Why is there such a shortage of text books at District 150? Do we have a lot of new students in the District? Does it have any thing to do with the shifting of 100s of students as a result of school closures? Is it because the District is getting new text books and they are not in yet? Is it because books sent back to the Ricketts Center at the end of last year have to requisitioned, and requsitions are backed up?
Folks have not been given an answer as to why the text books are not in the classrooms. The main stream news media in our town has not questioned why so many students don't have books (the book shortage must not be affecting students North of Forrest Hill). Regardless of what "reason" one may give, it seems to me that proper planning would have allowed text books to be in the classrooms by now.
The last couple of weeks, teachers have spent just trying to keep students engaged, because, of course, the books would be there any day (right?). Wrong. As of last week (the third week of school), some text book copying has started so that teachers can at least begin to teach the children (is that even legal).
Looks like the copy paper shortage will be coming sooner, rather than later this year. Who will pick up the slack when copy paper is needed? Teachers and parents, that's who.
36 comments:
Good luck on the Journal covering this. They're not big on stories that don't reflect well. Kind of the city's cheerleaders, if you will. Greg and Dan...same deal.
And yet the Super gets a bonus? Interesting.
Funny thing about textbooks... she was asked specifically about this back in what... May, June? at those Q&As they held with parents and the community. She was asked about really old textbooks (20+ years) and non existent ones. She said they would be there on day one. That the district would not be short text books.
Fast forward to today and....
Not only do the students not have consumable workbooks, we are not allowed to copy worksheets for assessment. I have had to buy my own paper for copies. This administration wants us to use the SMART board technology to teach, which we are, but parents STILL want a piece of paper that their child did that has been assessed by the teacher. Parents do not want a narrative about how well or not well their child is doing is school. They want tangible work. This has been the hardest beginning of the year for me and I have worked for 5 superintendents. Every teacher I have spoken with at different schools in the district are doing different things in their grade than I am doing. When Dr. Lathan came to Peoria, she told the board how much she liked Open Court and that she could go from school to school and see that every teacher(at grade level) was doing the same story on the same week. She said that was important because of the huge mobility rate in this district. NOW, it seems as though anything goes. Oh, let's see if we can find ANOTHER person from N. Carolina to FIX it.....
My son just got one of his textbooks on Thursday and my daughter still doesn't have all her textbooks. They go to Richwoods, which is North of Forrest Hill. So please keep your snide comments to yourself.
No problem. According to a couple of teachers I know, very few students bother to bring their book to class and some of them can't read it. Sounds like we are good to go but hey, let's reward these kids when they do get a book and bring it to class.
Thanks for the information from North of Forrest Hill "taxpayer". Please keep your snide comments to yourself.
I am one of those discouraged teachers who teaches for district 150. The south end school have no text book. Trewyn is now a k-8 building. Teachers had to go the closed Garfield school and pick through the discarded material that the teachers left behind just to be able to start teaching. It is very frustrating. We were promised the NEW text books and reading programs and the books are no where to be found. We do not even have the material from the warehouse. This is very sad. We are now ready to send home progress reports to parents on student progress. It is very sad.
All of this is inexcusable. The beginning of the year is the time to get the kids into a routine, etc., but the lack of organization on Wisconsin Avenue has a negative impact on every classroom in District 150. This is Lathan's second year--the bugs should have been worked out; however, new "bugs" have been spawned.
I agree with Sharon. I spent 30 hours in professional development and was told all of the new material WILL be at your schools on day one.
Well here is week 4, and now I just hope the materials that us teachers shunted for at Garfield school makes it way to us. We were told that building and grounds would deliver it to us. That was 1 week ago. Oh by the way! this is material that was going to left to rot in the closed Garfield building.
The District through over 40 funding sources sent 682 employees to over 270 workshops/conferences last year. Twenty-eight of these trips were out of state (CA, CO, FL, GA, IN, LA, MD, MO, NC, NJ, NV, NY, PA, TN, Tx, WA, and D.C. The cost was over $343,196.38 (and $15,387 for subs). The cost was even higher because no cost and no funding source was given to me for 46 trips.
I am sure we will be told that all of these funding sources designate money to be used for travel. That might be so, but it shouldn't be so. When a district has overcrowded classrooms and can't even afford paper for teachers to use for vital classroom purposes, then employeees shouldn't be taking expensive trips on anybody's dime. LaToy Kennedy took 13 trips for $8,560 plus trips to D.C., NC, GA, and Chicago for which no cost was listed. She was traveling for 33 school days. That's a whole lot of free, most likely expensive breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.
Dr. Kennedy needs to retire and find another idiot to support her. All she does is sit in meetings and sleep(or try to stay awake). Love the leisure suits and velcro tennis shoes.....see, she is already "retired"....she just needs to give up the easy money paycheck!She is nothing more than a YES MAN for Lathan.
Dr. Kennedy is more than a YES MAN, she is a BULLY.
I see the Lathan machine is working out really well.
The book/materials shortage is district-wide. The lack of materials to support a new reading curriculum is embarrassing. At back-to-school night, we were told that science would start when the books arrived...so no science teaching yet this year. Decodable books didn't arrive until last week...the list goes on and on. Similar problems at my son's middle school, though the primary schools seem to be hit harder, from what I can tell.
My impression is that the teachers are doing a great job making the best of what is not a good situation.
How does a Superintendent get a $10,000 bonus when they can't get books in the schools on tim?
This goes to show just how important education is in this whole dog and pony show that is called education. It's all about getting paid.
And now progress reports are due to parents. I would like to see a progress report on Dr. Lathan. I am pretty sure she would be receiving F's in just about everything. Over and over again this district has proven that, just when you think you've seen the worst, it gets worse. How is it possible to even consider starting school with NO textbooks? In many of the 150 schools, it is nearly impossible to hold the attention of the children for any length of time. Now there are no books, no curriculum, and still no support for misbehavior. I hope everyone sends up a little prayer for PSD150 teachers. I am just thanking God my children are not in Peoria. It is just tragic that so many children are........
I have a child at Richwoods. She is short two textbooks. I sent an email to Dr. Lathan who returned my email. She was upset because she has heard that from every high school and almost every middle school. She feels that this is a "basic" educational need, which it is. She said she had also heard from other parents in the district...several below Forrest Hill. So it is not "above Forrest Hill" that is not having the problem.
Thanks Emerge! I don't know if it is because of your blog, but we got paper at our school today and other schools have reported like wise.
It has already been established that the text book shortage is city wide.
Dr Lathan is "upset because she has heard that from every high school and almost every middle school"... Did she say what the problem was? Did she give any indicator when the books would be in? Will she be addressing it at the board meeting tonight? Will she be making a statement to the press to clarify what the problem is?
Ava Hoffer was helping with resources but that stopped when Lathan recruited and demoted her- another needless action that now has consequences.
Normally scheduling of classes at high schools occurs in late winter. When did they in PSD 150 b/c of the principal transfers and lack of central office scheduling support? Schedling classes helps predict that number of books needed.
Trewyn IB K-8 is a gimmick. Google how many K-8 IB schools there are in the country.
I mentioned textbook shortages in my public comments tonight and asked where the Hougton Mifflen science books were--no response. Of course, the IB program is a gimmick. Last year when Dr. Lathan spoke at a retired teachers' luncheon, I asked her if Trewyn and the other schools would IB schools or if the teachers were just going through the training. She stated point blank that the teachers were just going through the training. However, just wait to see how she will treat the teachers if they don't get results by using the IB methods--methods, of course, are meant for advanced students, not students who can't read at grade level.
The transportation drivers really gave Lathan a lashing tonight. She said all the transportation problems will soon be solved--they are hiring (short term--ha) a transportation company--a real slap at the 150 drivers.
Where is the accountability? Huge problems with transportation, students without textbooks and general disorganization. How do they expect to raise test scores when some students don't have books in the middle of September?
There is absolutely no excuse for these types of problems to be going on in September. Textbooks are a basic necessity. If this basic necessity is not taken care of what other needs/issues are not being met.
Heads should roll!
I wonder if we'll get a pro-rated refund of our textbook fees since we won't have used textbooks for all 36 weeks of school? I say this in jest, of course!
I need some info about the Thinking Map books purchased from a NC company and the professional development provided by NC educators.
I have received all the bills for these texts and I am astounded. Sets of from 20 to 50 books were sent to each school from NC.
Each book costs $125--which from what I hear is an outrageous price.
So 47 books to Thomas Jefferson cost $5,875 and the shipping was $352.50. Maybe it would have been cheaper to drive a U-Haul to NC to pick the books up. :)
They were not books. They were white binders with some information about each map in them. We had to sign to get one and then turn them in at the end of the year.
Do you think the book was worth $125? I heard they are binders with photocopies pages, is that so? How many pages? So why were 20 to 50 copies ordered per building if teachers received just one copy?
No, it wasn't worth $125 to anyone except whoever made it. I had heard they were $100 or so and I couldn't believe it. It was just some information about each "map" and a "master" copy of each one. There was also a larger one to display in your classroom.
I am just wondering at this point if any teacher has gotten one back for this year. They should have been distributed first thing since it is an across the district initiative and every grade level is to be using them. I fear it will be like a lot of other things the board has bought into. The binders will sit in storage until someone decides they are taking up too much space and pitches them.
The binders should have stayed in NC--the contents may not have cost so much to ship. What an outrage!
There is so much irony in Sharon's latest rant to the board. First off, she states "Various studies claim that we retain a relatively small percent of what we hear. Personally, I believe that is especially true if we are talking about listening to speakers at educational events." I wonder just how much the board "retained" from "listening" to Sharon's rant. If she sees virtually no value in listening to a speaker, I can't see how she can place a value on her own speeches to the Board.
And then, much of her rant is now against Thinking Maps. Funny, because you would think that based on the earlier statement, Sharon would appreciate the fact that Thinking Maps focuses on visual learning in a structured way, rather than simple lecturing.
Finally, there is the rant against professional development generally, including sharing her own limited experiences. Well....I'll not say what I originally intended and just leave it at that.
Yea, I get that you're now trying to find out about Thinking Maps. Yet not once have you asked about whether or not they work. Or better yet, looked at them for yourself to make your own conclusions.
There are a great many teachers in D150 who struggle against difficult challenges. There remain too many (teachers and administrators) stuck in the past, clinging to practices that are no longer effective - or they are simply too overwhelmed, too demoralized, too stubborn or too lazy to attempt, let alone embrace, change.
I get the fact that change isn't always good and it's right to question the change. However, questioning something when your mind is already made up benefits no one.
Jon, thinking maps are NOTHING MORE than graphic organizers that we have used for eons. Some company got smart and trademarked their own spin on these and now markets them for millions. Thorough waste of district funds...in my estimation and many others I work with...paaalease
Jon, maybe now that you're close to the Loop, you might be out of the loop. :) So you don't agree with me and get a kick out of attacking me and my thoughts. I can live with that. What you don't get is that what you may think are my opinions sometimes come from teachers who don't feel comfortable voicing their experiences online. I certainly didn't say that graphic organizers don't work. The last Anonymous has just stated what I have heard--teachers were already using graphic organizers. $125 per book is a real joke. Actually, there are some of the same books on sale at Amazon for $40 to $60.
As to whether or not the board listens to me, clearly the board isn't listening to a whole lot of people--I'm in very good company.
Yes, sometimes I get a kick out of responding to you and sometimes I prefer to ignore you. This was just one of those weak moments of mine. :)
"What you don't get..."
On the contrary, Sharon. I certainly understand that you are often the mouthpiece for frustrated teachers. That can be a very good thing.
More often than not, however, I'd argue that in doing so, teachers are shooting themselves in the foot. It's like, if I had a complaint with the City of Peoria, I wouldn't want Savino Sierra speaking on my behalf (though he seems like a nice guy) - even if we agreed on the issue. It would probably make my argument look worse.
And therein lies the problem. There are real issues facing D150, it's teachers, students, etc., and we see the same people ranting every week - all too often with illogical arguments and displaying utter contempt - a broken record.
I talk down to you all the time. It doesn't have that much of an effect on your thoughts, does it? Maybe there's a reason (probably a few) your speeches to the board have little to no effect.
Jon, that would be "its" teachers, not "it's" teachers." Forgive me if I don't talk "up" to you. :)
Three cheers for Sharon!
Jon, you are wrong. Everything Sharon says...btw, you should come to a board meeting sometime and watch her professionalism...is highly researched and data calculated so it is ready for the school board members.
Your saying these things against Sharon do not make them right, and really turn people off. We need more people who are as organized as Sharon speaking to the board. She makes sense.
Sam Sierra has a right to say whatever he likes...do we all agree with him? Doesn't matter...he has a right to say it. We are adults and can decipher right from wrong when the public is speaking...just like we do on these blogs...when the public is speaking.
Three cheers for Sharon...she is keeping people honest.
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