Reply to Extended year for 11 schools. Is this a pilot for the rest of the schools?

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Reply to "Extended year for 11 schools. Is this a pilot for the rest of the schools?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm more worried about how teachers would react. I can see the high performing teachers heading for the hills if all DC schools turned extended year.[/quote]

Teacher here,

This is another misguided effort from the good people of central office. If they stopped loading us down with a dozen different (conflicting) "best practices" the students would fare better. Central office issues mandates without input from us and then sends minions out to observe us several times a month to make sure we're doing it. On top of that, principals have their ideas of best practices, so they require things of us. Next up to bat: instructional coaches who (you guessed it) also have best practices that we should try. So now we have a dozen different things we should do that everyone is standing in the back of our room with a laptop waiting to see us do. Every now and then you get one brave child who raises her hand and asks "Why are we doing this?" Unfortunately, it's never when the policymakers are in the room.

Holding parents and high school students accountable for their actions would work wonders. If a child misses 30 days of school by December, and I've called the home several times then I shouldn't be subjected to congressional review for putting an F on the books. If a child is violent, aggressive, throwing things, and blasting music on a daily basis in class then I should have the right to put that child out of my class. Unfortunately that's not how it works. That kid gets three minutes out in the hall before someone brings them back and all of the other kids shake their heads as the child comes back and returns to the same disruptive behavior.

We're expected to be a holding facility for those who might otherwise run the streets and end up dead or in jail. Meanwhile the ones who we could actually help are made to suffer. Last year, I had several students give up during a standardized test because they couldn't concentrate. The other kids were blasting music and walking around the computer lab. I asked to have the students removed or the test invalidated. Neither happened. [/quote]

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