Monday, March 02, 2009

Things I notice (over and over)

I had a discussion about this with another sub at school Thursday. It's something I've noticed before and had other conversations about. About half of the students at my kids' school go to ESOL. This means that at some point during the day, teachers lose about half of their students to go to ESOL. Of the remaining students, it's likely that a few will go to FOCUS. It's also just as likely that some will go to a Resource class. This leaves (on average) maybe 7 or 8 kids left in the class for about an hour during the day.

I realize the kids are learning in their extra classes (my son is one of the FOCUS students), but it makes it very difficult for teachers to make sure the essential material is taught. The ESOL kids generally have issues with quite a few of the items that they have to know. Of course, most of the time the teachers are teaching so that the kids can pass their tests. With the CRCT, Gateway, Benchmark and other tests that they take during the year, it's understandable. Especially since the requirements are for the schools to have a certain percentage that pass in order to gain AYP.

In a big way, it makes me wonder just what changes Gwinnett has planned for our schools now that they've gotten away from the state mandates. I can only hope it's for the better. I have a feeling that the effects won't be felt by my kids for a while. Assuming, of course, that I don't just pull them and decide to home school instead.

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