federal laws and education
I don't talk about work much because I don't want to be liable for what I put up on line, but I think I need to start blogging about work because it is such a big part of my life.
This year with the new federal standards of RTI (right to intervention) and CT's take on that SRBI (something researched based intervention), every student needs to be accounted for. If a student scored in the first or second band of five bands of the yearly state test, when they get to high school, they must be monitored weekly (yes, my job for freshmen). If they do not improve within four weeks, action must be taken and continue to be taken until the student improves. It sounds like a great way to make sure students do not fall between the cracks, but - SRBI is based on test data-it has no room for the maturity level of a student or the family situations of a student, or that some students do not find their nitch until they are out of high school, or the fact that some students will never do well in a school setting, because let's face it - school isn't for everyone.
In essence, we hound students and their families, even though their kids may never do better in school, because we are responsible by federal law.
An example of this is a recent case that I had to deal with. A freshmen started out shaky and has been doing worse. All of his teachers and parents came in for a meeting and the mom basically said, I've been through this at every level of schooling with my son....he is not motivated...they did testing on him and he is not ADD (which I think he clearly is to a degree), I don't want him medicated anyway....so here we are again....she knew he could do better, but would not.
Why are we pushing this kid to even be a B student? He may need to mature and realize this is important to him. As long as he doesn't fail out of school, what harm is he doing by just getting by? Sometimes I don't believe in the things I have to do as an administrator. The saddest thing is that there are administrators who allow themselves to be talked into the fact that this is the right thing to do.
I hope to look back on this blog someday and be able to say, somehow I made a difference and changed the system in some way.
This year with the new federal standards of RTI (right to intervention) and CT's take on that SRBI (something researched based intervention), every student needs to be accounted for. If a student scored in the first or second band of five bands of the yearly state test, when they get to high school, they must be monitored weekly (yes, my job for freshmen). If they do not improve within four weeks, action must be taken and continue to be taken until the student improves. It sounds like a great way to make sure students do not fall between the cracks, but - SRBI is based on test data-it has no room for the maturity level of a student or the family situations of a student, or that some students do not find their nitch until they are out of high school, or the fact that some students will never do well in a school setting, because let's face it - school isn't for everyone.
In essence, we hound students and their families, even though their kids may never do better in school, because we are responsible by federal law.
An example of this is a recent case that I had to deal with. A freshmen started out shaky and has been doing worse. All of his teachers and parents came in for a meeting and the mom basically said, I've been through this at every level of schooling with my son....he is not motivated...they did testing on him and he is not ADD (which I think he clearly is to a degree), I don't want him medicated anyway....so here we are again....she knew he could do better, but would not.
Why are we pushing this kid to even be a B student? He may need to mature and realize this is important to him. As long as he doesn't fail out of school, what harm is he doing by just getting by? Sometimes I don't believe in the things I have to do as an administrator. The saddest thing is that there are administrators who allow themselves to be talked into the fact that this is the right thing to do.
I hope to look back on this blog someday and be able to say, somehow I made a difference and changed the system in some way.
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