By Harlan Levy
Journal Inquirer
WINDSOR LOCKS — More than a dozen parents came to Thursday’s Board of Education meeting for one purpose: to blast the panel for its plans for an early release schedule next year.
Every Monday, high school, middle school, and elementary school students will be dismissed one hour early while teachers meet for student analysis and strategy review. Whereas this year substitutes took over when teachers met, that policy has been shelved in favor of early dismissal.
The move, the board said, eliminates 33 class hours and will save $35,000 to stay within next year’s bare-bones budget.
Many parents disagreed.
The lost hours of teaching are worth far more than $35,000, according to parent Amy Mackey, who calculated that with early dismissals and a full day off Jan. 17, the students would really lose 51 hours. But what really stoked the parents’ anger, she told the board, was how they found out.
“Why were the parents not included in this decision?” she asked. “Instead it was instituted with no questions asked, and we were informed via backpack flyers and a letter received at home on the last day of school.”
The board and Superintendent Wayne Sweeney apologized for the late notice and the bureaucratic mix-up that caused it, but that hardly assuaged the group’s concern for the hours of missed learning time.
“With a substitute there is still some learning activity taking place,” Mackey said. Under the new policy, she said, “the children are losing valuable learning time, and the parents are the ones burdened with additional taxes and increased childcare costs.”
Kevin Brace, a parent of three elementary school children, said the early dismissal on Mondays would be a burden.
“I know on Mondays I’m going to have to scramble to find somebody to get my kids off the bus,” Brace told the board, “because unfortunately my employer will not let me leave an hour early, and the response from Mr. Sweeney that I need to find a relative or next-door neighbor — that’s a huge burden to ask someone to be there every week for your child.”
Sweeney passionately defended the policy change, denied it was only a budgetary matter, explained its rationale, and predicted dramatically improved results. And he bet his job on it.
First, Sweeney said, substitutes don’t provide the quality of instruction that teachers offer. Second, he said, the teachers’ meetings won’t be about simply preparing lesson plans. Rather, they will further a specific strategy using data to improve achievement.
“It’s about taking student academic data from the week before, from the month before, looking at how each child is progressing a week at a time and then making decisions about how I, as the teacher, can change how I teach or how I can change the lesson for the next week to meet the needs of your specific child or groups of children,” Sweeney said,
All across the country, he said, it has been proven that using the data in the meeting hour “will allow teachers to really differentiate their instruction or to teach to different groups of children, rather than just teach to the middle,” he said.
Sweeney added, “Where they implement this strategy, student achievement skyrockets, easily within 18 months. For sure you begin seeing it in two years or three years, and I’m talking double-digit increases … not just CMT and CAPT test scores. I’m talking about the daily assessments.”
Then, he said, “As a result of good teaching, good curriculum, and time for teachers to talk and work together, we’ll see CMT and CAPT scores blow the charts off, and if they don’t I’ll resign.”
Mackey said she doesn’t buy it. “I understand what they’re trying to do,” she said after Sweeney’s response. “But they need to take the burden off the parents. If they could adjust the hours of the schools so the teachers can come in an hour early, that would be fantastic.”
After the meeting, school board member Michael Royston said the panel is investigating some alternatives. Meanwhile, he backs Sweeney and the new policy.
“We want immediate results,” Royston said, adding that that’s what Sweeney intends. “We don’t want a three-year plan or a five-year plan to start improving our system.” As for Sweeney’s personal guarantee, Royston said, “You can’t ask for more than that.”
In other action, the board voted to raise the cost of daily lunches from $2.41 a day to the new federal minimum of $2.46 to comply with a newly passed federal act, which aims to raise school lunch standards nationwide, the first major change in 30 years.
Every Monday, high school, middle school, and elementary school students will be dismissed one hour early while teachers meet for student analysis and strategy review. Whereas this year substitutes took over when teachers met, that policy has been shelved in favor of early dismissal.
The move, the board said, eliminates 33 class hours and will save $35,000 to stay within next year’s bare-bones budget.
Many parents disagreed.
The lost hours of teaching are worth far more than $35,000, according to parent Amy Mackey, who calculated that with early dismissals and a full day off Jan. 17, the students would really lose 51 hours. But what really stoked the parents’ anger, she told the board, was how they found out.
“Why were the parents not included in this decision?” she asked. “Instead it was instituted with no questions asked, and we were informed via backpack flyers and a letter received at home on the last day of school.”
The board and Superintendent Wayne Sweeney apologized for the late notice and the bureaucratic mix-up that caused it, but that hardly assuaged the group’s concern for the hours of missed learning time.
“With a substitute there is still some learning activity taking place,” Mackey said. Under the new policy, she said, “the children are losing valuable learning time, and the parents are the ones burdened with additional taxes and increased childcare costs.”
Kevin Brace, a parent of three elementary school children, said the early dismissal on Mondays would be a burden.
“I know on Mondays I’m going to have to scramble to find somebody to get my kids off the bus,” Brace told the board, “because unfortunately my employer will not let me leave an hour early, and the response from Mr. Sweeney that I need to find a relative or next-door neighbor — that’s a huge burden to ask someone to be there every week for your child.”
Sweeney passionately defended the policy change, denied it was only a budgetary matter, explained its rationale, and predicted dramatically improved results. And he bet his job on it.
First, Sweeney said, substitutes don’t provide the quality of instruction that teachers offer. Second, he said, the teachers’ meetings won’t be about simply preparing lesson plans. Rather, they will further a specific strategy using data to improve achievement.
“It’s about taking student academic data from the week before, from the month before, looking at how each child is progressing a week at a time and then making decisions about how I, as the teacher, can change how I teach or how I can change the lesson for the next week to meet the needs of your specific child or groups of children,” Sweeney said,
All across the country, he said, it has been proven that using the data in the meeting hour “will allow teachers to really differentiate their instruction or to teach to different groups of children, rather than just teach to the middle,” he said.
Sweeney added, “Where they implement this strategy, student achievement skyrockets, easily within 18 months. For sure you begin seeing it in two years or three years, and I’m talking double-digit increases … not just CMT and CAPT test scores. I’m talking about the daily assessments.”
Then, he said, “As a result of good teaching, good curriculum, and time for teachers to talk and work together, we’ll see CMT and CAPT scores blow the charts off, and if they don’t I’ll resign.”
Mackey said she doesn’t buy it. “I understand what they’re trying to do,” she said after Sweeney’s response. “But they need to take the burden off the parents. If they could adjust the hours of the schools so the teachers can come in an hour early, that would be fantastic.”
After the meeting, school board member Michael Royston said the panel is investigating some alternatives. Meanwhile, he backs Sweeney and the new policy.
“We want immediate results,” Royston said, adding that that’s what Sweeney intends. “We don’t want a three-year plan or a five-year plan to start improving our system.” As for Sweeney’s personal guarantee, Royston said, “You can’t ask for more than that.”
In other action, the board voted to raise the cost of daily lunches from $2.41 a day to the new federal minimum of $2.46 to comply with a newly passed federal act, which aims to raise school lunch standards nationwide, the first major change in 30 years.
It's absolutely rediculous for a $35,000 savings for the schools it can cost a parent making only minimum wage nearly $300 per school year if they have to miss an hours work or if they have to pay for an extra hour of daycare. If you asked each family in WL to pay $10 you'd make your 35K. I'm sure you can find another creative way to save the money.
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