District to close Options.The blog is receiving calls on the tip line regarding the shift of Options to other, existing schools. The middle school portion of Options, for instance, will be housed at College Place Middle with the same staff as before. Given this news, it isn't surprising that all 12 Options teachers still have jobs at the District. Saving $200,000.00 couldn't be a result of eliminating teachers.
Options achieved success because their educational environment was segregated from mainstream students. Perhaps the District made the decision to relocate Options away from Former Woodway High School to free up additional space for Scriber Lake Alternative High School. Afterall, they won't be moving to their new site any time soon and would likely appreciate a concession of some kind.
By reintroducing Options back into existing schools, of course under another name, the District removes one of the greatest features of the program - moderately isolated and significantly focused instruction.
As for the new name by which the same program will be called, give Pat Shields a call. I am sure he could point us to the mastermind behind the "Powerful Partners" transition to "Powerful Tutors". Was anyone actually fooled by this obvious attempt to avoid paying rent?
At the end of the day, the outcome is inevitable. Fewer students will survive their thirteen-year stint in basic education and the District will continue their trend of diminishing enrollment.
The blog recommends the name "Druthers".
8 comments:
Don't foget that the District doesn't pay rent at Former Woodway High School - so no rent savings there.
So if kids in the middle school Options program moved to CPM, then where did the high school kids move?
Why is the district saying they saved money--did they or didn't they save money? I don't get it.
I suspect the Options program is just being folded back into existing schools. High school students will likely move back to high schools, though I am not sure which ones.
I don't see where the savings come from, aside from transportation.
Several years ago the respected Middle School Honors program at CPM was disbanded. The reason given was that it was to save money on transportation. So the students were returned to their "home" school and we were told to provide the honors level classes in each building, which meant that the 10 or so honors kids from each middle school were folded back into an "honors" class that had 20 or so other kids who wouldn't qualify for the CPM Honors program just to fill it out.
Transportation costs apparently trump honors instruction. But then that shouldn't surprise, considering that Mr. Limon later wrote me saying that we didn't need to worry about the "kids who would succeed anyway." We are just worried about those kids who are getting 2's on their WASL scores; we need to turn them into 3's so that our WASL scores look better (and perhaps will justify the salary increases for administrators?).
By eliminating the Options Program, the District has reduced the number of schools on the Federal Watch List (NCLB) by 20%.
Congratulations.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Mark Twain
And 4 Marla Miller
I just want to clear up one piece of information here. The middle school Options program did not move to CPM. The Options program was discontinued. It no longer exists. The program at CPM is called the Phoenix program. Two of the former Options staff did move to CPM but it was to start a new program at the middle school level. If you have any questions about this new program you can call the Principal at CPM
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