Anyone up for year-round school?

This morning I read an opinion article in the Washington Post that was written by Sen. Michael Bennett of Colorado. He is a former superintendent and his topic was on ways to change NCLB and gave some statistics on our current education system.

While reading his opinion it got me thinking about ways that we may change our current system to better suit our current society not just keep the status quo of days gone by.

We all know that our current 10 month school year was originally set up because of our past agrarian ways. Students needed to help in the fields throughout the summer so they simply couldn't attend school regularly so we set up our summer break. Since I don't remember the last time I had a student gone for this reason in May or August, why do we continue to use this system.

One of the changes Bennett wants to see is better recruitment and retaining of teachers. Giving more incentives to get some of the best and brightest to come into the educational field. I wholeheartedly agree!

The topic of year-round school might have an impact on teachers and students alike and why shouldn't we think about a change in this direction.

Why can't we change our system to a year-round approach? Maybe something along the lines of a 6 week vacation during the summer, 3 weeks at Easter, and 4 weeks over the winter holidays. Around those times we do a 45 days in followed by 15 days out learning system. All of this leading to an ongoing process of school improvement and continuous learning.

I understand some of the arguments: what about summer jobs, it would be easier to find day care for just the summer rather than over 3 different long breaks, summer school (for teachers and students), summer camps, etc. With change comes more change, I am sure we can adjust time frames for all of those things.

Do I think this would improve learning-- absolutely! Is there statistical stats that prove this-- probably not enough. My points would be the fact that teachers would be able to have continuous lessons and would need less reteaching to start the year. Schools could arrange tutoring during the shorter breaks to help students stay on the path that all others are on (when needed).

How do I think this would benefit the recruiting and retaining of teachers? I think shorter periods of continuing education that take place more within their own systems rather than from taking prolonged classes from higher education would interest some new teachers. We all have great access to technology and can connect in so many other ways that I feel some continuing education credit simply takes up to much time and little is implemented.

Overall, I agree many things in our system need changing. I agree with things our ed leaders and government officials want to see changed but there are some that I don't. We shall see where this all leads us and see if this time around any of the talking leads to REAL change!

"I don't know what it's called..."

We just recently had our spring parent/teacher conferences here at West Marshall, what a joy to know that Spring is on its way and I will soon be outside on the baseball field for the summer. Our conferences are student lead and we always have 90-95% of our students show up, which is great! The students work through their folder explaining their current grade and showing some work that they have done within each classroom. It is a great experience to see the students interacting with their parents and get a better understanding of where each student is coming from.

Yesterday, our SINA group met with teachers to discuss another formative assessment idea. Since we are a School In Need of Assistance that group has been studying data and have formed a plan to lead the middle school in formative assessment ideas and how to implement them within the classroom. Toward the end of that meeting I brought up the idea, that has been floating around about Standard Based Grading (see previous post), that "are we here to fill our grade book full of F's or are we here to make sure learning is taking place?"

That led to some discussion but ultimately led to a teacher telling me about her 8th grade conferences and students talking about my class. At semester, I started taking part in the formative assessment movement and looking at my standards as the benchmarks to which my students would receive grades. Obviously, since I can't change my grade book to reflect standards met, students have very few marks but also have A's in my class. Why? Because we continue to reteach and relearn and investigate and wonder until the students have all learned and met a standard. What is the outcome, for now I just give them an "A".

For the 8th grade conferences then, the students had to explain that to their parents and according to the teacher I talked to many were able to explain it and connect it to the news dealing with Waukee's middle school system. The quote from many was "I don't know what it's called but we all have to get it right before we move on to something else, he won't let us fail or not try to understand it."

GREAT JOB 8th GRADE! We have had great discussions in class about expectations and I feel many are really buying in to this system. They enjoy the fact that the classroom is now more student centered and they are in-charge of their own learning. Some days I sit back, watching the class, and wondering why wasn't I doing this before?!

It has been a great learning experience for myself but has also led to some good discussion between me and our staff and principal! I look forward to trying to get more teachers to buy in to this system and look to eliminate giving "marks" just because that is the way we have always done it. I was so glad to see Waukee pass a movement to SBG and I look forward to the day that all schools are doing it!