17 Sierra Vista school jobs cut in face of budgetary quandary
Thu, 04/15/2010 - 12:14am
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SIERRA VISTA — Sierra Vista schools will have 17 fewer certified staff members next year following a unanimous vote by the district governing board during a special meeting on Wednesday. In a 4-1 vote, the board also approved a return to year-by-year contracts for school principals.
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How many students were in your high schools? Did you have an athletic
director at your high schools? At most high schools athletic directors are
considered to be administrators and/or vice principals. Larger high schools
offer special needs instructors with skills working with unique children. Not
all smaller schools have as much to offer in the way of special needs
assistance as Buena does. I am not challenging your statement, but I am
trying to understand what your school district was like.
Thank you for responding. You seem to be describing an environment that has
not existed for awhile. I also asked when you attended school? What were the
demographics of the student population where you went to school? If you were
in school before many of the mandates regarding special education came into
being, you might not appreciate the challenge of having 10 to 20% of your
students having special needs. Also, I am talking about having 34+ students
in a classroom. I never said that classrooms need to be 20 or less. If the
state average is 24 students, that would mean some have more and some have
less. I have already given reasons why an average of 24 could mean very large
classes when you realize that some rural or special education classes would
have less than ten students. BTW Did you honestly expect me to read
everything you ever wrote? Have you looked up everything I ever wrote? Are
you still working full-time, I am.
All I want to know is why are so many principals and vice principals needed?
I graduated High School in 1999 in Wisconsin and our large and growing school
system had one principal for every school and one vice (each) at the middle
and high schools. Is there that many students being “sent to the principal’s
office” to necessitate more than one?
Unfortunately, the expectations and demands on the principal’s time have
increased over the years; When guns, gangs, drugs, and other issues that
compromise student safety are present in the schools, as they unfortunately
are, the responsibility to correct the situation falls to the principal.
Principals are also now in a position of running things like site councils,
to insure adequate parental representation in a decision making forum, they
must advocate for their school sites for funding, grants, and budgetary
dollars, add to this they are the instructional leaders in the schools, and
must provide for the professional development needs of the staff. The role of
principal has changed over the years, and my guess is it hasn’t become any
easier.
I have to agree with ARoseSV question on why so many principals and vice
principals are needed. When I graduated from High School prior to WW2 in
Indiana we likewise had one principal and one vice (each) at the junior and
high schools. A lot of additional expense is required for the multi-layered
ones.
It is very hard to believe you when you state that everyone you knew attended
classes of 45. How many of your “45” students were special needs? Could
you go into a little detail because I would like to know if they were
multiple grade levels? When and where did you attend school? Perhaps you
actually did attend nothing but classes of 45 students, but I have never in
my life met anyone who has made a similar claim. The largest public school
classes I have had were under 35. If you are talking about college classes
you are discussing a very different situation. I have lived in the Texas,
Kentucky, Utah, California as well as Arizona. I would like to know if you
attended AP classes, were you in special education, remedial classes, were
you a teacher? I did have some large PE classes, but they were still under 35
students. There were two PE teachers who had combined classes of 60, but then
that would be two classes and not one.
OK, it’s been quite a few years (50s & 60s) but most of my classes were over
40 students. I don’t particularly recall 45 but I do recall 44. In grade
school there were no special ed classes but there were in junior high. I got
an excellent education and it was right here in Arizona.
I have to admit that respect seems to have been much more valued then than it
is now. And rarely did I see even the most obnoxious kids behave as badly as
the majority seem to today.
I’ve discussed this all under previous articles. I am not going to keep
repeating myself. When I went to school there were no AP classes, no special
ed, and no remedial. There was 1 teacher…..and the kids learned. Some are
doctors and lawyers and others have their own companies. I’m just wondering
why kids were able to learn with large class sizes years ago. But, now they
can not learn if a class has more than 20 students. In rural areas I can see
where there might be 15 -20 children in a class. But, if you go to a large
city or suburb the class size will increase. They would not be able to have
6-8 classrooms per grade in a school. The funding just wouldn’t be there. I
still do not think 25-30 students in a class is unreasonable. And no, I was
not a teacher….I was a teacher assistant for Chicago Public Schools(CPS). I
discussed this in past posts also. So I do know what is involved in teaching
a class. Hope this answered your questions
I worked in Chicago after college. The absolute worst school system on earth.
The drop out rate was horrible, the teachers were illiterate, the schools
were dirty and dangerous…they didn’t even have enough books. Anyone with
two pennies to rub together sent their kids to private school or moved to the
suburbs. Your point is what exactly? That the worst school system in the
nation is a good model for Sierra Vista? It has been pointed out again and
again that class sizes have increased over time and you ignore it. They had
special ed and AP in 1964 when I started school and the class sizes were much
smaller. Did anyone ask you a question?
sorry to disappoint you but, the schools (not all) but a majority offer a lot
of opportunities for children. Some of the public schools are in the top
portion of the nation. So you really do not know what you are talking about.
A number of the high schools also offer intern programs. And back in 1976 the
high school I went to offered great programs. It was a public school right in
Chicago. They had a nursing program. If you took it you were able to take the
state exam for LPN at the end of senior year. You pass you were an LPN right
after high school. They also had it for hair stylist, auto mechanic, day care
teacher, and a certificate for computer programing. So how is that not
helping the kids. And again this was in the 70s and 80s. And a number of
schools require testing to even go. Languages are german, french, italian,
latin, spanish, japanese just to name a few. A lot of the major cities are
able to offer more because they have more funding. I don’t think you are well
informed.