Parents for Windsor Locks Education

I am blogging on "Save Windsor Locks" to keep the parents and the taxpayers informed on what is happening at the Board of Education Meetings and getting more parents, families and our community involved in our declining public education system in Windsor Locks. Some of you know that I (and a few others) have been involved in trying to get Superintendent Sweeney and our Board of Education to change their stance on the 1 hour early dismissal that will be taking place every Monday beginning this 2011-2012 school year due to teacher Professional Learning Communities (PLC). Due to this early dismissal our children will now be losing 33 hours of education time every school year and parents will need to rearrange their work schedules or find alternate childcare so someone can care for their child for that 1 hour.

PLC has been instituted in many other communities and has been known to increase student achievement. However, I do not think this change should cut into our children's classroom time. Unfortunately, after attending Board of Education meetings and expressing my concerns, along with other parents, our comments have fallen on deaf ears and the early dismissal is moving forward. I have been assured by the superintendent that he is looking into childcare alternatives for parents and will be contacting him shortly about the status.

I encourage everyone to please get involved in improving our children's education in our town. Our CMT and CAPT test scores have fallen to embarrassing lows and our children need us to stand up for them so they can get the education they deserve. I will be attending as many Board of Education meetings as I can, going forward, so I know what is going on with our children's education and the decisions being made by our Board of Education. I know it is difficult for some people to be able to do this, so I will be reporting back via this blog after every meeting to keep everyone informed.

Thank you for your time and support!

Amy Mackey

An Open Letter to WL Parents

Letter to Windsor Locks Parents:

There have been many conversations going on the past few weeks on blogs, Facebook, and e-mails (some positive and some negative) regarding the one hour early release every Monday for all students so teachers can participate in PLC (Professional Learning Communities) during the 2011-2012 school year. 

With this change students will be losing 33 hours of classroom time for the school year and parents will need to rearrange their work schedule or find alternate childcare due to the early dismissal. My personal stance is the PLC should be provided for the teachers as it is a proven strategy to increase student achievement by creating a collaborative school culture focused on learning. However, I do not think this change should cut into our children's classroom time.  I believe the decision to take away student learning time will delay student achievement.  There has to be a compromise that can be made so everyone benefits: the students, teachers and parents. The education of our children should be of the utmost importance and our children should be gaining education, not losing it.

Regardless of your personal stance it is apparent we all want what is best for our children’s education.  That being said, I would like to encourage everyone to attend the next Board of Education meeting on Thursday, July 14 at 6:00 p.m. at the Windsor Locks High School Library Media Center.

We all talk great behind a computer, but the only way for our voices to be heard by the Board of Education and Superintendent Sweeney is to be at the meeting and voice our questions, comments and/or concerns.

The Board of Education stated at their last meeting that they will be putting the issue of PLC hours on the agenda for this upcoming meeting, so now is the time for us all to attend the meeting and have our voices be heard. I hope to see everyone there.
 

Please forward this letter to any other parent you feel would be interested.

Thank you for your attention!

Amy Mackey

More Time In School Explored

UConn Study Finds Charter Schools and Private Schools Have Longer Day

By GRACE E. MERRITT, gmerritt@courant.com

Tue Jun 28 2011 4:48 PM

STORRS —--
Charter schools and private schools have longer school days than traditional public schools, a new University of Connecticut study has found.
The study by UConn's Neag School of Education and the National Center on Time & Learning in Boston, also found that students in schools with longer days not only get more time in core subjects — particularly math, science and social studies — but also get more exposure in other subjects such as physical education and music.
The study concluded that more research is needed to determine whether longer school days or school years actually reap educational benefits and set a baseline for further research.
The study comes out in the midst of periodic calls by national leaders and researchers to increase school time to improve underperforming schools and to compete with top school systems in other countries. Most recently President Barack Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called for increased learning time to improve low-performing schools.

Parents vent over WL schools early dismissals

By Harlan Levy

Journal Inquirer

Published: Friday, June 24, 2011 3:06 PM EDT

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.