Kimberly Beane, supervisor of math and science for kindergarten through fifth grade, posted this Facebook item on Saturday:
It was first dislcosed on another website.
Asked about the posting, Beane stated via email:
I am concerned by this email. My Facebook profile has been private since
I established it. Without me changing it, it became public. This is very
strange and disturbing.
She referred questions to District Spokeswoman Suzanne Turner, who has yet to offer a comment.
The school district math program has come under scrutiny for months from parents concerned with some curriculum and how their children are being placed, specifically as they enter middle school.
At last week's school board meeting, several board members weighed in on the need for more focus on such decisions and parental concerns.
"We've heard significant concern from parents across the district about our math placement policies," Board Member Elizabeth Baker said at the meeting. "Those letters are going out now to fifth grade parents whose children are going to be entering middle school. There is a considerable amount of anxiety for parents and students."
Board Member Johanna Wright cited the former Contract for Choice option that had been in place years ago and allowed parents to place their children in upper grade math: "We have to bring it back," she said.
Board Member Beth Daugherty said the district should at least re-think some of its placement goals: "Think about a goal that the standard trajectory for every single student is Algebra I in eighth grade. That is the single criteria for 'are we ready for college.'"
5 comments:
This sounds exactly like Ms. Beane. I tried to speak with her at a curriculum meeting earlier this year. I wanted to arrange a meeting to discuss how math is taught in the district. She told me that she doesn't speak to individual parents - that is the responsibility of the principal.
I feel badly for Ms. Beane. She has been beset by manipulative parents who each feel there is space for "one more child" (theirs, of course) in the highest-performing sections, and when told otherwise they threaten to burn the entire program down. These horrible excuses for parents are threatening all academic rigor in our District.
This happened to us in sixth grade, we found exactly this attitude, and we went private for high school. SOMSD reaps what it sows -- except it keeps our tax cash. Yet, strangely, amid all its self-congratulation it manages not to notice that it loses 20% of its class every year between grades 8 and 9. It's like talking to the DMV, but worse.
The only distinctive quality we found in the district was its undying devotion to How Things Have Always Been Done. This particular admiinistrator is lost in the basic failure of understanding about who pays for what. We're the customers, dummy! If the commenter who thinks it's manipulative to press for an aggressive placement for your child really believes SOMSD knows (or much cares) what is best for individual students, more than their parents do, that commenter hasn't been through MMS. We (the parents) are generally more educated, more in tune with the world outside the district, and far more attuned to our kids' skills. Indeed, since our kid presented some LD challenges, we found the district's determination to learn as little as possible about our child quite hard to miss. And don't get me going about unreturned e-mails, lack of use of technology, and many more issues. SOMSD is like a bus -- if you;re at the stop, they'll open the door, and be competent enough. If you're at all off the main stream -- if you're hte passenger running for the bus stop -- they will keep going. It's how they lose all those students every year.
As a parent of a rising 6th grade child, we kept track of all the test results and even though our child was only 1% away from the accelerated level, we were not surprised with a conservative approach with the honors placement. We also were not offered the summer step-up opportunity however we decided that since my child already had summer plans and there was another opportunity to advance during the school year, we would just wait on that.
So I am having trouble understanding the huge backlash here and on Maplewood online regarding this topic. I am happy that there are different math levels offered and if a child does well in one level, there will be opportunities to advance.
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