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If You Were At the Bargaining Table…A Community Values Paper


Submitted to the ISD Bargaining Team by Issaquah PTSA Council - March 2010

 

Introduction

Similar to three years ago, PTSA Council has been given the opportunity to present input collected from the parent community to the bargaining team prior to the start of teacher contract negotiations. The most successful enterprises always know who their primary customer is, and there is a shared and deeply felt commitment to that customer across all parts of the organization. Parents believe that our children are the customers of the educational product the school district is delivering. We don’t have a seat at the bargaining table, even though we are the primary caretakers of the customers – our kids – who will be directly affected by the teacher contract. Parents aren’t asking to be at the bargaining table, but we do want the opportunity to be spokespeople for what we believe is in the best interests of our kids.

The purpose of this paper is to present the four main community values to the bargaining team that we hope you’ll keep at the center of your discussions as you go forward. We’ve used “policy examples” under each value as a way to sort parent comments and to elaborate on what was meant by the value statement, but our purpose is not to “negotiate” on any contractual specifics. We simply want to relay the nature and depth of community feeling on these subjects.

We’d like to thank all of you for agreeing to participate in this session. Your willingness to do so speaks volumes to our shared commitment to securing the best educational outcomes for our kids.

Process for obtaining input

The input from parents was obtained in the following ways:

  • Open-ended solicitation of parent input across all PTSAs in November – December 2009.
  • Qualitative survey of all PTSA presidents in January 2010.
  • Zoomerang survey conducted among parents from February 22 – March 4th, 2010 to confirm importance of value statements derived from the above steps and see if there were any important themes we missed.
    • We received 1,017 discreet responses to the survey.
    • Responses by grade level were: 825 (46%) K-5; 491 (27%) middle school; 489 (27%) high school (adds to more than 1,017 due to some people answering for multiple children).
    • Responses by area of the district were: 41% north end, 35% from the corridor, and 22% were from the south end; 2% were mixed.
    • We received 2,999 open-ended comments. One consistent message that came through clearly in these verbatim comments was how pleased parents were that they were being given a chance to voice their opinion.

 

#1: We want to have the most effective teachers in our kids’ classrooms every day to maximize effective learning time.

84% rated this 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale of importance. Policy examples:

Hiring/evaluation/reward/removal system:

  • Reward the best teachers; make sure we keep them.
  • Pay special attention to hiring the strongest possible math and science teachers.
  • Build a teacher evaluation system that takes into account teacher effectiveness and student outcomes.
  • Get feedback from parents and students about the teacher and classroom experience and factor these findings into teacher/principal evaluations.
  • Give administration more tools and flexibility to reward excellent teachers and remove ineffective ones.
  • Change our RIFing process to take into account teacher effectiveness; RIF less effective teachers first.

Learning time/schedule:

  • Monitor and aggressively protect learning time with the primary teacher in the classroom: minimize teacher time out of classrooms for training, district work; monitor and hold teachers accountable for absences as we do with students.
  • Develop solutions for students who’ve passed tests that are administered during the school day to continue learning when other students are taking these tests.
  • Keep looking for ways to optimize learning, minimize disruptions during each and every school day. Suboptimal learning conditions/schedule discontinuities that parents still voice strong concern over are the Wednesday schedule, the too-early start times for middle and high schoolers, and the idea that our school days are not long enough.
  • Look at school breaks and consider reducing some, e.g., second winter break, to reduce the learning disruptions during the school year.

Training/professional development:

  • Support the most effective training programs and retain teachers who’ve received and are effectively using this training.
  • Train and empower our principals and give them the time and resources to be educational leaders in their buildings.

Class management:

  • Introduce ways to challenge and engage all students at all levels.
  • Teach our teachers how to teach to and connect with kids of all learning styles and levels of engagement.
  • Look for more flexible and innovative ways to mitigate class size issues, e.g., look at more flexible ways to use EAs to mitigate class size issues, especially at the elementary level.
  • Rationalize homework policy: what role does it have vis-à-vis classroom learning; is it always valuable; at what point does it become a drag on learning.

 

#2: We want students to graduate from high school with as much preparation as possible so that they have many choices available when they pursue their next desired step.

82% rated this a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale of importance. Policy examples:

  • Adopt curriculum policies/innovative staffing solutions that allow students to get the maximum core classes they need, at sufficiently advanced levels, to qualify for their first choice after high school, whether that’s a four-year university, a two-year community college, or a vocational school.
  • Make sure we’re preparing students for and promoting multiple options to continue education beyond high school.  We need to value, encourage and assist students in finding the educational opportunity that will help them identify and meet their life goals, whether it is to become a computer programmer, a hairdresser, a doctor, or a mechanic.
  • Adopt curriculum policies/innovative staffing solutions that allow students to take the electives they need and want to keep school interesting and relevant and prepare them for their desired next step.
  • Adopt more flexible/innovative policies about how we let kids fulfill their graduation requirements and make sure these options are communicated to families and readily accessible.
  • Provide more access to counselors for direction on course selection and other choices that will affect students’ post high school options. Counseling help needs to be more accessible in terms of hours, responsiveness to inquiries, and friendliness.
  • Make sure we’re using the most relevant, effective curriculum, technology and teaching strategies to ensure all students are truly prepared for their next step.
  • Survey graduates prior to graduation and a year later to evaluate whether we are truly equipping our students to be qualified and ready for their next step after high school.

 

#3: We want to be treated like true partners in the educational process.

68% rated this a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale of importance. Policy examples:

One-on-one parent-student-teacher communication about an individual student’s performance/choices/potential:

  • Communicate, communicate, communicate with parents. Teachers cannot communicate with parents too much.
  • Reach out to parents more proactively about students when there is a need, e.g., when there are concerns about performance, if a child is not being challenged enough, or if, say, it’s course registration time and the teacher has some ideas about what class that student should be taking next.
  • Get graded work back to students and parents in a timely, useful way.
  • Update Gradebook much more frequently.
  • Use teacher web-based tools for posting assignments, homework help, test preparation, linkages to useful support information, even class notes.
  • Minimize peer grading.

 

Collaboration between district and parents:

  • Give parents a means to provide input to course guide offerings at middle and high school.
  • Give parents and students a way to evaluate teachers and classroom experience on a regular basis.
  • Use parent surveys, forums, suggestion boxes, focus groups, etc. liberally to give parents ample opportunity to voice their opinion.
  • Have parent representation in all key program district decision-making, then do not appear to disregard parent input when decisions are ultimately made (e.g., curriculum adoptions, second winter break).

 

#4: We want every student in this district to have access to the same quality educational resources, no matter which teacher they have or which school they attend.

62% rated this a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale of importance. Policy examples:

  • Make sure our teachers and buildings can effectively address differences in students’ ability and learning styles.
  • Collaborate across the district, so that curriculum is more consistently taught and there is a way to share best practices.
  • Collaborate up and down grade levels so that there is curricular consistency/continuity (e.g., incoming 9th graders in math may be less prepared than other classes due to the fact that they were caught in the middle of middle school math curriculum changes – high school math teachers should know this and be ready; teaching of writing varies wildly from one grade to another).
  • Share resources across schools, e.g., subject matter expertise, lesson plans.
  • Enforce policies (e.g., discipline, behavior, party policies, credit granting, etc.) consistently within grades, within schools, across schools.
  • Make sure we have consistently high quality teachers at every grade level in every school.
  • Make sure all students have equal access to programs that have proven to produce better student outcomes, e.g. equal access to teachers who have received the best training and professional development opportunities, equal access to areas of excellence and specialization that may reside in one building.