This sounds fabulous! I do want to point out, however, that there may be problems with sustainability. Burn-out rates for K-12 teachers are ridiculously high and while as a parent I’d love to know that my daughter’s teacher was responding to me almost immediately and the like, as a teacher (not K-12) it sounds terrifying. Teaching is a noble profession and one that many excel at, but no one should have to sacrifice his or her non-work life to be a good teacher. And when young, inspired teachers determine this for themselves, they leave the profession. That’s sad, since they often have so much to offer. I’d say this is one of several problems with sliding education into the marketplace.
And of course, there still remains the greater problem of Catholic catechizing not occurring at the rate it once did because Catholic schools are closing. Sad.
Most of the teachers at my kids school have been teaching there for years. If I am not mistaken, the school opened 6 years ago. Quite a few have been there since the beginning. From my observations as a parent, they manage to remain dedicated and don’t burn out due to technology made available to them and due to increased parent involvement.
In the regular public schools the teachers commonly come in early, leave on time or a bit late, and spend the evening doing a boatload of paperwork, grading papers, catching up on emails, updating the school parent portal (website for parents to track assignments and grades) for each individual student. Usually, they give up on updating the parent portal by October.
At the Charter School, the teachers have tablets issued by the school. They stay connected during the entire day and are able to much more efficiently handle email correspondence. They are constantly connected to parents and to each other. Each grade has a Dean. The teachers for that grade send notices to the Dean via tablet. The Dean waits for parents to come pick up or drop off their students. She accesses her student list and students who have had a behavior problem or missed assignments will be at the top of the list blinking red. She touches the student name and knows about the problem so that she can catch the parent and pass on the information.
The children do most of their work on school laptops, which eliminates most manual grading and makes entering grades into the record and updating the parent portal much more efficient. Literally done with a few mouse clicks. For example, most of my daughters math and science work was done at school or at home on the computer. The program corrects the assignment, automatically enters the grade into the record and then updates the parent portal.
Because of the efficiency of the system, even accounting for volunteering to tutor, supervise students waiting for pick up or drop off, and participating in sports programs, these teachers actually work less total hours per week than the ones in the regular public schools. And, from what I understand, their pay is a bit higher and the benefits packages are equal or better than what they would get working for the local district.
Frankly, parents are
much more involved at the Charter School, which is a great help to the teachers. A lot of the parents at the regular district school ship their kids off on the bus and don’t have contact with the teachers until conference time, if even then. Because you have to register, re-register every year, drop off and pick up every day and because participation in conferences and volunteering for at least one event during the year is mandatory, parents are more involved and more committed at the Charter School.
I do still wish the local Catholic schools could act as charter Schools, though. It’d be nice to have the option of religious education.
She’s put her foot in it more than once but imagine firing a black female no matter how poor her performance? Fuggedaboutit
but as usual the threats to lay off dozens of teachers, cut all extracurricular activities other than some of the sports, etc. No discussion about all of the aides and assistants and multiple Vice Principals.