Technology is changing at break-neck speed and public education is struggling to keep up. Today's students do not learn, or even communicate the way many of the older (or should I say more experienced) educators do.
In the past, communication has been a weakness in this, the 8th largest school district in the nation. But size is no excuse for poor communication, and as such, has been a major focus for improvement over the past couple of years.
At the school boards urging, the superintendent has been communicating every step of the way during the budget process. It is important that people have the facts, good or bad, because if people are left to wonder rumors will run rampant, productivity will decline and ultimately students interests will not be best served. The board has made it a priority that we do not want to lay off employees and we don’t want the cuts to touch the classroom. The superintendent has communicated this along with the details of what is happening on the financial front as we receive details using email and pop up messages through our internal email system.
I am very happy that HCPS is catching up to the new millennia and using technology to communicate with our staff and the community. We have ‘Parent Link’ which sends out pre-recorded messages to specific groups or the entire universe of current phone numbers and/or email in our system, provided parents or guardians keep their contact information current. This system is used to send updates on everything from emergencies to parent/teacher conferences.
More recently we used Twitter to communicate during the swine flu outbreak that closed 3 local schools. One of the more exciting aspects about using Twitter aside from the real time communication on important updates is that it does not cost the tax payers anything because it is a free service.
Are we where we need to be? Not yet, but we are moving in a positive direction.
10 comments:
Now us older educators need to figure out a way to use the new technology (cell phones, blackberries, smart phones and other electronic devices) that our children use every day (even in class) despite the rules to communicate lessons. Lets face it we cannot ban their use in and out of school. We have students who are walking around with technology in their pockets that will by pass all of the firewalls and security protocols that we spend so much money on to protect them from Internet predators, pornography, and the like. Imagine the student surreptitiously searching Google for the answer to a question on a test. We have to learn how to co-opt the technology for learning.
April--
We lost ANOTHER Vocational Education teacher this year. When will SDHC and Elia admit that ALL kids are not going to college--and then prepare them to be productive citizens after high school?????
I know you had expressed an interest in serving ALL students.
Thanks--
Pam
Hillsborough conty school board just blew an opportunity to save some money as well as earn some points from the entire community. All the school board had to do was to assign three days as non-student, non-employee days and make those days coincide with the Muslim holiday, Jewish holiday and Christian holiday.
Hello, I am hoping there is someone that could explain to me why I have seen to notice a high percentage of V,E positions now have some type of athletic attachment to the job postings on the HCPS district HUMAN RESOURCE web site.
This is something that I have not ever noticed before in past years!
Furthermore, this as something that strongly concerns me because a ESE position is so demanding of a special education teachers' time that if the school district now wants some of our students ESE teachers to coach a sport along with the responsibility of making sure that all of our kids are being properly served! According to a child's IEP!agreement,
Which the special education teacher has to also write! along with having to hold the IEP meetings with that particular child's parents.
It seems to me that attaching any athletic, position two job position in a school ESE department that it! It would most likely be sure to! Very seriously undermine that ESE departments' ability to properly serve any of our children.
Furthermore, a VE/ESE position! is classified as an area of critical shortage and by attaching some type of sporting position to the job title would seriously lower the amount of qualified applicants for that VE/ESE position.
MC,
I don’t immediately know the answer to your question. I will find out and post the answer in the near future.
At your service, April
Mc
I have worked with many high school ESE teachers and aides that also coach. I have found them to be particularly talented in the classroom and on the field.
Their clients always seemed to look up to "coach" and appeared to feel special to have someone with such school wide recognition.
Perhaps your experience has been different but the IEPs and conference conflict was never an issue since practice, games, and pep rallies were never scheduled together. Recently the ESE Staffing Specialist has been added to some faculty to monitor and streamline the services process.
If a coaching position is attached to an ESE opening there may be a very valid reason. I'd caution you about thinking there is something sinister going on.
Hotel Special Ed may check in with his perspective and provide additional thoughts.
Perhaps you know something we don't? If you do, you owe it to April to point a finger in that direction.
MC Here I would first like to state that I never meant to imply that a ESE teacher was not able to do both.
I was just wondering why I was noticing an athletic position was attached to a VE position when I have not noticed it ever before .
Furthermore, I was not ever in any stretch of the imagination trying to imply something sinister going on... I was just wondering if there was some type of conflict with attaching any athletic are non VE position, for that matter, to an area of critical shortage.
What is the district doing about integrating Web2.0 interfaces? You have Twitter... but cannot open it on any district computer. What does that say about us? The world is taking off in this direction. Other countries have school systems with web based programs where students can communicate and collaborate on a global scale. Textbooks are digital, even with versions of flashing lights for students who flip pages.
The chapter on Digital education is now being written here http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/ .. is HCSD part of that conversation?
Twitter is, in my humble opinion, an inappropriate use of district computers and resources. Its also just another venue to get marked down on if we can't respond in time.
I teach 6 of 7. The one conference I have is taken up trying to keep my head above water as well as looking for a place to relief the morning's accumulation.
Email is demanding enough. My computer bogs down doing simple research. My classroom is used 7 of 7.
I already use my own cell phone to contact parents because the one in the TPA is usually in use.
Wanna Tweet? Do it at home on your own time and computer.
Not all technology is applicable or appropriate to our job.
Let's see how long the district can maintain its attention to "duh twits".
I must comment on the ESE stuff. I know it does not relate to the topic.
1. High school ESE teachers miss, on the average, 20% of class time in order to conduct IEP meetings or take care of paperwork. A HS IEP takes an average of 7 hours to write and do the meeting. No one has brought to light how much more "paperwork" the transition IEP has become over the last couple years.
2. High school IEPs are far more complicated then elementary. Half of the discussion is about credits, GPA, and post secondary plans.
3. We had the people from the union out a month ago pitching membership. Somehow they were under the impression that the IEP assistant did the IEPs. They file and do a checklist of the completed IEPs.
4. The state changed "Highly Qualified" for ESE teachers earlier this year. We are no longer highly qualified if we co-teach with a GenEd teacher who is. Most of us have to teach several subjects and that changes from year to year.
5. The district and the union made all new teachers who didn't teach "core", temporary for this year. I had the best TMH teacher this year, a woman who came back to teaching after raising her family. Because her "functional academics" weren't considered core, she had no job as of last Friday, not even in the pool.
6. ESE Specialists are 1/2 the time in the classroom, so they can't pick up a teacher's difficult communication with parents or collaboration with GenEd teachers. If ESE "services" cannot be delivered in the classroom, on class time, they aren't.
I have said for years, if you can take a supplemented position and still be an ESE teacher, you either aren't doing your job, or you can live on 5 hours of sleep... or maybe crazy.
So... does HCSD value ESE teachers and students?... only for the photo ops.
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