Parent Reportcards...whats your grade?

[kirbyfan]

Originally Posted by Rissask

About the cafeterias....why does any school even need a cafeteria? My elementary and high schools never had one. If you lived in town you went home for lunch, if you were from the farm you brought your bag lunch.

OMG Ris! Many of our students only get 2 good meals a day and thats the 2 we feed them at school!!! It may not be necessary in some areas but in our district its a lifesaver! For many students not just in my district but all over, school is the only warm, safe place they have.....

[kirbyfan]

The thing is with schools....taxpayers pay for the education systems and the teachers salaries. The teachers are, in that sense, working for the taxpayer/parents. So when does anyone get to evaluate their boss in life?

Sorry Ris but IMO that is a MASSIVE stretch. Parents arent the "boss". Its supposed to be a team and that teams only goal is whats best for the student and if the parent isnt doing their job as a parent a teacher is in some situations put in a position where they may need to try to help the parent and in more severe situations is a mandated reporter who must report the parent but the bottom line is the welfare of that child.

[Seakony]

Kids can't go home to an empty house for lunch, plus you have to hire crossing guards for lunch. Nobody wants to bring lunch cause then it looks like you are poor...and alot get free lunch and breakfast anyways.

Try going to Walmart, grocery store, or even a ball game on a school night at 10 pm and see how many kids are there with their stupid parents.

[ryberg]

It strikes me as ironic that for years and years and years, people (usually not teachers) have argued that various new forms of teacher evaluation are essential to improving the quality of our educational system, and have I think shown little to no sympathy for teachers' tendency to oppose such in various ways. Now the shoe's on the other foot and suddenly parents are up in arms about the idea. (That's from reading the article, btw: I hardly even know who's a parent here or not, so not casting aspersions on those involved in this discussion.)

Perhaps it's just that heightened sense of irony rearing up in me again or something.

Steve

p.s. Does this mean I may agree with kirbyfan?

[Ginger]

I can see both sides of this coin for sure.

Parents do need to be accountable. Teachers can only do so much if there is no accountability at home for homework, etc. Kids need to be fed...none of this is disputable. Coming home for lunch is not always an option, like Rita said. I don't want my kids walking home and back to school alone that much. Kelsey takes her lunch a few days, and buys is a couple days. She eats healthy, her school offers healthy choices.

Anyway, I also have no choice but to see the other side of the coin because I suffer it with my son. He has ADHD and even if medicated, by homework time those meds have worn off. Many times I have just flat out refused to get into a battle with him about homework. We have bigger things to battle about, and that comes with the backing of his doctor (the leading child psychiatrist at Children's Hospital, he lucks out as her patient because of his dual-medical probs. with his heart in there also). I will put my foot down as far as disrespect, rudeness, family and home responsibilities, but homework is just one battle I don't choose to fight. If he doesn't do it, he goes back to school without it done and faces the consequences there (no recess, no lunch break, no gym class, etc.). The responsibility is still on him, not on me to MAKE him do it.

[farmgirl]

Just from my own personal experience in our town, and I am guessing it is the same everywhere, the report card wouldn't work. You would have parents that are truly trying their best all upset and the ones that need a good kick in the ass wouldn't care! We find that any time we have a drug info night, a parenting workshop, a evening on how to talk to your kid about sex, or even with our Get Real day, the parents and kids that need to be there aren't and the parents that are really giving it their all are. I think we can honestly say that none of us are perfect and there are days when we might not score too high on that report card. I think it would end up hurting more then it would help. Like Ginger mentioned about her son, we all have different kids and parent different accordingly.
So with this cafeteria in the school, is there a program set up so the kids that can't afford lunch get one? If so is it done in a manner that the other kids wouldn't know who could and couldn't afford to pay? I'm sure all the schools are different, just curious how it works out there because we don't have one in our school.

[farmgirl]

Originally Posted by Seakony

Kids can't go home to an empty house for lunch, plus you have to hire crossing guards for lunch. Nobody wants to bring lunch cause then it looks like you are poor...and alot get free lunch and breakfast anyways.

Try going to Walmart, grocery store, or even a ball game on a school night at 10 pm and see how many kids are there with their stupid parents.

This point really erks me. I know this lady who has been hauling her son from doc to doc trying to find out what is wrong with him. He is pale and tired all the time. I just want to scream at her and tell her it is nothing that a regular bedtime and some routine wouldn't fix!! This kid is in grade 5 now and has no set bedtime, is up til 12am some nights . It just p's me off to see my tax $ spent and good doctors time wasted on this poor kid. Sadly the mother is just to stupid to admit the problem lies at home. She is one of those parents who puts the blame on everyone for her kids, the teachers fault they are failing, other kids fault because they are emotional etc etc. It makes you want to phone the doctor up and give them a bit of family history that is likely not being told at the appts!!

[PlayadelSoul]

Originally Posted by ryberg

It strikes me as ironic that for years and years and years, people (usually not teachers) have argued that various new forms of teacher evaluation are essential to improving the quality of our educational system, and have I think shown little to no sympathy for teachers' tendency to oppose such in various ways. Now the shoe's on the other foot and suddenly parents are up in arms about the idea. (That's from reading the article, btw: I hardly even know who's a parent here or not, so not casting aspersions on those involved in this discussion.)

Perhaps it's just that heightened sense of irony rearing up in me again or something.

Steve

p.s. Does this mean I may agree with kirbyfan?

Teachers are paid. Asking them to be accountable is not too much of a stretch.

[kirbyfan]

Originally Posted by farmgirl

So with this cafeteria in the school, is there a program set up so the kids that can't afford lunch get one? If so is it done in a manner that the other kids wouldn't know who could and couldn't afford to pay? I'm sure all the schools are different, just curious how it works out there because we don't have one in our school.

Yes we have a free and reduced lunch program here. If you are of low income breakfast and lunch are provided at either a reduced rate or are free altogather. The school I am at has only one student who doesnt get a free meal for both breakfast and lunch and that is my daughter, all the rest of the students qualify for the free meal.

[kirbyfan]

Originally Posted by PlayadelSoul

Teachers are paid. Asking them to be accountable is not too much of a stretch.

Its not a stretch at all, but the problem is that the playing field isnt level and we have yet to see a system that takes that into account. Attempting to measure the job a teacher has done by student achievement scores is not a good way.

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by PlayadelSoul

Teachers are paid. Asking them to be accountable is not too much of a stretch.

I agree. But I certainly don't see it as any more of a stretch to ask parents to be accountable. A "parent report card" may not be the best approach to that, but then the sort of evaluations that many parents and others have supported, again with little to no sympathy for the many teachers who have argued against them, may not be the best approach to making teachers more accountable, either.

Maybe it's good for parents and others to have the shoe on the other foot here for a while and to suddenly see how wildly subjective such evaluations can be, for example, or which important factors they may ignore completely while basing their views on other, less important factors, or what kind of negative effects they may create in the overall atmosphere of the child's education, or how little in the end their results may matter, and so forth.

Speaking from the perspective of a teacher (though never one in this type of setting), it's very ironic: suddenly that type of evaluation system doesn't look so good to parents at all and they're going to fight against it...

Steve

[NorthMinnesota]

Originally Posted by kirbyfan

Its not a stretch at all, but the problem is that the playing field isnt level and we have yet to see a system that takes that into account. Attempting to measure the job a teacher has done by student achievement scores is not a good way.

But when the same teacher is reported year after year by students and parents alike for not teaching, leaving the class room every day and being incompetent there needs to be a process for dealing with the problem rather than waiting 4 more years until he retires.


What happened to using common sense?

[KelliG]

Originally Posted by Rissask

The thing is with schools....taxpayers pay for the education systems and the teachers salaries. The teachers are, in that sense, working for the taxpayer/parents. So when does anyone get to evaluate their boss in life?

About the cafeterias....why does any school even need a cafeteria? My elementary and high schools never had one. If you lived in town you went home for lunch, if you were from the farm you brought your bag lunch.

HOME for lunch!?!?
Great idea, assuming there was a parent at home....not like today where both parents work...
UGH...school lunches!
"They" are talking about adding BMI to each child's report card, and sending a note to parents that their kids are obese. However, while AT SCHOOL, they have decreased PE to 3 days a week, decreased playground time, AND they dare to serve them fried chicken, fried beef, nachos, hotdogs, and fries for lunch...the hypocrisy just KILLS me!

[NorthMinnesota]

Originally Posted by KelliG

HOME for lunch!?!?
Great idea, assuming there was a parent at home....not like today where both parents work...
UGH...school lunches!
"They" are talking about adding BMI to each child's report card, and sending a note to parents that their kids are obese. However, while AT SCHOOL, they have decreased PE to 3 days a week, decreased playground time, AND they dare to serve them fried chicken, fried beef, nachos, hotdogs, and fries for lunch...the hypocrisy just KILLS me!

Our school district ordered the switch to "healthy" foods a few years ago. The first year the kids fought it by not buying their lunches but the numbers are now back up. It can be done. I wish my kids would buy theirs once in a while...they pack lunches every day.

[kirbyfan]

Originally Posted by NorthMinnesota

But when the same teacher is reported year after year by students and parents alike for not teaching, leaving the class room every day and being incompetent there needs to be a process for dealing with the problem rather than waiting 4 more years until he retires.


What happened to using common sense?

Well ya, of course they should be fired.