Wednesday, April 14, 2010

EFA meeting on effective teachers plan

On "Start a new post" Anonymous wrote:

"The next Excellence for All Parent Steering Committee meeting is scheduled for 4/22/10 at Allderdice at 5:30 and will focus on the Empowering Effective Teaches Plan. Parents planning to attend should spend some time becoming familiar with the plan by reviewing at least the 7 Key Initiatives and the FAQs found on the pghboe website. Implementation affects our kids and is our concern too. Lack of participation in the discussion signals agreement, so being prepared with questions should signal that we are concerned about how this will impact our children."

5 comments:

Questioner said...

Can you give us the exact link, to make it easier?

Anonymous said...

http://www.pps.k12.pa.us/eet/site/default.asp

Anonymous said...

It is unfortunate that the parents of kids who will be most affected by the plans to empower teachers are very busy with their kids. It is baseball season for one thing and many communities are gearing up other summertime activities too. K-5 parents should be most concerned that they are in agreement with the new teacher management plans, since their kids will have to live with what is done now for the longest amount of time.

Anonymous said...

While the number of attendees might not set a record, it seemed to be that those in the room were there for the long haul. Truly interested in the health of the school system beyond the number of years they had left as PPS parents. Not dazzled by the Gates award but focused on what needs to be improved upon no matter what the funding source. Am amazing group of parents apparently stepped up to possibly be the voice of reason and fairness as the school system and PFT become pioneers.

foreveryoung said...

As everyone knows attendance at parent meetings dwindles as we close in on the end of the school year. Activity on education related blogs dwindles too apparently if the action on this one is any indication.

There have been discussions recently on talk shows and reports in the paper about how successful some charter schools have been. I recently heard a Dad of two charter school students give full credit to teachers his kids had. He must have said a dozen times "it's the teachers, it's the teachers." When he explained further he spoke about no more than 20 kids in a class and all classes having a teacher and an aide in this Propel school. Wouldn't that alone make one say "it's the administration, it's the administration?" A teacher does not decide on class size or what subjects or behavior warrant two adults to a class. The last PPS newspaper spotlighted a co-teaching classroom. That seems a very empowering situation. Some parents seem to recognize the value to such a strategy to improve student performance. At the EFA meeting where parents presented on RISE the primary presenter mentioned in his comments that he and another parent on the general committee were educated outside Pittsburgh. He said they each were taught in classrooms by two teachers/adults working as a team. This would seem to be one action to ensure the success of differentiated instruction.