| 1. | 2/5/2008 2:03:00 AM | 1. Class size
2. I read the WASB Balanced Literacy Presentation on the district's web site. I found this very informative. I was concerned when I saw "1 out of every 4 students are eligible for free and reduced lunch (In 2000, it was 1 out of every 10 students)". We have more needy children and families and yet our class size is going up and we have only one elem. guidance counselor to serve 4 buildings. |
| 2. | 2/5/2008 3:51:00 AM | We must remember each student as an ever changing individual and never stop looking for and trying ways to keep them growing. |
| 3. | 2/5/2008 2:00:00 PM | Continue superior quality education in the fine arts district wide. (In plain language: Don't cut student programming hours in the arts when money gets tight.) |
| 4. | 2/5/2008 2:09:00 PM | Staff Involvment before and during agenda is submitted. If we are a team, let's make sure we are one. |
| 5. | 2/5/2008 2:35:00 PM | Consider additional staffing in gifted education.
Continue work to keep class sizes low. |
| 6. | 2/5/2008 3:30:00 PM | ELL--Professional Development, Restructure
Class Size vs. Student Needs Size--You can have a class of 25 that is relatively average, and then you can have a class size of 25 with 4 ADHD, 3 LD, 1 ED, and 1 ELL and it feels like 40! It is hard to do our job well and to the standards the district holds when we need to provide that many accommodations. I have no problem providing accommodations, again it is a time factor. |
| 7. | 2/5/2008 4:00:00 PM | I have concerns about increasing class sizes/special education caseloads, high needs students and increasing testing. I think increasing expectation is definitely necessary, but teachers are struggling to balance work and having a family. Four-year old kindergarten should also be in the academic agenda, and establishing a curriculum for it that aligns with our kindergarten curriculum. |
| 8. | 2/5/2008 4:13:00 PM | 4K--as a new program it has to be a priority! There are so many conversations that still need to happen to make this a successful program. |
| 9. | 2/5/2008 5:00:00 PM | The guidelines for class size need to be adjusted. The demands of our curriculum require more indiviual and small group instruction. Large numbers make this very difficult and instruction becomes less effective. |
| 10. | 2/5/2008 6:25:00 PM | I think that we need a goal addressing the woeful guidance situation in this district. We have ONE guidance guy for 4 elementary buildings. This seems ridiculous in light of ever-increasing family and behavior problems. Our kids do not know Roger. It's hard to build community without some kind of guidance support. |
| 11. | 2/5/2008 6:55:00 PM | Class size/student needs
We have a lot of needy students which makes differentiation essential, but insufficent
Elementary Teachers need more time to collaborate between ELL/Reading Sp/Classroom Teachers/Sp Ed in order to meet the needs of our diverse population. |
| 12. | 2/5/2008 7:02:00 PM | Revisit the 10 day schedule at the elementary level. It is confusing for the special staff and has not eliminated the prep time problem.
Set class size as a priority, classes of 25 and over, especially at the primary level is unacceptable. Teachers are not able to give the attention to students that they deserve and need.
Re-visit the lack of social workers at the elementary level. |
| 13. | 2/5/2008 7:25:00 PM | Give us more time for report cards, and correcting assessment, time (early releases for elementary only to meet as grade levels, middle school and high school have this built in their days besides their individual planning periods- we need this at least once a month also.)
Allow teacher (professionals) to make decisions that best meet the needs of their classroom (we do not have factory with uniform raw materials - we need to allowed to be flexible in how we present the curriculum needed) |
| 14. | 2/5/2008 7:26:00 PM | To help provide quality learning experiences and to have all students be successful, the class sizes need to be reduced. |
| 15. | 2/5/2008 8:02:00 PM | We would like to revisit the elementary report card. We feel it is too long and needs some serious consideration. We like the format of it (standards based, 4321 scale) but we are overwhelmed. Would you consider grading only at 2nd and 4th quarter instead of all four quarters?
Please find a solution to our class size problem. We have 25 students in kindergarten! It's not fair to the students. Yes, it costs more money, but we cannot do the job you're asking us to do, to the degree we want to do it, with so many students in our classrooms. Class size is a very serious issue to us.
Please let us revisit the math pacing. We want our students to accel in mathematics but the pace at which our lessons go is too fast. There's no time to help the students who fall behind before we have to move on to a new lesson.
In the next round of strategic planning, we would like there to be teacher representation/feedback BEFORE the list of goals is created. We are an integral part of how this school system works. We are in the trenches and think we would provide important ideas in ALL aspects of creating the strategic plan, not just at the final stage. |
| 16. | 2/5/2008 8:46:00 PM | Commitment to lowest class size as possible to insure quality first teaching.
Think about need as much as numbers. |
| 17. | 2/5/2008 9:36:00 PM | Class sizes - must be smaller to meet our students needs!
Revisiting current curriculum areas, making changes/additions to what is being already being done before adding new curriculum responsibilites!
Realigning the math pacing.
Spelling program: 1st grade has own program, 2-4 has a more cohesive program, 5th grade how jumbled program; rubrics also do not fit with spelling program.
Revisiting elementary report cards!
Adding guidance counselors back into our buildings on a more full time basis.
My last comment is just a general statement regarding the School Board's goals. I really feel that this process is backwards. I believe that the teachers should be asked FIRST what our district goals should be. Those goals, developed by TEACHERS should be taken to the school board. The school board members are not in our classrooms teaching day in and day out. I have yet to have a member come into my classroom just to spend the day and see how things go. It would be nice to be included in this process from the beginning, not after the goals are decided. I truly start to wonder if the teachers' in the district are listened to, heard, and understood. The School Board should invite us to discuss these types of goals with them...not present them to us and ask us our opinion after the fact. It does not feel like a team effort or a TRUE LEARNING COMMUNITY! |
| 18. | 2/5/2008 9:59:00 PM | .. |
| 19. | 2/5/2008 11:09:00 PM | Find more time for elementary teachers. We are overwhelmed by what we're asked to do and the time we're given to do it. I always feel like I could do more and be a better teacher if I had more time for lesson preparation. I always feel like I'm running a race but there is no end in sight and in some cases like technology it's a race I'm not properly prepared to be running in the first place. |
| 20. | 2/6/2008 3:09:00 AM | -If we want to meet many of these propositions, we need to maintain smaller classer sizes so our students' needs are more closely met. This includes academic, behavioral, and social needs that slip through the cracks because of larger class sizes and a greater amount of needs.
-Additional support in the classroom is a necessity if more expectations are required within our classroom. We already have a full day of instruction and many students with needs. I can't imagine fitting any more students in my classroom, or any more subject emphasis in my day.
-As previously mentioned, what about hiring additional trained counselors to assist our students in need?
-What about our ELL program and the growing number of "needy" ELL students? What can our district do to help them? |
| 21. | 2/6/2008 3:15:00 AM | Smaller class sizes based on academic needs, special education population, and ELL population. Realize that numbers don't always reflect needs of kids.
Consider how we keep being asked to do more with no extra time. Of course, we want our children to succeed...but at what cost? We don't want to lose great teachers because they are exhausted or burned out. There is only so much one human can do in a classroom of 25 children. Of the 25, so few are now considered 'average'. We are feeling the pressure to make sure all of our students succeed, but it is difficult to meet the needs of ALL of our children at all times, according to all of their specific needs. We try, but often it is simply impossible. |
| 22. | 2/7/2008 3:11:00 PM | I think we need to get more help in the classroom, regarding aides and ELL support. Class sizes also need to be looked at, it is very very hard to reach the needs of all diverse learners when you have a classroom full of 25 students. Class sizes are a very high priority for me. I also wish there would be a reading curriculum map telling us where to start and what to teach. I am often lost when it comes to providing mini lessons and where to start. The spelling program also needs to be revised. My students are not transferring the generalizations they learn into their writing. I don't see adequate progress with our current program. Math pacing also seems to be unevenly distributed. First quarter was very hard to fit all of the required lessons plus the district assessment. Students need more than one day to process new information and we are throwing too much at them at one time. |
| 23. | 2/7/2008 5:42:00 PM | Class size, and not just by numbers but also looking at student's needs, GUIDANCE COUNSELOR-more time at schools, revisiting the report card, looking at the math pacing, revisiting the spelling curriculum, and time to meet with grade levels. |
| 24. | 2/11/2008 6:16:00 PM | Class size along with students with many needs, is exhausting for teachers(extra meetings, differentiation in instruction, etc), along with preventing other students the right to learn. Overall scores and knowledge, honor, respect, etc. suffers. |
| 25. | 2/12/2008 10:07:00 PM | Keep emphasis with fine arts programming. |
| 26. | 2/14/2008 9:53:00 PM | Diversifying our curriculum to address students of all cultures. |
| 27. | 3/4/2008 3:01:00 AM | It needs to be noted that in order to accomplish all of the academic goals, classes need to be kept to a manageable size.
Also, there is nothing about a school guidance counselor on the agenda, and I feel strongly that this is something we need to put into place. Even though we utilize Second Step and teach our school monthly character traits, the presence of a guidance counselor is definitely missing. |
| 28. | 3/4/2008 3:00:00 PM | Teachers need more support either through additonal inservice or restructuring of special ed.instruction to help support them when they are teaching students who are mentally ill. These students need more support in the regular classroom. I beleive the RTI plan also applies to EBD students. These students sometimes are not receiving appropriate treatment because of parents refusing to accept medical treatment for their children's mental health issues. When this is the case, classroom staff need more support to maintain these students in their classes. I attended a group that indicated that their special education staff was trained in a class called the Responsive Classroom. I don't know any more details about this program. I think the intent was to put the skills of special ed. staff, ie teachers, psychologists, and social worker to work more on early consultation and spend less time on assessments. I have been in classrooms where the ability of the teacher to teach and the students to learn is hampered because the students with mental health problems need much more support than they are receiving. |
| 29. | 3/4/2008 8:13:00 PM | Need for an Elementary Guidance Counselor, both for meeting the
needs of individual students and their families, as well as, for team
teaching needs. |
| 30. | 3/5/2008 4:39:00 PM | Teachers need common planning time with other teachers with whom they are supposed to be collaborating.
Class size at the K-2 level should be smaller. |
| 31. | 3/6/2008 2:39:00 PM | Allowing high school students participate in on line courses provided by the high school for those who don't come to school due to social issues |
| 32. | 3/6/2008 4:01:00 PM | Create timelines for revisiting new initiatives, adoptions, etc. Often new things are undertaken without gathering more information after the first year. Please review elementary report card to make sure expectations are reasonable, especially in Math. Pacing has to allow for time to reteach, in order to differentiate instruction for all learners. |
| 33. | 3/6/2008 4:56:00 PM | I think you have enough listed. |
| 34. | 3/6/2008 5:07:00 PM | I believe the elementary schools need more time to prep for class. We have more and more new things like technology, health, soc. studies, and soon RTI and not much time to get ready for them. Maybe the elementary needs it's own early release day once a month for additional prep only. Or with thinking outsid of the box for scheduling, could the students go home 30 minutes early and the teachers would all have an additional common prep time. WE DEFINITELY NEED MORE PREP TIME!! One more point about time. We need a Records Day each quarter to prepare report cards. They are very time consuming. And one more time, I strongly feel we need a math intervention program at the elementary level.
Thanks for listening!!! |
| 35. | 3/6/2008 5:15:00 PM | *review report card lines and delete or change wording as needed
*work on math pacing (it goes so fast, especially for those kids who need more than one day on a lesson)
*there are more and more student needs, and class sizes keep going up
*students need more access to a guidance councelor (especially during times of severity) |
| 36. | 3/6/2008 6:07:00 PM | Reducing class sizes |
| 37. | 3/6/2008 6:40:00 PM | Elementary Guidance Person
Small Class Sizes so we can really help all children.
Don't keep adding more and more to our daily teaching schedule and not take anything away.
Don't keep adding more lines to our report cards, a half a day is not enough time for all we fill in and test. |
| 38. | 3/6/2008 7:27:00 PM | Grade level meeting where collaboration and sharing our knowledge is vital. 12 minds are far better than one or two.
Additional prep to better plan for the diverse needs of our learners adequately. |
| 39. | 3/6/2008 8:36:00 PM | I think that smaller class sizes is definately a priority that would make the achieving of the academic goals much more feasible. Also, time for grade level collaboration is essential to many of these goals. I used to work in a district where two hours, paid, after school, mandatory grade level planning occured six months of the school year. I know that it is important to look for fiscally responsible decisions, but this decision was written right into our contract. Our school board decided that this was something that was worth paying for to guarantee that it was occuring. |
| 40. | 3/6/2008 8:47:00 PM | Provide increased access to guidance counselors at the elementary level. |
| 41. | 3/6/2008 10:58:00 PM | I don't know where this comment should go but- report cards need to be by semester. It's just getting way out of hand! 8-13 hours to do report cards each quarter is ridiculous!? I firmly believe that standards-based report cards are the way to go, but don't feel the need to do them 4 times a year. The way our math pacing also goes.. I'm having to report on Qtr. 1 skills all the way through Qtr. 4. I understand the idea that students should be growing as we reteach throughout the year, and the opportunity to 'show growth' from quarter to quarter is great, BUT, there IS NO TIME TO RETEACH! I consider myself a teacher who DOES go above and beyond to meet my students' needs, but the reality of it is, I am only ONE person, planning for 6+ subjects EACH DAY, for students who are all over the board in terms of their abilities. I can only do so much. We need more time and smaller classes. |
| 42. | 3/9/2008 10:48:00 PM | Collaboration time between educators |
| 43. | 3/17/2008 9:22:00 PM | 1) Focus on becoming a more eco friendly school, community. This I have not heard ever mentioned and seems relavent with the push for being "green".
2) I am a big supporter of charter/alternative school.
3) Character Educ. programs can only help in my opinion.
4) How about a class for staff who would like to learn spanish to help connect better with ESL students who they can't communicate with.
5) |
| 44. | 3/18/2008 11:55:00 AM | I feel we can be great if we do the things we focus on well. I believe there is a lack of focus and a history of moving on to the next great idea, without making what we already do better. We only have so much time. If we keep adding things, what are you taking away? |
| 45. | 3/18/2008 12:14:00 PM | Character Ed.
Alternative middle school for 7-8 students. |
| 46. | 3/18/2008 12:38:00 PM | Decrease class sizes; limit number of diverse students in a single class. If you have ELL, CD, LD, ED, GATE all in one class--difficult to serve all needs. |
| 47. | 3/18/2008 12:52:00 PM | Continue to find ways to support student with Autism Spectrum Disorders. |
| 48. | 3/18/2008 2:52:00 PM | There seeems to be a lot of goals being thrown at us and this concerns mean. Each year we are setting new goals before we are accomlishing the existing ones. We never seems to stick with initiatives long enough to see if they are working before we are on to the next. It was stated that these proposed goals are for 2008-2013 but I am not confident in that. I would love too see an actual timetable for these goals. |
| 49. | 3/18/2008 9:05:00 PM | Assistance for ALL special needs students and grey area students both within the SPED curriculum AND when manistreamed. |
| 50. | 3/19/2008 1:24:00 PM | Just a comment: Give time for us to catch our breath and implement the many changes before putting more on our plates. |
| 51. | 3/19/2008 1:56:00 PM | I don't like hearing that additional teaching positions will not be considered. We need to continue to look at concerns such as class size and be willing to pursue what's going to be best for student learning and safety.
I'm curious how all of these items came about. What process is used to establish the strategic plan? |
| 52. | 3/19/2008 5:00:00 PM | Significant shortage of FTE's!!!
Class size too high. |
| 53. | 3/19/2008 5:03:00 PM | I strongly believe we need more training in dealing with the growing population of mentally ill children, more support staff to help us help these children. I also believe an alternative middle school could be implemented perhaps the other part of the day that Crossroads is not being utilized. |
| 54. | 3/19/2008 5:29:00 PM | >Continue to aggressively explore creative ways
to reduce class size.
> Investigate, research,and build a viable model
for proposing year-round school in our district.
> Investigate the possibilities,effects, pros,
and cons of Spanish-English bilingual education
at the elementary level. |
| 55. | 3/19/2008 5:59:00 PM | Support for teachers in dealing with students/parents that are mentally ill.
Support for teachers that deal with non-english speaking students (perhaps develop an emersion program) |
| 56. | 3/20/2008 3:26:00 AM | Where will we find time to do what we are doing and add more. Quantity of tasks to do is going up. Is quality suffering? |
| 57. | 3/20/2008 1:50:00 PM | Address class size and scheduling for the allied arts programs. The lab classes NEED limits for learning to take place, and the set-up time for instructors and the collect of materials is much more intense/involved than in other areas of instruction. |
| 58. | 4/7/2008 9:41:00 PM | Keeping a highly successful district focused on the basic tenets that have made us successful... mainly the three questions and all that has transformed out of these three guiding principles. |
| 59. | 4/7/2008 9:46:00 PM | Class sizes seem to be growing along with the number of classes being taught, yet more teachers are not being hired. I know it costs a lot of money to hire more teachers, but it also costs a lot of money to reach many of the other goals. |
| 60. | 4/7/2008 9:49:00 PM | Giving time to departments (6-12) to be able to work on their goals and the goals of the school district needs to happen. This would mean that those staff members split between the high school and the middle school would still be able to be part of the department worktimes at both schools since they would be combined. However, the issue still exists with those teachers that are split both between the middle school and high school as well as between departments. (Multi-certified teachers teaching in both schools) |
| 61. | 4/7/2008 10:07:00 PM | ELL needs to be addressed. The needs have been established and there is simply insufficient resources to support this population. They should receive no less assistance than GATE, EEN or other special populations. This is true of At-Risk students as well. Financial Literacy needs to be addressed K-12.
The pace needs to be addressed in this district to build sustainability and quality. A few things at a time.
It seems that one person or voice can easily make the decision in our district. Just because a board member thinks something is important doesn't mean that it should be pursued...(core knowledge, certain classes, etc)The elected officials should work as a board to represent the entire district not their personal agendas...this is not always the case in our district.
Class size is not just an elementary issue. |
| 62. | 4/7/2008 9:24:00 PM | Must be able to maintain current high standards and levels being obtained and not dilute with to many others that dilute our current standards and goals. |
| 63. | 4/8/2008 12:31:00 AM | Please be careful not to commit to doing too many goals. There are lots of big things to tackle on this list in only 5 years. |
| 64. | 4/8/2008 1:25:00 PM | Financial and psychological support of all staff -- fulltime, adjunct, support, and substitute teachers is essential to maintaining the unity and professionalism needed to do an outstanding job. |
| 65. | 4/8/2008 1:36:00 PM | Maintain a reasonalbe teacher to student ratio so that each student feels important and not lost in the crowd. |
| 66. | 4/8/2008 12:08:00 PM | More focus on the children who are at risk but don't qualify for a 504 or spec ed services. More opportunities for all students who don't fit the traditional mold BEFORE they fail.
Give serious consideration to an at risk coordinator / transition coordinator.
Class sizes and student needs are increasing. Although overall population is decreasing special education population is increasing - this will take additional resources for effective and successful instruction. |
| 67. | 4/8/2008 12:12:00 PM | Maintain emphasis on K-12 writing instruction and the technology needed to support it. |
| 68. | 4/8/2008 12:26:00 PM | There was nothing about the physical and mental health of students and staff. We have more and more people who are in need of psychological help. They have a hard time focusing on learning when other areas of their life are suffering. Also, with all the talk about obesity I think it is important to emphasize physical health. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind. |
| 69. | 4/8/2008 2:27:00 PM | 1. Please don't assume that your staff will pick up on technology without time and, in some cases, inservice help. 2 Sometimes it feels as if the "acdemic agenda" is really a fact-gathering agenda, or a communications agenda, from which the student is the impetus, but otherwise pretty well removed. We have students who struggle in the here and now, daily or hourly, not as pre-life learners. We have students with huge and diverse needs and issues. Given a potentially grim economic outlook and how that impacts their lives,I think we should have those individual / student/ personal issues on the list, too, or in place of what sounds more like an administrative top forty. 3. I may have indicated a high priority on one or two of the above not because I can't wait to dive into them, but because they 'send up red flags'. 4. This last comment came as a result of our staff meeting. The goals are fine-- but what a long and daunting list! How will these be prioritized? |
| 70. | 4/8/2008 4:22:00 PM | hybridization
we need to get more technology into the schools because it is now the life blood of our society and and we cannot ignore that.
It cannot be treated as icing on the cake it's the emat and potatoes at this point. |
| 71. | 4/8/2008 3:46:00 PM | Students coming in at the high school have a difficult time comprehending directives. |
| 72. | 4/8/2008 5:26:00 PM | Strengthen ELL programing so that all children are getting equitable services until they reach full English proficiency. (Increasing number of ELL teachers/aids, increasing planning time for ELL teachers and regular classroom teachers to plan together, professional development for district staff on how to accommodate/modify/teach for ELLs in their classroom.) |
| 73. | 4/8/2008 5:02:00 PM | Class size
Programming at HS that is reflective of available resources. We can't keep offering a full "menu" if we don't have the staff. We should set out a course offering that is limited by our staff resources instead of seeing how many students sign up for things and then have to shuffle around staff to meet the demand. |
| 74. | 4/8/2008 8:04:00 PM | I really think that we need to use our professional teachers and pupil services staff for the intended tasks for which they have chosen as their occupation. If you analyzed the number of non-professional tasks that they do and look at the cost associated with those tasks you would conclude that you are wasting a valuable portion of your fiscal resources. It may appear "impossible" to assign these non-professional tasks to another employee such as a support person, or aide but it is the method to maximizing your professional staff. This is going to require a shift in thinking. |
| 75. | 4/8/2008 10:04:00 PM | Must continue to evaluate all offerings at the high school in light of the reduced level of funding. We can no longer afford to deliver all the courses that are in the program of studies and maintain our core curriculum. We can not continue to put a disproportionate amount of human and technology resources into low-enrollment elective classes. |
| 76. | 4/9/2008 1:36:00 PM | -Class size (teacher/student ratios) and FTE
issues at the high school
-Alternative curriculums and scheduling options
for students at the high school |
| 77. | 4/9/2008 4:16:00 PM | I do not agree with the idea that the Financial Literacy goals should be spread out in various classes but feel that to best educate and serve the students and community, we must offer a course or courses that focus solely on financial literacy.
I also feel there should be more in-depth work on keeping the curriculum current. I do not know how often a review is completed but was surprised at the outdated materials and information being covered in a variety of courses. |
| 78. | 4/9/2008 5:01:00 PM | I feel it is important to not allow multiple initiatives to muddy the waters if we are to see our primary objective clearly. In other words, I echo the sentiment of colleagues who say that we need time and support to implement agreed upon initiatives. |
| 79. | 4/9/2008 5:22:00 PM | -Maintaining and/or reducing class sizes across the grade levels.
-Rethink where district resources are spent in regards to required courses vs electives, per pupil costs, long term benefit of classes for the most kids. For instance, how much do we spend on 15 kids to learn to make a cabinet, vs how much we spend per kid for classes that all students are required to take and that are used to measure our success or failure on tests and evaluations such as English 10, US History, Biology, or Algebra I. |
| 80. | 4/10/2008 1:28:00 PM | Perhaps this is out of place, but we've got to reconsider how much we are placing on the plates of professionals in this district. In the few years I've been here, I've come across initiatives like: 1) Differentiation, 2)Diversity, 3)Curricular Alignment, 4)21st Century Skills Development, 5)Standards/Styles of Assessment (defining grades and how to we calculate grades), 6)Common Assessment, 7)Standards-Based Assessment, 8)Six Traits of Writing, plus whatever we have wanted to do within our own department for goals, and our own professional goals. Atop that we are expected (and should be) to maintain the highest level of education we can achieve. This may just sound like whining, but let me put it this way. I used to have a teacher who, in our school of 365 kids, was responsible for 3 sports, about 8 different groups, the play and the musical, and he served, I'm sure, on a host of academic committees that, as students, we never saw. He was well respected and everybody new and loved him in our town. He did everything and we all appreciated that. However, he was also a Spanish teacher. I took four years of spanish. I still cannot speak a lick of spanish to this day. Why? Well, perhaps I'm just not the sharpest tool in the shed, but more likely, he couldn't spend enough time in his life focusing on his instruction, the most important part of his job. I learned then that a person with too many irons in the fire makes a person look great to the rest of the world, but look like a fool to those who really know him/her. All of the things listed above are important, but perhaps we need to tackle a few of them at a time, develop a real sense of proficiency and pride in them, and then build upon them. As professionals in the building become expert in these movements, they can practice it, and through that they can become successful at it, and they can then embrace and embody it. Perhaps I'm off, but that is what my parents taught me long ago about working to be the best. I think it has some applications here as well. |
| 81. | 4/10/2008 4:38:00 PM | Adequate class sizes. We simply cannot deliver excellent instruction if we cannot interact with the student. Large class sizes especially in sciences do not allow investigative learning/running labs. |
| 82. | 4/10/2008 5:16:00 PM | Having reasonable class sizes to maintain an acceptable & beneficial learning environment. Hiring new staff as needed & not overloading teachers. |
| 83. | 4/10/2008 6:23:00 PM | (1) Taking a look at average class sizes should be a priority. There cannot be a doubt that smaller class sizes increase the ability to make and maintain good relationships with students, which makes classroom management easier. This allows students increased learning opportunities. (2) Increasing assistance for our growing population of special-needs students, as well as ELL students should be included. (3) Social promotion is a concern - we have 9th graders who enter with VERY limited skills, and they are placed in the same class as students who may have chosen honors classes but couldn't fit them into their schedule. Without sufficient training in differentiation techniques for *subject-area* ideas, it makes for a VERY difficult situation in class. |
| 84. | 4/10/2008 7:09:00 PM | Meeting the needs of students who have the ability to pass but do not. |