Andy, I don't see your distinction between listed teachers who have classrooms for core subjects and other teachers who apparently just host homeroom students and have other classroom duties. Our school population has decreased by 20 % in the last 10 years and apparently the administration and school committee can't even consider *optimizing* the staff to offer additional academic services the students and parents want while lowering the ongoing costs of running the school. Every year, without much debate, the School Committee asks and gets the maximum 2.5% raise over the previous year and that is considered success even though our school population keeps going down. Our student teacher ratio is significantly lower than almost everyone (37% more teachers than the state average), Our MCAS scores are middle of the pack, our cost per student is 6K higher than almost every other school except for Weston and the School says basically, "we can't cut a thing, you don't understand, it's complicated."
[image: Screenshot 2023-01-31 at 7.42.59 PM.png] ReplyForward On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 6:14 PM Andy Wang <[email protected]> wrote: > Peter, > > Not to jump in on a conversation between you and John, but since you > posted publicly, I figure it would be okay. > > I wanted to point out, that in the middle school, there is a distinction > between the listed teachers (from the enrollment report) and sections that > are on John's chart. I have a son who is in 6th grade (60 in his class). > In the enrollment report you linked to (the 2022 Enrollment Report), it > indicates that there are 4 groups, what I'll call 'homerooms' each led by a > teacher (4 listed there). But when they go to class, he says they only > have 3 sections, of about 20 in each section. This seems to match the > chart that John included in his email, which specifies sections. I think > in the middle school, the teacher ratio gets a little more confusing since > some subject teachers teach one grade, some multiple, and also specialists > (who could teach multiple grades) as opposed to in the elementary school > where the 'homeroom' teachers, for the most part, teach all subjects to > their class (but also some specials here too). While I understand your > argument, I don't think it's quite as simple as just cutting a section. > > As a staffing side note, the town probably also doesn't want to get into a > situation where, say you decide to cut a section of a grade and then have a > teacher who teaches across the middle school grades with a < 1 FTE load. To > which I think the natural tendency for those teachers would be to go look > for other employment when they can get a full time position. So there is a > balance there as well. Just some food for thought. > > To a large extent, while public Lincoln Talk discussions are entertaining, > real change happens in the committee, which is an elected position. I'll go > back to the statement that if folks are unhappy with the direction of the > school and want some impact, the more productive course of action is to run > for a seat, state your opinions and views, and see if there is a large > enough group of folks who share that view. That's the real mandate for > change, otherwise, the committee really has no idea if this is like 1/2 the > town feels this way or it is just a select vocal minority. > > - Andy > > >
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