I grew up on a farm in central Oklahoma, graduated from high school with thirty other people. Then I moved to western Oklahoma to attend college and have been in this part of the state since then. I may not have gone to school in a large district or attended one of the big universities in the state, but I know I received a quality education. That education ingrained in me a very logical and common sense approach to life. I have something that seems illogical to me that I want to share with you. Maybe my small town upbringing has rendered me incapable of rational thought.
For just about every school in the state of Oklahoma school begins sometime in August and ends the last week in May. This means that the academic year begins in August and ends in May. Leaving June and July not counting as part of the academic year. This is logical to most people. For the purposes of testing we use the acronyms FAY (full academic year) and NFAY (non full academic year). Pretty easy to follow so far, right.
When a student starts school at the beginning of the year and remains in the same classroom for the entire school year, the teacher is responsible for the education of that student for the entire year. Still making sense to me, does it to you? If the student starts school a few days after the school year starts, they have not missed a great deal of instruction because the first few days of school are spent establishing routines, giving beginning of the year benchmarks, and refreshing content. After the tenth day of school teachers have already started introducing new content. At this point, according to previous FAY guidelines, the student is considered NFAY because they have missed a significant portion of instruction. This is not an insurmountable amount of content to overcome at this point though.
The State Department of Education just released the Oklahoma ESEA Flexibility Accountability Addendum. This document is a list of the waivers requested by the state and various regulations and reporting guidelines associated with those waivers. Rather than make you read the entire document, why don't we skip ahead to page nine of the document.
Under the "State Accountability System Includes All Students" heading we see the following question:
"How does the State define 'full academic year'?"
Then the response:
"A student receives a 'Full Academic Year' status for the OSTP program if the student is enrolled on the first day of October in the school year and has not experienced an enrollment lapse of ten or more consecutive days between the first October 1 and the time of testing."
This is where logic seems to fly out the window. Let me compare it to a student at my school and see if I can help it make a little more sense. Under previous regulations/waivers, if a student started the year with the teacher, said teacher had afull "academic year" less than three-fourths of an "academic year" to convey the content (remember testing begins in early April so all tested material must be taught, mastered and reviewed prior to the start of testing). This equates to roughly 135 days depending on when schools elect to test within the testing window. You might also keep in mind that third graders will need to be tested early in the window to increase the likelihood that scores can be returned before the end of the school year. If the scores come back in time, schools can offer an alternate assessment so that students may qualify for one of the six "good cause exemptions."
Our school year began August 16th and by October 1st thirty days of instruction were complete. If a third grader arrived in my district on September 30th, he would have missed twenty-nine days of instruction. Remember there are only about 135 instructional days before testing, a student arriving at this point, missing the first 29 days, puts the student at 106 days of instruction until testing, and a significant number of objectives already covered by the class. At this point only 60% of the "Full Academic Year" remains for instruction before testing, yet the student is considered FAY (full academic year).
Does that make sense? In my building we enroll on average a student per week in each grade level. So during the first month of school there is a good chance that everyone of my teachers will have had at least one new student that was not there on day one.
My point in all of this is if we are going to say a student has FAY (full academic year) status, it needs to be Full Academic Year. Under the new regulations it could be inferred that the Academic Year does not start until October 1st. I guess this matches up with what many believe about education. Many people think that teachers only work half the year and have the other half off.
My wife is a SPED Teacher and is at school until 5:00 each day unless our daughter has activities, and at least an hour each night is spent on paperwork and lesson planning. Several of the teachers in my building are at school before 7:30 and stay at school until nearly 5:00 (I thought they only work 8:00-3:30) without completing all of their work. They then go home, grade more papers, plan lessons and go over progress data for their students.
With all this extra work my teachers are putting in, they are also expected to be responsible for what the new students were supposed to have learned in the first thirty days of school when they were enrolled in another city or state. If we are all usingCommon Core State Standards Oklahoma Academic Standards this shouldn't be an issue. But it is an issue. It is an issue because every teacher teaches at a different pace and in a different manner. This is important to maintain, but makes it difficult when students move around. Yet somehow my teacher is responsible for what a teacher in another town was supposed to teach. My teachers are expected to take a student that was not here for a significant portion of the school year and produce the same results as they would from the students that were enrolled all year.
Maybe this makes sense to you and this simple farm boy just isn't smart enough to get it. Bottom line, this change makes little sense to me and should be switched back to the way it was.
No matter what, my teachers will always do what is best for students. They will work hard and go above and beyond what is required to make sure students learn. I invite all of our legislators to a week in the classroom doing all the work of a teacher. This means arriving when they do, leaving when they do, and taking home as much work as they do. Since this will never happen, the next best thing will be for all of us to go to them. I invite each of you to join us on March 31st for #OK4ED14 to let the legislators know what they are doing to harm instruction in our state.
For just about every school in the state of Oklahoma school begins sometime in August and ends the last week in May. This means that the academic year begins in August and ends in May. Leaving June and July not counting as part of the academic year. This is logical to most people. For the purposes of testing we use the acronyms FAY (full academic year) and NFAY (non full academic year). Pretty easy to follow so far, right.
When a student starts school at the beginning of the year and remains in the same classroom for the entire school year, the teacher is responsible for the education of that student for the entire year. Still making sense to me, does it to you? If the student starts school a few days after the school year starts, they have not missed a great deal of instruction because the first few days of school are spent establishing routines, giving beginning of the year benchmarks, and refreshing content. After the tenth day of school teachers have already started introducing new content. At this point, according to previous FAY guidelines, the student is considered NFAY because they have missed a significant portion of instruction. This is not an insurmountable amount of content to overcome at this point though.
The State Department of Education just released the Oklahoma ESEA Flexibility Accountability Addendum. This document is a list of the waivers requested by the state and various regulations and reporting guidelines associated with those waivers. Rather than make you read the entire document, why don't we skip ahead to page nine of the document.
Under the "State Accountability System Includes All Students" heading we see the following question:
"How does the State define 'full academic year'?"
Then the response:
"A student receives a 'Full Academic Year' status for the OSTP program if the student is enrolled on the first day of October in the school year and has not experienced an enrollment lapse of ten or more consecutive days between the first October 1 and the time of testing."
This is where logic seems to fly out the window. Let me compare it to a student at my school and see if I can help it make a little more sense. Under previous regulations/waivers, if a student started the year with the teacher, said teacher had a
Our school year began August 16th and by October 1st thirty days of instruction were complete. If a third grader arrived in my district on September 30th, he would have missed twenty-nine days of instruction. Remember there are only about 135 instructional days before testing, a student arriving at this point, missing the first 29 days, puts the student at 106 days of instruction until testing, and a significant number of objectives already covered by the class. At this point only 60% of the "Full Academic Year" remains for instruction before testing, yet the student is considered FAY (full academic year).
Does that make sense? In my building we enroll on average a student per week in each grade level. So during the first month of school there is a good chance that everyone of my teachers will have had at least one new student that was not there on day one.
My point in all of this is if we are going to say a student has FAY (full academic year) status, it needs to be Full Academic Year. Under the new regulations it could be inferred that the Academic Year does not start until October 1st. I guess this matches up with what many believe about education. Many people think that teachers only work half the year and have the other half off.
My wife is a SPED Teacher and is at school until 5:00 each day unless our daughter has activities, and at least an hour each night is spent on paperwork and lesson planning. Several of the teachers in my building are at school before 7:30 and stay at school until nearly 5:00 (I thought they only work 8:00-3:30) without completing all of their work. They then go home, grade more papers, plan lessons and go over progress data for their students.
With all this extra work my teachers are putting in, they are also expected to be responsible for what the new students were supposed to have learned in the first thirty days of school when they were enrolled in another city or state. If we are all using
Maybe this makes sense to you and this simple farm boy just isn't smart enough to get it. Bottom line, this change makes little sense to me and should be switched back to the way it was.
No matter what, my teachers will always do what is best for students. They will work hard and go above and beyond what is required to make sure students learn. I invite all of our legislators to a week in the classroom doing all the work of a teacher. This means arriving when they do, leaving when they do, and taking home as much work as they do. Since this will never happen, the next best thing will be for all of us to go to them. I invite each of you to join us on March 31st for #OK4ED14 to let the legislators know what they are doing to harm instruction in our state.
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