9486 in the collection
Columbine Elementary School teachers must reapply for jobs
Comment by: Yvonne Siu
Runyan, Professor Emeritus, The University of
Northern Colorado and Stephen Krahsen,
Professor Emeritus, University of Southern
California
Underestimating the Impact of Poverty
The Colorado Department of Education
and Boulder Valley School Officials think that
re-organizing Columbine Elementary Schools is
going solve the problem of low test-scores. It
won't.
A large proportion of students who
attend Columbine Elementary come from
financially needy families-88.1% of the
children are on free or reduced price lunch.
There isn't a single convincing case in
educational research of this kind of reform
producing significant effects when poverty is
that high. We have underestimated the impact of
poverty: Children of poverty suffer from
malnutrition, stressful home situations, toxic
environments, and have far less access to books
at home, in their communities and in school.
They don't need their teachers fired and re-
hired. They need more and better food, cleaner
air and water, more encouragement and
nurturing, and more access to books through
improved libraries.
Re-organizing the school is like re-
organizing the deck chairs on the Titantic: It
neglects the major cause of the low test
scores.
By Laura Snider
The faculty members at Columbine Elementary
School in Boulder went to a staff meeting this
week to greet their new principal. They left
not sure if they still had jobs.
The Boulder Valley School District has decided
on a virtual do-over for Columbine — which has
been consistently under-performing on
standardized tests — giving the school a new
building, a new curriculum, a new principal
and, now, a new staff.
Teachers were told this week that they will
have to reapply for their jobs if they want to
continue working at the school in the fall.
“We really are saying that we want Columbine to
be a new school,” said district spokesman
Briggs Gamblin. “The challenges to academic
achievement at Columbine are well-known and are
of great concern to the existing faculty as
well as everyone else in the district.”
The district was notified by the Colorado
Department of Education this year that it had
to take “corrective action” against Columbine
because the school had failed to meet “adequate
yearly progress” — a metric based on the state-
mandated standardized tests — for the third
year in a row.
Corrective action, which meets requirements set
by the federal No Child Left Behind program,
must include one of the following: creating an
entirely new curriculum, decreasing management
authority at the school level, appointing an
outside expert to advise the school, extending
the school day, or replacing the staff who are
relevant to the school’s failure.
“We would not have been required to take this
far-reaching of an action, but this was the
right action for this school,” Gamblin said.
“We know some people won’t agree with that, but
it is not meant to be negative toward the
current staff in terms of their passion for the
kids and their passion for the program.”
But it’s hard for some not to see it that way.
“This is a slap in the face to the dedicated,
highly trained and talented teachers who go the
extra mile in a difficult environment,” parent
David Heath wrote in a letter to the Camera.
“... They deal day in and day out with
immigrant children that can barely speak
English.”
More than 50 percent of the students who are
assigned Columbine as their neighborhood school
choose to open-enroll at a different school,
leaving a population of students that is not
representative of the neighborhood
demographics. More than 80 percent of the
students who attend Columbine qualify for free
and reduced-price lunches, and the majority
speak Spanish as their first language.
The teachers are well-trained, with 100 percent
meeting the state’s guidelines for “highly
qualified.” Teachers at Columbine have an
average of nine years of teaching experience,
and 23 of the 43 full- and part-time teachers
at the school have master’s or doctoral
degrees, according to state data.
“Please explain to our son, who has thrived at
Columbine in his first two years there, why his
teacher might not be there when he returns to
school in the fall,” Bryan and Kori Jew asked
in an open letter to the superintendent.
The visioning process for Columbine, which had
to be restructured after racially charged
comments marred the process earlier this fall,
is meant to engage the entire community,
according to district officials, including
people who chose not to put their children at
Columbine.
At Boulder Valley schools, teachers who have
taught for more than three years have a sort of
tenure, called non-probationary status. If the
30 teachers who are tenured at Columbine now do
not get re-hired, the school district “owes
them a job,” according to Superintendent Chris
King, and officials will find a place for those
teachers elsewhere.
King sees the re-application process as a
chance to have teachers recommit themselves to
a new school and a new curriculum.
Lynn Widger, the current principal, announced
her retirement last week, and she is being
replaced by Cindy Kaier, now Kohl Elementary
School’s principal in Broomfield.
“I’ve watched the school for a lot of years,”
King said. “And I don’t think the current model
is serving kids. Doing nothing is not an
option, so we’re choosing to do the hard thing
because we think it’s right for the kids.”
— Laura Snider, with comments by Siu-Runyan & Krashen
2008-12-12
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/dec/12/columbine-teachers-must-reapply/
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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