Warning: this post contains a Rick Mercer style rant.
Please understand I love my country, I love my province, and this is just MY opinion.
So I got this letter from the school the other day. A form letter from the Minister of Education in Saskatchewan. Usually I glance over it and discard it. I actually read this from beginning to end. At first I actually got a little excited and a slight sigh of relief came over...then I started thinking. This sounds familiar, and so do outcomes a couple years later. Let me tell you what came to my mind when I started thinking.
The letter is about a "Student Achievement Initiative". Here is a link to a shorter form of it on the Sask Gov. website.
Here are some the highlights in the letter.
a) The way I read it is each student will get more assessments by teachers and the parent will have access to those assessments and will see issues arising sooner. So for not too bad.
b)"Students will be able to see practical examples of what they can do to achieve greater success in their core classes". Um okay...hopefully examples is code for help...not likely though.
c) "The new assessments will allow teachers to more easily identify what kinds of additional support individual students might need as part of their learning preograms. They will be provided with additional tools to help students in the classroom." Now here is where I got slightly excited. The last line where it says "tools to help students in the classroom", this is also the part where after I started thinking that this sounds familiar.
A few years ago the Sask Gov set up the schools where they are integrated. Meaning no special ed classes. I loved this idea. Educational assistants(EA) were in place to help teachers manage those students who needed more help physically and learning wise. Great, I thought my daughter should do well in those surroundings. See I have a daughter who we have suspected to have a learning disability of some kind since age 4. ( This is a whole other post on getting her diagnosed, she is now 7 and still in that process). She just has a different way of learning and needs some extra support at school to help her out. Then a couple years ago the Gov cut the funding and cut 60%( I believe that was the number) of the EA positions. So now teachers have bigger classes with more issues to deal with and less hands to help with them.
Great. So here we are now, with a "new initiative" coming down the pipe. Is anything really gonna change? My daughter sat down with a Child Psych. and in the parent review after, he said schools are not set up to really help students learn in the best way, they have made it so all problems "could" be solved in the classroom. I actually was astounded at that thought. Really? My child's problems can be solved in a classroom, in front of everyone. Where seeds of bullying can happen that won't be caught on the playground. What about a child who needs speech pathology, the school division has them on staff, but my daughter has never seen one because the school division is so flippin' big and they can't keep them on staff. They should be one of the "tools" a teacher can access to help heir students. Not likely.
We have a great school, we have great teachers. Our vice principal has been such a support to me, I can't even describe it. I have had people along side me advocating for my daughter. They want to give her the help she needs. Here is where our government is falling short. They say," our kids are the future, let's give them the best education, let's get them to stay in our wonderful province and be the workers and leaders of tomorrow." Give me a break!! My advice is... PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE OUR KIDS ARE!!! In school! Give the teachers what they really need, yes education for teachers is needed, but give them help IN the classroom. Give parents more access to programs to help their kids. When your child has been denied from various programs and facilities because she "doesn't meet the mandate" of those places of help, they need more funding.When I have to go out of province to get a paediatric doctor, we need funding(which amazingly enough is covered by sask health).
I could never be a teacher, I have the most respect for what they have to do and put up with, so let's support them. After all they help form your kids future.
okay...I exhaled.
If you see problems with our education system I encourage you to write to MLA's,MP's,Minister of Education.
Again this is just my 2 cents.( I guess 5 cents now with the penny disappearing).
1 comment:
This was a great post. Yet, infuriating at the same time. Nothing was infuriating about you--it's the issues that you raised that infuriate me. I am one of the E.A.'s that is slowly being wittled down to "nothing". Teachers have BIG jobs to do, and when kids need extra attention (for whatever the reason is), E.A.'s are a very necessary part of the classroom. In my opinion, more supports should be brought in NOT reduced--and by supports I mean more than just E.A.'s; I have seen first hand the improper "use" of professionals, and it is the kids who suffer as a result. I am not sure what the magic answer is -- I just have to wonder . . . in a province like ours where our economy is supposedly so fantastic, and we're making so much money as a province, why is it that the education system is suffering? You are right--if kids are the future of our province (which of course, they are), then wouldn't it make more sense to invest in them rather than some other "things". I know every school division has their challenges and I definitely wouldn't want to be the one making decisions about how and where to put the money, but there is something going terribly wrong with education in general and it's unfortunate. It sounds like the letter you received was misleading into giving parents false hope for proper supports for their kids. It sounds like your school in general, though, has been supportive to you, which is great.
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