New model improves middle schools
By Brenda Blackburn
Montgomery County School Board approved an updated, flexible scheduling model for middle school students last week. In a recent commentary (“Cuts would harm middle schools,” Feb. 17), Blacksburg Middle School teachers Gus Teller and Beth Levinson lamented this new model as harmful to the education of students in grades six through eight.
Blackburn is Montgomery County Schools superintendent.
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I think this piece fails to address the concerns brought up in the letter it is meant to address. 19 positions will be lost due to attrition…19 teachers are willingly retiring? And there will be no replacements, meaning the teaching loads of those 19 teachers will now be shifted to the other already hard-working teachers. How in the world can you spin this as being better? How would MORE students per teacher be more flexible? You act like teaching another class of students can be interchanged with lunchroom duties, etc. How can loading teachers up with more students increase one-on-one teacher/student time? Your response does not make logical sense. Teachers will be stretched even thinner and will have LESS time for each of our children than they did before. I don’t know a single middle school teacher who thinks this is a good idea. Shouldn’t we be a little skeptical of a plan that administrators say will improve education when the teachers on the ground feel exactly the opposite? Please don’t insult your community’s intelligence by shortchanging our middle schoolers this way and then claiming it is an improvement.
Comment by A. Burns — February 24, 2013 @ 2:48 pm
Mrs. Blackburn made a thorough study of middle school scheduling. Check it out at http://www.mcps.org. We’ve got to begin spending our money on what works. Our current middle school scheduling obviously isn’t working, and the data is there to prove it. We need many more efficiency studies!
Comment by Barbara S. — February 26, 2013 @ 4:31 pm
I think this is a great plan. There has been so much ridiculous waste in Montgomery County (i.e. elementary schools that are 4 times the size they need to be) that it’s nice to see they they are actually willing to change something.
Many districts don’t provide any planning periods. Teachers are expected to actually teach their entire day. I do appreciate that MCPS tries to give teachers some time for non-teaching duties. But giving them one period along with requiring them to stay to 3:00 (which is when they are paid till) seems like a great compromise. Which is something I never thought I’d see out of MCPS. Kudos!
Comment by Anne — February 27, 2013 @ 11:53 am
So more students and less teachers equal a more efficient model? I don’t understand. Didn’t the school admins spend like 80k researching this model? Sounds like money well spent. There seems to be a general lack of planning. Wasn’t Kipps at full capacity within the first year that it was open and they had to move trailers in to house the extra students?
Comment by David J — February 28, 2013 @ 11:24 am
#3
Can you provide a list of the districts that do not provide for teacher planning? I believe if you check that is against the law. So you prefer they do all of the planning at home? Please list other jobs that require work for free after hours.
Are you suggesting that teachers in Montgomery Co are complaining about working their contracts? Or is this statement like others in your comment…wrong and narrow.
Comment by Floyd — March 1, 2013 @ 5:39 pm
Obviously Anne has no idea what a teacher does in the course of his/day. Planning, grading, meeting with parents, IEP meetings, 504 meetings are ALL integral parts of teaching. That planning time that you are so quick to dispense of is what allows a teacher to prepare for those classes. Teaching is not just about the instruction in the classroom. As for when the contract day ends, that is dependent upon the individual school’s schedule. Teachers have a 7 1/2 hour contract day. Teachers do not get a lunch hour. You will find that most put in more than those hours at the school and still take work home. It amazes me that so many people outside of education feel they are experts in the field.
Comment by Kevin Q — March 2, 2013 @ 2:43 pm
I’m not sure why Barbara S. thinks the current scheduling isn’t working. If you talk to teachers, students and parents I think they would tell you that the current team approach is effective. This is all about squeezing more work out of fewer people all with the window dressing of ‘this is better for students’…hogwash. We are not creating widgets, we are creating future successful citizens and watering down teacher contact with students is a step in the wrong direction. What also isn’t mentioned in her letter is that supposedly only two schools will be slashed by her new plan– BMS and CMS. I wonder why the burden can’t be shared across the county?
Comment by Jenny — March 2, 2013 @ 2:52 pm
The truth to all this is some where in the middle. Despite what anyone says, more students in a classroom is not a good thing. All the meetings mentioned are major time consumers that must take place and can involve double digit stake holders. Most citizens have no idea how much time teachers spend working at their job. CMS and BMS will not be the only middle schools to lose personnel. These changes are taking place to cut costs.
Comment by who knows — March 13, 2013 @ 8:07 pm