School Safety and Student Discipline
Recent teacher surveys in a number of schools have indicated a growing problem with student discipline. Practices being put in place that hold the teacher accountable for misbehavior rather than the student are causing extra work for teachers and allowing the students to control the classrooms. Costly programs like "PBIS" have created extra work for our teachers without showing any measurement of improvement in student behavior. In fact, these type of "restorative" programs were in place in Parkland Florida where a student shot up the school and killed 17. The school shooter had been an ongoing discipline problem that the administration failed to properly handle. School safety and security must be the number 1 priority! For more info on these surveys: Teacher Climate Surveys
Accountability in Grading
For my views on this topic: Grading Guidelines
Teacher Morale
Teachers in our city have been contacting me about concerns that they have regarding a number of topics. Some areas of concern are:
- An overabundance of work (taking work home on evenings, weekends, and holidays)
- Being encouraged by administration to inflate grades
- Not having the authority to appropriately discipline students
- Teaching "to the test" (SOL's) and burdensome testing requirements
- Standards Based Grading at the elementary level is not effective and is lowering standards
A key problem with these issues is that teachers feel they cannot speak to the administration about their concerns for fear of reprisal. Our teachers need to be heard and action needs to be taken to address the concerns and prevent good teachers from leaving the profession. In a successful business, customers suffer if employees are not happy.
- An overabundance of work (taking work home on evenings, weekends, and holidays)
- Being encouraged by administration to inflate grades
- Not having the authority to appropriately discipline students
- Teaching "to the test" (SOL's) and burdensome testing requirements
- Standards Based Grading at the elementary level is not effective and is lowering standards
A key problem with these issues is that teachers feel they cannot speak to the administration about their concerns for fear of reprisal. Our teachers need to be heard and action needs to be taken to address the concerns and prevent good teachers from leaving the profession. In a successful business, customers suffer if employees are not happy.