Indeed people need to work together for students... this brings up another point... it is about communication and a shared vision. It requires leadership to get teachers talking...to each other and to administrators. If a school has a shared vision that we are going to do what is best for kids...AND we start talking to one another about how to achieve that vision, it goes a long way toward preventing a scenario like this. Now, having said all this, many of us still have to face mandates from central office or the state when your school has not made AYP for several years in a row. It is then that leadership becomes more important... and a willingness to NOT throw up your hands and say you have no control. It is time to be a patient but tireless advocate at a different level... something I am working on right now professionally. How do we bring the community in and let them know what accountability has done to their school? How do we help policy makers understand the unintended consequences of their policies? Literacy leaders have more to consider in their leadership than their own buildings in this current climate. Jennifer L. Palmer Instructional Facilitator, National Board Certified Teacher (EC Gen) Magnolia Elementary School (Home School) 901 Trimble Road, Joppa, MD 21085 Phone: (410) 612-1553 Fax: (410) 612-1576 In EVERY child...a touch of GREATNESS!!! Proud of our Title One School! Norrisville Elementary School 5302 Norrisville Rd White Hall, MD 21161 Phone: 410-692-7810 Fax: 410-692-7812 Where Bright Futures Begin!!!
________________________________ From: [email protected] on behalf of Renee Sent: Mon 7/18/2011 10:45 AM To: Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] adding instruction for remedial... Carol, Thanks for throwing your thoughts into this important discussion. I understand completely what you go through with scheduling, and commend you for taking the time and effort to consider children's overall school experience through a lens wider than your own. When scheduling art classes, I came up with some resistance from some teachers (not all, but some) who did not want their children to be going to art class during the morning. Well, guess what? I teach all day. Somebody has to go in the morning. And this was different from a small group pullout; it was the whole class, for an hour only ONCE every three weeks on average. Not every day, not even every week. Sometimes there would be a longer break between sessions. In the end, things worked out and most people were on board once they saw how the schedule would work. BUT.... there were times when art class was at the same time as a a few students' reading intervention class, and a few teachers insisted that these children miss art because they had to go to reading intervention. The problem I had with that is that reading intervention was EVERY DAY and art class was ONE HOUR ONCE EVERY THREE WEEKS. So to go to art class, these students, at most, would have missed 9 out of about 150 days of reading intervention. Instead, they never got to go to art. When the reading intervention teacher discovered this the second year of the art program, she began to send them to art instead. When the school counselor found out, she wrote "art instruction" into their IEPs. The bottom line is that scheduling is a nightmare, and people need to work together for the students. Renee
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