How much equipment do you need?  Of course this was before computers. (By the way, our classes were mixed Title I and non-Title I kids).  We were not supposed to use Title I equipment with non-Title I kids.  It was ridiculous.  We screamed and with the help of a caring principal and a brilliant teacher, we wrote up a program to hire additional teachers to reduce class size.  We also used the money for a reading specialist and a math specialist dedicated to these kids.  These specialists took every child every day.  The math specialist took half of my class (first grade) and worked with the kids in her math lab while I drilled and did worksheets with the other half.  She worked on concepts while I worked on rote.  Then, we switched groups.  We did the same thing with reading.  Reading specialist worked on phonics, I worked on sight words and comprehension.  At the end of the year, the math results were amazing.  Reading was not as impressive.  One teacher took the non Title I kids and the rest of us had entirely Title I.  The class sizes were too big—29, as I recall, but the extra help from the specialists was critical.  These “specialists” were real teachers who worked with kids—not “instructional coaches” giving advice to teachers.
[b]FCPS spends entirely too much money on people that do not work with kids.  Someone needs to figure this out.  Teachers don’t need advice—the kids need real help.[/b]
I guarantee you, the Title I money could be better spent.

NO class in FCPS should have double the size of another--except special needs.[/quote]

+1000! I have a complicated special ed child and the burocracy and many layers of administrative people in FCPS is crazy. The teachers are stretched so thin at my child's school and yet every time we have a meeting an extra 10 bodies from Gatehouse etc. can show up and sit like silent hunks of meat around the table? Each getting paid six figures.[/quote]

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