Jennifer Doshier, the Joplin School District's executive director for elementary education, tells News Talk KZRG enrollment in grades K-through-2 at Stapleton is down, while at Irving Elementary, it's up.
"So we did at that time make the decision to move a teacher from kindergarten, a teacher from 1st grade and a teacher from 2nd grade at Stapleton over to Irving and add those classes over there. So that then our class sizes would then be appropriate at both schools."
News Talk KZRG asked Doshier if the students would be able to adjust to having a new teacher so early in the school year. "The sooner the better if we have to make a change and do this. We feel that our students and teachers will be able to adapt to this. It will be a positive year for the rest of the school year and that's why we did move quickly."
11 comments:
Did they not see this coming sooner? Was there a sudden influx of students in the Irving area, or is this a way to keep pushing the new school? Is Irving being crowded, or is it like East with completely empty wings? Many questions need answered here.
Looking at scores, I'd have to say Stapleton with its miraculous scores beats Irving with all its bells and whistles, assuming that Stapleton's scores were earned honestly. In Joplin that's questionable.
Naw, shucks, those little kids won't mind a switch at all. We all know teachers are interchangeable. That's why CJ and the Board don't mind saying goodbye to 100+ a year. So the kids cry a little. So does CJ. He gets over it, doesn't he? Shoot. He can come take pictures with them again and it'll all be just fine and dandy.
This affects more than just stapleton. There will be new teachers for students at Irving too. the intial title on this is misleading and maybe as a parent to three kids who go to Irving I'm a little offended. wish they would show the class sizes currently at both schools. I know the kindergartnen classes at Irving have over 30 kids. and 1 st grade had 28. I'm glad that they finally addressing this.
Anyone who worked at McKinley the year of the massacre would know this is typical JD. she knew in the spring there were over 60+ kindergarten students enrolled for the upcoming year. She did nothing. The first day if school she still had 2 kindergarten teachers for 60+ Students. She had ZERO AIDES on hand to assist . This included a second year teacher in her first year in Joplin as a K teacher. The other experienced one left mid summer for another job because the building was toxic. So, by late September she finally decided we needed another K teacher. The teacher she hired was fresh out of college. JD allowed the other 2 K teachers to divide the class. They gave K teacher #3 the worst kids out of their classes. That poor teacher begged for help from Sarah Stevens the TLC and received nothing. She also went to JD for help, but because the other 2 K teachers bullied her and talked bad to JD behind her back, she received no support. That teacher was dismissed at the end of the year and after 4 years of college was told by JD that she "maybe needed to be a paraprofessional". WOW. trust me, this stuff goes on with her all of the time. No planning and a lot of apologizing. Get used to that Joplin. Another great upper admin hire.
Remember when all the grade schools had their boundary lines changed last year? I have always been in Stapleton SD & they wanted to bus my K grandchild across town to school (between 4th & Broadway). They said Stapleton was too crowded.
If it mattered she'd already be advocating for doing it!
"If there is something out there that I know and we know that is going to ensure their success and help them be better as they go out into the world, then we're going to be advocates for that immediately," states Jennifer Doshier, Mckinley Elementary Principal.
http://www.fourstateshomepage.com/story/d/story/joplin-new-grading-trail/27884/caVOH32T40miwCoDIfYtGg
The redistricting was supposed to reduce crowding - right? So, maybe that's not working out as planned.
By the size and shape of Irving's district boundaries, it seems they tried to adjust class sizes down in all the other schools by sending everybody else to Irving.
If JD didn't know how crowded Irving would be before school started (didn't she have access to enrollment records?), she should have known by the first day.
Apparently not much thought went into how much traffic congestion there would be at Irving while trying to drop off students in the morning. You can count on at least a 30 minute experience with only one drop off lane.
Another example of great planning at Joplin schools!
There is no way this wouldn't have been anticipated, and the fact that she did this after school had already started is more evidence as to the mediocrity at the administrative level.
If your job is school administration, you are ideally intimately involved with the running of schools, you should be familiar enough with the data able to anticipate and plan for these issues. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what your job is.
This last-minute change after school has started places unnecessary burden and stress on teachers who must adjust last-minute, meaning their performance is likely to be affected by circumstances outside of their control - but you can bet administration will blame them rather than take responsibility for their own ineptitude.
It places unnecessary stress on students - small children in these instances for whom adjustment is a real consequence - away from friends and familiarity, away from the relationship they were starting to foster with their teacher, away from the classroom procedures and schedules they were only just beginning to learn (and which occupy the first few weeks of school at all levels). It affects parents, who are trying to build relationships with their child's teachers and be involved with their children's day-to-day.
This was the consequence of poor planning - the one thing administrators are supposed to do, and the adjustment is made with little remorse for the effects and additional stress placed upon all. There's a common theme in administration, loyalty to Huff (AKA ass-kissing) is valued more than competency.
They do this a lot. It's just that they don't usually tell and this time, somebody did.
They hire teachers late (sometimes as late as October or November) and move teachers and kids around.
I would say that telling the teachers to pack up a room in 2 days and be ready to teach in a new school with new kids in 5 days (3 school days) wouldn't be considered to be best for anyone. They sure didn't ask for any of their volunteers to help with this.
Teachers, parents---run fast and far as soon as you can. R8 is not getting any better any time soon.
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