Not only am I the daughter of a teacher, but I AM a teacher. More importantly, I am now the mother of a school aged child. In the next 5 years I will have three children in our public school system. This freaks me out a little bit. I have always believed in public schools. I'd still like to but it's hard to trust that children today are receiving the best education when the teachers and schools are so limited due to budget cuts. My first experience with this as a parent was just recently when it was time to enroll Drew in kindergarten. We pass our home school on our weekly walks and for Drew's entire little life I've said, "This is your school when it's time for you to go to kindergarten!" Then it was time to actually enroll her and I discovered that our school district has gotten rid of class-size reduction. That means that in the primary classrooms (K-3) there are 32 students vs. the 20 students with class-size reduction. The thought of Drew going into a kindergarten class with 31 other little 5 years olds and only one teacher FREAKED. ME. OUT. Thankfully we had the opportunity to keep her at her private preschool she attends for her kindergarten year in their K class but I am so upset that she won't be attending her home school. I want to support our home school. I know I need to do what's best for her, however. The following year she will be attending our home school and she will be in a 1st grade class with 31 other 6 year olds. This makes me very nervous. It may get to the point where we do research private schools that may afford our kids the chance to have much smaller class sizes. This is just one of the areas that have been affected by the reduction in school funding. There are many, many more - most of which affect the teachers and the students adversely.
March 4, 2010 is a day which has been designated a day to stand up for schools. Many people in education may be wearing black to show their solidarity and support of some kind of swift change.
Pay attention to what's going on. And for God's sake, thank your child's teacher. With the exception of seeing your child everday, their job sucks.
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Ouch. So far our max class size has been 20 and the K classes have two teachers. I'm very pleased with that. 32 sounds insane. How does the teacher even get to know each little darling and make sure that each of them is getting what s/he needs?
ReplyDeleteI'm a big supporter of public schools and thankfully we have a good system because there is not one private school I would send my kids to here.
32 kids? That is out of control! The school system is in trouble, and unfortunately doesn't look like there is an answer any time soon. We are lucky here, class sizes caps at 22. The school CC is going to attend next year has 18 kids with two teachers.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Amanda on this one, if there is 32 kids does the teacher even get to know them? Let alone teach them?
We get to know them and we work our butts off to teach them. But it would be a lot easier to do our jobs if we had fewer students. I still love my job, but it gets hard when I think about everything that has been taken from public education in the last five years.
ReplyDeleteAshley, I feel your pain. Milo's district still has class size reduction, but they are going to raise the cap next year to 24. It's disheartening. I even investigated private schools for Milo and I teach public school. It felt like hypocrisy in the extreme!
Great post. We're mulling the same situation down here. I believe in public education, but FL has some of the worst schools in the country. It's a rough thing.
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