FEA
i'm sending this to the president of the federation for educators association. i guess the best they can do is to write a letter to the principal, see if she changes anything, then write a letter about how she runs things in the next FEA newsletter
Mr. Baumgartner and Ms. Dawson,
I am a 3rd/4th grade teacher at Camelot Center. I teach 4th grade math and mainstream with my students for science in the morning, and mainstream with the 3rd grade students for math and social studies in the afternoon. I have been teaching here for 4 years and I have the Highly Qualified status on my teaching certificate. Last year all of my Hearing Impaired students passed the math SOL in my self-contained classroom.
Yesterday, I was planning with the other 3rd grade teachers to begin ability grouping for math. I was going to have a group of 6 students who scored very low on several of the assessments that we used to group. I mentioned that I would need to work in the pod with my group unless we could find another room to use for that hour. I don't have a classroom because I work with both the 3rd and 4th graders. One of the other 3rd grade teachers went with me to the general ed principal's office to ask for a room to use during math time. Melaney was taken aback by the fact that I would have a group to teach. I thought that getting the highly qualified status would allow me to work with general ed kids as long as it was a reverse-mainstreaming situation, or if the general ed students were in a small group with my students. She told me that she didn't want me to pull "her" kids down and that I wouldn't be allowed to have a group to work with in math. I told her that all of my students passed the Math SOL last year, and that I covered all of the chapters at the same time as the general ed teachers. I even told her that she could drop in and observe me if she felt it was necessary. I had a few reasons to fight this issue; I believe that my students do better when they are with general ed students. They try harder to learn the language associated with the math curriculum, and are able to have better language models in the general ed classroom. The general ed students would benefit by having a smaller class size. Also, I knew that the other option for me would be to assist another teacher.
The problem was not solved when I left Melaney's office. She told the other 3rd grade teacher to give her the list of students so that she could decide what should be done with grouping. An hour later, the other 3rd grade teacher said that I would be teaching my group in another teacher's room, but it would be named "Mrs. Mallard's group" so that if the parents asked, I was just assisting in the classroom. I am not an assistant. Most of the students in the group that I will be working with have IEP's. They would benefit from having a Special Educator in the classroom.
I wrote an e-mail to my principal because she was out for her holiday yesterday. She talked to Melaney this morning to try to make her understand that my role is not that of an assistant. I was confident after my meeting with my principal that everything was straightened out…until this e-mail:
To: The Third Grade Team
From: Melaney
I am just sending out this message - after meeting briefly with Carole yesterday - to be sure that I have the correct groupings of students and that you all understand that I want Camelot ES students taught by Camelot ES teachers. Of course we will continue to work with Camelot Center in mainstreaming center students - and team teaching with Center teachers (in general ed classroom with general ed teacher). Because we are held to meeting our SOL standards and especially since the measurements of AYP are getting more stringent each consecutive year - which our school is graded upon….. and last year we did not do as well as expected in our subgroups in Mathematics - I need to be sure that the teachers that I am responsible for are teaching our students.
Due to the extra staffing $$ that the cluster office was kind enough to help us out with this fall - we were not destaffed a position at Camelot. If we were destaffed we would have lost a position in grade 3 where our numbers are the lowest student:teacher ratio. Due to this opportunity, the numbers are already low in grade 3 and with 4 teachers and 1 special ed (Lisa) teacher you can split those classes 5 ways for math. Rachel can go in to support and team teach with the teacher that the HI math students are mainstreamed with.
Looking at the lists that Carole shared with me this is what I have for numbers of students with teachers:
Grade 3 Math
McClain - 21 students
Strickland - 11 students
Pitts - 8 students
Mallard (Moreno) - 12 students
Leake - 6 students
*Lisa you can consider putting Nadya Shafik in your math class - OK to have her and Clarissa together just one period of the day - if you did this it would make Mallard (Moreno) ‘s numbers 11 and Leake’s numbers at 7 ------ let me know what you all decide regarding this.
**Please keep in mind that we are very fortunate to have such low numbers - in most schools in FCPS - Molly’s class of 21 math students would be a very low class size.
As you can see, I am not considered a teacher within this school. I can go in and assist the classroom teacher, but I am not allowed to actually grade the students, teach the students, or tell the parents that I am teaching their child.
[There are other issues that happened this year which go along the same lines as these. At our meeting about the GT program, the head of GT told the staff that everyone would be getting suggested lessons in a binder with GT recommendation slips--all the teachers except for the HI teachers. Does that mean that HI students can not be gifted nor talented?
The AP came into the classroom where I was working one morning to tell me that I had duty. Why would I have duty in the middle of a math class? The sheet that listed recess duty had me down as an instructional assistant.]
I don't know how to solve this problem, or if there is a solution, but I wanted to bring it to the FEA's attention. My center principal said that this has happened in other schools--where the general ed staff or principals don't regard the special ed staff as equals.
Thank you very much for your time and attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Rachel Moreno
Camelot Center
HI 3rd/4th Teacher
Mr. Baumgartner and Ms. Dawson,
I am a 3rd/4th grade teacher at Camelot Center. I teach 4th grade math and mainstream with my students for science in the morning, and mainstream with the 3rd grade students for math and social studies in the afternoon. I have been teaching here for 4 years and I have the Highly Qualified status on my teaching certificate. Last year all of my Hearing Impaired students passed the math SOL in my self-contained classroom.
Yesterday, I was planning with the other 3rd grade teachers to begin ability grouping for math. I was going to have a group of 6 students who scored very low on several of the assessments that we used to group. I mentioned that I would need to work in the pod with my group unless we could find another room to use for that hour. I don't have a classroom because I work with both the 3rd and 4th graders. One of the other 3rd grade teachers went with me to the general ed principal's office to ask for a room to use during math time. Melaney was taken aback by the fact that I would have a group to teach. I thought that getting the highly qualified status would allow me to work with general ed kids as long as it was a reverse-mainstreaming situation, or if the general ed students were in a small group with my students. She told me that she didn't want me to pull "her" kids down and that I wouldn't be allowed to have a group to work with in math. I told her that all of my students passed the Math SOL last year, and that I covered all of the chapters at the same time as the general ed teachers. I even told her that she could drop in and observe me if she felt it was necessary. I had a few reasons to fight this issue; I believe that my students do better when they are with general ed students. They try harder to learn the language associated with the math curriculum, and are able to have better language models in the general ed classroom. The general ed students would benefit by having a smaller class size. Also, I knew that the other option for me would be to assist another teacher.
The problem was not solved when I left Melaney's office. She told the other 3rd grade teacher to give her the list of students so that she could decide what should be done with grouping. An hour later, the other 3rd grade teacher said that I would be teaching my group in another teacher's room, but it would be named "Mrs. Mallard's group" so that if the parents asked, I was just assisting in the classroom. I am not an assistant. Most of the students in the group that I will be working with have IEP's. They would benefit from having a Special Educator in the classroom.
I wrote an e-mail to my principal because she was out for her holiday yesterday. She talked to Melaney this morning to try to make her understand that my role is not that of an assistant. I was confident after my meeting with my principal that everything was straightened out…until this e-mail:
To: The Third Grade Team
From: Melaney
I am just sending out this message - after meeting briefly with Carole yesterday - to be sure that I have the correct groupings of students and that you all understand that I want Camelot ES students taught by Camelot ES teachers. Of course we will continue to work with Camelot Center in mainstreaming center students - and team teaching with Center teachers (in general ed classroom with general ed teacher). Because we are held to meeting our SOL standards and especially since the measurements of AYP are getting more stringent each consecutive year - which our school is graded upon….. and last year we did not do as well as expected in our subgroups in Mathematics - I need to be sure that the teachers that I am responsible for are teaching our students.
Due to the extra staffing $$ that the cluster office was kind enough to help us out with this fall - we were not destaffed a position at Camelot. If we were destaffed we would have lost a position in grade 3 where our numbers are the lowest student:teacher ratio. Due to this opportunity, the numbers are already low in grade 3 and with 4 teachers and 1 special ed (Lisa) teacher you can split those classes 5 ways for math. Rachel can go in to support and team teach with the teacher that the HI math students are mainstreamed with.
Looking at the lists that Carole shared with me this is what I have for numbers of students with teachers:
Grade 3 Math
McClain - 21 students
Strickland - 11 students
Pitts - 8 students
Mallard (Moreno) - 12 students
Leake - 6 students
*Lisa you can consider putting Nadya Shafik in your math class - OK to have her and Clarissa together just one period of the day - if you did this it would make Mallard (Moreno) ‘s numbers 11 and Leake’s numbers at 7 ------ let me know what you all decide regarding this.
**Please keep in mind that we are very fortunate to have such low numbers - in most schools in FCPS - Molly’s class of 21 math students would be a very low class size.
As you can see, I am not considered a teacher within this school. I can go in and assist the classroom teacher, but I am not allowed to actually grade the students, teach the students, or tell the parents that I am teaching their child.
[There are other issues that happened this year which go along the same lines as these. At our meeting about the GT program, the head of GT told the staff that everyone would be getting suggested lessons in a binder with GT recommendation slips--all the teachers except for the HI teachers. Does that mean that HI students can not be gifted nor talented?
The AP came into the classroom where I was working one morning to tell me that I had duty. Why would I have duty in the middle of a math class? The sheet that listed recess duty had me down as an instructional assistant.]
I don't know how to solve this problem, or if there is a solution, but I wanted to bring it to the FEA's attention. My center principal said that this has happened in other schools--where the general ed staff or principals don't regard the special ed staff as equals.
Thank you very much for your time and attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Rachel Moreno
Camelot Center
HI 3rd/4th Teacher