Traditional Row Seating Best but new schools cannot accomodate them e:\doc\web\99\01\seating.txt Date sent: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 11:48:3 Subject: [education-consumers] Educational Malpractice Insurance To: "ClearingHouse" From: ghoffman@bellatlantic.net Send reply to: ghoffman@bellatlantic.net ===================================================================== I e-mail with some of the teachers in our district and they share their opinions on some of the new programs being implemented at the elementary level. When I visited with our superintendent last week he shared some news about the district purchasing a computer math program. (I think it is called CCM and there was another program mentioned, but the name escapes me.) This computer program will cost the taxpayers $800,000.00. This came up in conversation because I wanted to know if the district intended to purchase new books for spelling and language arts. We were also supposed to purchase a new reading program this year since our program is a twelve year old program by Silver Burdett. The superintendent informed me he has no money in the budget for the new books since he is purchasing the computer program. Only one school in the district has spelling textbooks for every class. I also wanted to make the superintendent aware of the seating arrangements in my son's first grade classroom. The superintendent did not know that my son does not sit at a desk in the first grade. He thought I must be mistaken about the children sitting at tables. He was under the impression that the children sit at the tables to do special projects. He asked three times if I was certain about the tables. I told him the children carry bins to the tables to hold their papers. I told him the bins are placed on the floor and I am surprised that a child or an adult has not tripped over the bins and gotten hurt. It seems incredible to me that this superintendent does not know what is happening in this district. Everyone is very quick to blame the teachers for the problems in the classrooms. The problem is with the administrators…. I think most administrators are just incompetent teachers who could not make it in a classroom. It is wonderful that they realize their weaknesses and leave the classroom to those that can teach, but what makes them a better candidate to lead an entire district? I asked the teachers about the seating arrangements in the classrooms. The reason for the seating arrangement is very alarming. Our district has built or rebuilt every elementary school in the district. We are starting our new 90 million-dollar high school next year I believe. We have built a new middle school and are in the process of remodeling the other middle school. The teachers I e-mail with are older and have at least ten years of teaching experience. They reported to me that they have tried every seating arrangement presented to them through the DAP (child-centered program). They found the best seating arrangement was to have the children sitting in rows separated from each other. Unfortunately, the teachers cannot use this seating arrangement because when the schools were redesigned and rebuilt the classrooms were not made large enough to accommodate this seating arrangement. Our classrooms are cluttered with beanbags, lego tables, closets, carpeted areas for sitting on the floor, tables,refrigerators, sinks, etc. I am wondering if someone dozed off during the planning stages of these schools or if this was the intent. We will never be able to return to larger class sizes because the rooms just cannot accommodate more than 20 children. The teachers also shared some of their views about the new computer program. We do not have computers in our classrooms. We have a computer room in each school and the children attend class once a week. The district intends to purchase three computers for each classroom. The teachers told me that with only three computers it would be very difficult for the every child to get on the computer every day unless they go to the computer during other classes. The teachers were not asked their opinion about the computers they were just told they would be getting them next year. One teacher suggested that the administrators buy into these great new ideas without examining the whole picture. The teacher told me that it is like a patient who goes to many different doctors and gets many different prescriptions. Each doctor does not know what the other is doing and so all the medications interact in a negative way with each other and the patient gets worse. The intentions are good, but there is no one looking at the whole picture. I happen to think the problem is money. School board members and administrators think nothing of spending millions on programs. I repeatedly asked the superintendent if we had any research on some of these new projects. I suspect we do not because I did not get an answer. Maybe we should write a clause into the contract of superintendents stating that they must pay for each failed program they implement. I think superintendents should be forced to purchase malpractice insurance to cover the cost of failed fads, ideas and programs. Gloria Hoffman ===================================================================== EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE networking and information for parents and taxpayers on the internet Subscriptions & Archives: http://education-consumers.com or You are currently subscribed to education-consumers as: arthurhu@halcyon.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send a blank email to leave-education-consumers-989462S@lists.dundee.net ===================================================================== For less mail, click on the following link and choose 1) a daily digest, 2) a daily list of subjects, or 3) no mail (read postings on Web) http://lists.dundee.net/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=education-consumers For more help & info: http://www.lyris.com/help or