The new schedule at Hopkins junior highs is not paying off in greater teacher contact with parents and students, at least according to a survey the reviewed Thursday.
Last year, the junior highs . That change halved the number of students each teacher had at once from 180 to 90 students—even as students completed the same number of courses. Officials expected that to foster better communication between teachers, parents and students
Despite these changes, nine out of 10 parents say they don’t hear from their child’s teacher more than monthly—with 55 percent of respondents saying teachers are in touch with them less than monthly and 27 percent saying teachers are never in contact with them.
“I thought at the junior high by changing the student load from (180 to 90) that you’d see a much greater response to that,” said School Board Director Wendy Donovan. “That was the big push for this.”
In all, 52 percent of parents surveyed said they were disappointed with the frequency of communication.
Students aren’t reporting much of a difference in terms of teacher contact either. About 53 percent said there was no change in their interactions with teachers, while only 33 percent said teachers check in with them more often and 19 percent said teachers work with them more individually.
In their own survey, teachers disagreed—with only 25 percent and 26 percent saying individualizing instruction and helping lower-achieving students, respectively, was somewhat worse or much worse.
“Now this is junior high, so I sometimes think parents are used to elementary communication frequencies. But I think it’s worth looking at,” said Kyla Wahlstrom—director of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, which is evaluating the changes Hopkins made to its secondary programs.
District administrators said they’ll be reviewing the results moving forward. The report’s authors are still analyzing data and interviews for the study. The final report will be presented Aug. 1.
“Until you live it, you don’t if it’s going to produce the result that you hope it does,” Nik Lightfoot, the district’s director of administrative services, said about the changes.
Academics
Students and parents were more positive about how the schedule change affected academics. Students said they learned the material better and managed their homework better. More than half of parents said their children had an easier time keeping their class work organized, and 70 percent said it either adequately or greatly met their child’s academic needs.
Still, the schedule garnered mixed reviews in other areas. Most students found it hard to remember material after skipping a term between core classes, and large numbers of students and parents reported no change in other categories.
Teachers were the most likely to not see any change. Significant majorities reported no change in use of higher-level thinking strategies or alternative assessments. In most categories, there was a roughly equal division between those who thought the schedule was worse, better and unchanged.
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You've done a fine job of outlining the math involved and you seem to be very knowledgeable about the topic. Are you one of these teachers? If so, you should know how to spell a little better.
Love the name by the way. No, I'm not a teacher. I am however a product of a generation who grew up on spell check and I admittedly use it as a crutch. James, thanks for the clarification on the goal of the change. Building bonds between teacher, parents and students in incredibly important. I just found it unfortunate that quantity seemed to be the main complaint against the change. If people were under the impression that this change was going to magically create an extra 3 hours per week so teachers could respond to voicemail messages, then someone in the district should work on thier communication strategy. Building bonds shouldn't mean parents need a parent/teacher conference each week, or an email recap. Building stronger bonds should be defined as having the parent, teacher, and student on the same page about the goal for the student, and the trust that all three parties are going to work together to support that goal. If success is measured by touchpoints, I think we risk trivializing the importance of such a relationship.
I think you're missing the point. You're being dismissive of evidence that the program isn't working as it is supposed to because, to you, it just doesn't feel right. Well how would you measure the amount of communication, if not in time spent? You haven't offered a single idea of substance, only tried to dismiss evidence that the program isn't working by citing terrible math. I'm glad you're not a teacher.
I'm not being dismissive of any sort of evidence. Citing numbers from a survey isn’t ‘evidence.’ What it is, is a conglomeration of opinions. I'm only being dismissive of the opinions of parents who I think are to a large extent either out of touch with reality or over involved with the minutiae of their children's lives. To answer your question, I wouldn't measure the amount of communication. I would try and quantify the quality of the communication. Talking once a week doesn't automatically equate to 'better' communication. Look how many times you responded to this article. You and I could respond back and forth 100 times. Is that good communication by your definition? I wouldn't say so. It's entertaining for me, but hardly good communication. .
Glad you could make it to the party.
evidence (ˈɛvɪdəns) — n 1. ground for belief or disbelief; data on which to base proof or to establish truth or falsehood Thought that might help you. So your contention isn't with the math, it's with the parents who are being surveyed? Because they are "out of touch." On what basis? (I'll admit, Mary's claim that middle school athletes are being bussed in and given preferential treatment while the other "local" students are being ignored does seem a bit out of touch. Junior High Sports Titles, really?)
Why do I think that the respondents to the survey are out of touch? Because 52% of parents (who responded to an unscientific poll) are disappointed with the frequency of communication they receive. They might be right. That is the parent's opinion, and I can't say that they are wrong. What I had a problem with is that if those same 52% of (responding) parents thought that by changing the curriculum structure from semesters to quarters would somehow provide teachers with the opportunity to communicate more frequently, then they are out of touch. They don't understand the responsibilities that a teacher has, and they have unrealistic expectations of what a teacher should do. A commenter was flabbergasted that the Superintendent didn't respond to her email. That superintendent is responsible for running a district with 1,200 employees and 7,400 students. Bullying is terrible, but why would someone expect that the superintendent would need to respond when the principal, asst principal, and councilor were on the email, and the principal responded? That seems as much out of touch as decrying the terrible things open enrollment is doing to our in-house middle school sports teams.
IT'S A WALKOFF!
When I worked at North I was at Team meetings at 6:45am each Monday which required me to awaken my toddler son off at 5:30am. They had high expectations for teachers and my best teaching was learned from co workers there. Do all of the writers check grades daily? I communicate with parents every day with the online grade system often within 1 hour to a day of completing the assignment; often times I write comments. How many parents surveyed considered online communication while taking the survey about parent/teacher contact? Would they feel differently if an email was automatically sent with each submitted grade? I ask "Am I teaching to all the kids learning styles? To that end I work 2 hours each night preparing, performing and assessing outcomes of 7 hours of multimedia educational theater productions for 100+ kids (aka: classes). Did all of the writers here attend the 4 yearly parent teacher conferences, open house and curriculum night? 1 on 1 conversations every 9 weeks seems reasonable to me. I LOVE teaching in Hopkins. Have had plenty of chances to move and would not think of it. Love the diversity, love the cutting edge mentality, love the community.
As a teacher in the district, it saddens me that parents feel dismissed. If only they could see from my perspective the creativity, concern and energy the Hopkins School District put forth (FOR STUDENTS) including my own: the high achievers, the middle kid and those who need extra support.
I love your idea of automatic notices. In running the Patch site, I can turn off notices when people submit content (announcements, calendar entries, blogs, etc.). But I keep them turned on because a short automatic e-mail is a great prompt for me to go check out the submissions and perhaps feature them. I imagine the same would be true for parents with busy schedules.
Go back to this February 2011 article: http://hopkins.patch.com/articles/hopkins-junior-highs-to-launch-revised-class-scheduling-for-2011-2012-school-year. Administrators say the evidence doesn't support one schedule over another when it comes to student achievement. But they say quarters could "build staff, student and parent connections." Schimelpfenig later repeated: “The change won't affect course content,“ Schimelpfenig said. “What it will do is increase the capacity for teachers, students and families to build strong relationships.” I can't speak to how it was sold to parents since Patch launched after those discussions began. But communication was the major part emphasized in interviews. At any rate, 53 percent of students report no change in interaction with teachers. Schimelpfenig (who's an extremely smart, fun person to interview, by the way) did cite one other benefit: increased number of course offerings. You're right that I left that out. But we ran the entire list of new classes alongside the February 2011 article: http://hopkins.patch.com/articles/new-classes-available-under-the-upcoming-junior-high-schedule. That's not to say this is a bad schedule. These may be growing pains, and a teacher above noted that parents may overlook some communication. Perception is not reality. This survey is just one data point in the larger discussion.
I still hope student-teacher communication was more of a driving factor in making this schedule change than parent-teacher, but I see how your story developed. In any event, I agree the jury is still out on if the schedule change was an overall improvement or not. I'd like to see more data on how connected students felt with school (did they feel compelled to work harder because they perceived their teacher knew them and expected it, for instance) than with the previous system? Unfortunately, I think that would have required pre and post surveying, and even then it's hard to interpret data from year to year with this population...hopefully all our students are getting older and wiser each year of junior high.
I currently teach at the High School, but my through my PLC work with Jr. High co workers in the department I heard a lot of initial hesitation. While they had fewer students and less correcting, they had to accelerate planning. Last year they would teach the A day class, then repeat the B day class lesson. The new schedule requires a new lesson each day; speeds the planning up. In the end, however, one teacher I talked to said she believed the kids learned the material better and they were able to speak more profoundly on a topic. She believed this was in part because kids were calmer. Their young brains didn't have so much to juggle. My son, now in college, attended North during the every other day schedule and it was really tough for his already distracted nature.
Also: Those PLCs are really getting a strong positive reaction. Teachers are overwhelmingly pleased with their success, according to the survey.