Welcome to all those who are viewing my new blog! The name Gooey Stewie may seem strange for an educational blog but my husband thought the name should rhyme and my students call me Mrs. Stewie so it seemed appropriate. I have been teaching for 7 years and have lots of opinions about teaching, school, and school related issues. Feel free to comment and share your views about anything related to education.
We have now been in school for 14 days. The beginning of the year is always so fun because students are on their best behavior and are really interested in learning. They are ready to turn over a new leaf and be better than last year. I wish those thoughts would continue throughout the year. The first day of school a sweet girl told me she would be missing Friday and the following week because her family was going to Hawaii. Now, I would love to go to Hawaii too but I just had 3 months of summer vacation to do whatever I wanted and so did she. Why is she missing the entire second week of school when we just came back from vacation? As teachers we are charged with the duty of teaching all the children who are placed in our classrooms. We do the best we can with large class sizes and limited budgets and in Utah we do extremely well, but for students to learn at all they must BE IN CLASS! Our school failed Adequate Yearly Progress last year because we failed in one of the 40 categories. Students with special needs had only a 91% attendance rate when they needed 93% to pass. We increased achievement in all 40 categories but were published in the newspaper as a failing school because students were not in school as much as expected. The Utah legislature says parents can take their children out of school whenever they want and yet teachers are responsible and degraded when they don't learn.
I love that parents can take kids out for anything, but the school gets penalized. Strange laws we have! I hope this AYP goes better for Mount Nebo.
ReplyDeleteI liked the name of your blog. Catchy!!! Also nice follow up post about the rules of your class! Great job Gooey Stewie! LOL
ReplyDeleteYou bring up an interesting point. We are required to take on students, regardless of their background, and then held accountable for their success. Yesterday, I dealt with high school students who have had only two months of school in their lives! Our curriculum is designed to prepare students for college. It won't work for illiterate children, but we are forced to accept them. In fact, we could offer our elementary curriculum to them, but the law wouldn't allow that.
ReplyDeleteYou have a wonderful blend of humor and honesty. This is a great blog for teachers to follow because I think they will find themselves in your words. I know I did.
ReplyDeleteI would imagine that your Special Education department will be getting those kids in school this year after not making AYP for 2 percentage points. All the academics in line and probably 10 kids missing school pulled you down. Harsh.
Mary!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great blog! Look what you have accomplished already! You should be proud.
Your frustrations are valid and I think we all feel them. I personally get a little offended when I hear people public talk about how crappy the schools are now-a-days and how horrible the education system is, blah blah blah. As if they have no control over their child's education. BULL. I have heard it said NUMEROUS times: "It takes a village to raise a child." Do I think teachers should feel some sort of responsibility and accountability? ABSOLUTELY. Should parents? MOST DEFINITELY. I just think it is interesting, as I think you do, that when kids fail, somehow it isn't because of their parents, but it's because of poor education.
Sorry. I disagree. Strongly.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your blog I decided to respond to this post. I have a very strong oppinion on AYP when it comes to attendance. I dont understand why teachers are held accountable for something parents should be responsible for. Teachers can not leave there class to go get a student at home. My oppinion is that it is a parents problem not a school problem. In todays schools more often than not teachers are asked to do the parenting. I think that somehow parents are the ones that should be held accountable for attendance instead of schools.
Pat Parkinson