By Laura

July 18, 2007 12:49 AM | Link to this

That is what I was told by several special subject (art, music) teachers who lost their jobs. When they asked in an information meeting if they might get their jobs back after the levy passed, they were told there was no plan to bring back the special subjects ( in the elementary schools) in the way they had been even when the levy passed.

By Concerned Mom of 3

July 14, 2007 1:00 AM | Link to this

To Laura- Where did you get the information that DPS does not ever intend to offer Art, Music and PE as we knew it?

By null

July 13, 2007 2:23 AM | Link to this

To a classroom teacher - All of the things you listed are greatly needed in Dayton and absolutely much more valuable than a coach will ever be but they can not be paid for with the money that pays for the coaches and/or interventionists. The Federal Government puts restrictions on how the Title I money can be spent. If the district misuses the money, they can be required to pay it back. Where would the district be then. Try to remember, the interventionist is a teacher just like you. They may not do all of the same things but they have to other things that you are not responsible for. They also pay the same DEA dues as you.

By former coach

July 13, 2007 1:39 AM | Link to this

Okay. I need to apologize. I did not make the point I wanted to. There are many wonderful teachers in the district who are the hardest working people I know. But, we all must admit, that there are some teachers who are either putting in time until they can retire or don’t do everything they can do to teach the children of Dayton, or go only by the book and don’t modify instruction to meet the needs of the students. There were some coaches who did “act” as an assistant to the principal and that should never have happened. There were coaches who took students from classrooms to work in small groups, team taught with teachers, planned professional development at the building level, wrote lesson plans with teachers, found resources to use in the classroom, helped with IAT referrals, took teachers’ classes so they could meet with parents, psychologists, etc… The coaches who are now intervention teachers will help all of the teachers who will have overloaded classes. They will take small groups, team teach, etc… They may not have a homeroom but they will make up for it in the amount of duties they are assigned. If they don’t, it is up to the teachers to file a grievence instead of sitting back and taking it. If it bothers you so much, stand up and speak up. Things will not change if you just accept it. From the tone of the postings about coaches, it sounds like many of you just let it happen.

By Laura

July 12, 2007 11:46 PM | Link to this

To Appalled: Get used to it. I was told that DPS has no intention of ever returning art, music or pe to the schools in the manner we were used to. Technically, if there are no art, music or pe teachers, the classroom teacher is supposed to “fill in”. I can tell you right now what will happen. Teachers will be told to keep that to a minimum and use the time for academics. To Teacher mom: You are absolutely right about coaches (and anyone else they can get) being used as assistant administrators. That is ALL one of our coaches did last year. We were so fed up with her always doing for the principal that some of us started asking her for “help”. She’d tell us she’d be there and never show up or show up once and then be “called away”. What a joke. We had no workshops or training, she NEVER came in our classes, even when we asked, the only thing she did for us was to copy standards or pass out training info from Dr. Brown. The other coach wasn’t much better. The biggest problem is the directive that says “and any other work as assigned or determined by the principal.” Read: My personal assistant! This obviously wasn’t just in one building. It was all over.

By greener

July 12, 2007 11:07 PM | Link to this

lets see the business community is going to pay 100,000.00 to have an outside source to look over the books on the dayton schl.board to see if they did a good job,if this happens I would think that those above support staff & teachers need to start looking for another job to leach off OF!

By Appalled and Concerned Mom of 3

July 12, 2007 7:04 PM | Link to this

I am appalled that there will be no levy on the November ballot… Two years without regular Art, Music, PE, and Instrumental Music instruction!!!??? I don’t like that at all. It is so wrong for the students of DPS. The district needs to continue to feed the very successful Arts programs like the one at Stivers. Without strong elementary arts programs, the district is setting itself up to fail. It is a shame to see the district shooting itself in the foot. I think a smaller levy in November has a chance of passing. I vote we put a smaller levy on the ballot in November and see if we can fix programming for 2007 instead of waiting until 2008… The kids are the ones to loose services for another whole year… That is so wrong.

By Appalled DPS Teacher

July 12, 2007 12:40 PM | Link to this

The unprofessional and unkind comments made by the “coaches” regarding other DPS teachers and their alleged inability to teach are astonishing. Curiously, you both made Null’s point - by going to many different schools, the “coaches” will be less “helpful” than before to our students. I was unaware that “coaches” were contracted to rescue these alleged non-performing classroom teachers but that was interesting news. You should not be surprised that many (if not most) of the “regular” classroom teachers question your integrity about this issue and many other issues that confront DPS at this time. As for consultants, I’d like to see their report soon and I’d like it to be read in public at a board meeting.

By a classroom teacher

July 12, 2007 12:35 PM | Link to this

In re: d and former coach - Yes, now many of you are “intervention teachers”. Maybe the reinvented positions you hold will mean that you will be working directly with children, making lesson plans, and having a set schedule for which you are held responsible. However, you will most likely not have any homerooms, be responsible for grades, be required to contact parents, be responsible for paperwork and processes to refer children to IAT or fulfill IEPs, etc. It may be easy for you to “get over it” because your responsibilities will be limited. Yes, there is resentment toward the coaches and there will continue to be regardless of your new titles or whatever position you now hold. Too many of us lowly teachers see resources that are desperately needed for students being squandered in positions for coaches, liasons, consultants, administrators, etc. We are in desperate need of teachers, mental health professionals, volunteer tutors and mentors, security personnel, nurses, social workers, speech and hearing therapists. When we have all that we need for basic services; supplies for our students; when students are held to behavior standards that are set forth already in our code of conduct we will “be over it”. And you don’t have to worry about us concentrating on the kids coming on August 6th. They’ll be in OUR overcrowded homerooms.

By null

July 12, 2007 10:45 AM | Link to this

I am not blaming the coaches. I am blaming the administration for hiring the coaches. But I admit, I’ve never understood the concept of full-time teacher coaches. Teams don’t take their best players off the team and put them on the sidelines to coach unless they can’t play. We need the “coaches” in the classroom teaching students.

By Eric

July 12, 2007 7:59 AM | Link to this

Another thing… The board is contracting out to a Florida consultant firm, the city is contracting out a cin-city headhunter to find the next police chief…..and Mr Elliott just did a story on the school construction isn’t meeting the local company standards they promised. Is there anything that the city feels the city can do on it’s own without contracting out tax money to other area businesses?

By charterschoolhater

July 12, 2007 12:31 AM | Link to this

Hey DPS Parent. No kidding? I know that that they want to pay for a consultant. What I was trying to say is this is a terrible waste of money. Comprende`?

By former coach

July 11, 2007 7:29 PM | Link to this

To Null - If you have coaches assigned to your building it is because the “regional” coaches will be assigned to a home school. They will be there maybe one or two days a week. There are NO academic coaches left in the elementary buildings. Let’s see what happens now. Who is going to help those teachers who we all know can’t teach but DEA protects. How many coaches have “saved” those teachers from being put on an improvement plan. Stop blaming the coaches for the financial problems in the district. You can not use Title I funds to pay for classroom teachers so get over it! Start focusing on how we are going to teach these children who will be at our doors on Aug. 6.

By sdswith5

July 11, 2007 6:32 PM | Link to this

This article appears in today’s Commercial Appeal from Memphis, TN. In recent years, Memphis has had identical urban school problems to those of Dayton until they brought in a great superintendent, Dr. Carol Johnson. She will be leaving soon for a new position and this article addresses “the search.” It’s important to see what other cities in similiar situations have done to correct and continue their public school issues. We need to learn from them rather than bicker amongst ourselves. Memphis City Schools are at a historic tipping point. Soon the commissioners on the Board of Education will select a new superintendent, and in these critical times we cannot afford to settle for a merely “good enough” leader. Great cities have great schools to help draw new business and talent. For too long, we have endured city leaders in Memphis who seem to feel the public is satisfied with substandard schools and low student performance, especially for children living in poverty. To borrow a phrase President Bush has used in a different context, this is the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” and it is certainly not good enough for Memphis. We need a leader for our schools who inspires public trust, brings community resources to bear in solving difficult issues, and invites all of us into the challenge of ensuring that “every classroom is as good as our best.” As veterans of big-city school administrations seeking change, we would like to respectfully submit our short list of priorities for the MCS board commissioners to consider when selecting our next superintendent. Have funding follow the child. Critical-care kids need higher levels of support if they are to improve, much like patients in an intensive care unit at a hospital have more nursing support. We recently visited with the former superintendent of San Francisco Unified School District, Arlene Ackerman, who had remarkable success in improving that city’s struggling schools. One of her secrets was to have dollars follow children to their schools — a kind of public school voucher system. A normally developing child receives one unit of funding, while students with special learning or physical needs receive an incrementally larger unit of funding. In this way schools with higher percentages of children with special needs receive the funds they need for additional teachers, training and materials. By the way, San Francisco trimmed back central administration (instead of a cosmetic reshuffling of staff) so more dollars were available to the schools. It worked. Attack poverty issues. Memphis is home to three of the poorest ZIP codes in America, and the highest infant mortality rate in the industrialized world. Poverty has a catastrophic effect on student learning. It negatively affects oral language development and child health, produces high levels of food insecurity and hunger (you can’t teach a hungry child), and leads to high student mobility where students frequently switch schools. In a major study on urban reading instruction, we learned that parent involvement determines success or failure for their children. Too many times parents living at the poverty level are written off as incompetent or disinterested. Not true. There are many new strategies that can be taught, even to illiterate parents, that will help their children succeed. There are also verve and cultural strength to be tapped in all Memphis families, and everyone should be involved in ways that are socioculturally appropriate. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we can’t get to the “promised land” without them. Invest in teachers and principals. Solid research confirms that skilled teachers have the most impact in educating children. Yet the newest and least prepared teachers typically staff our most difficult classrooms, and receive the least support. This leads to student failure and high turnover rates in the teaching force — a real tragedy when we need dependable “boots on the ground.” Most urban superintendents respond by investing tax dollars heavily in commercial programs instead of their teachers. This never works because there is no one-size-fits-all solution that meets all children’s needs. Logic tells us that we need the most capable teachers assigned to our most challenging classrooms. Research projects in both Dallas and Memphis inner-city schools confirm that students make the most rapid improvement in reading when the school district provides deep training and support to teachers and principals. This mirrors training models used by many high-tech corporations for keeping scientists and engineers on the cutting edge. The next superintendent should study the effects of investing in teacher capacity-building on student achievement and teacher retention. Similar research led to MCS and the University of Memphis receiving a federal $16 million “Striving Readers” grant last year for some of our middle schools. Every classroom as good as our best. We recall an ad campaign by Memphis-based Holiday Inns saying travelers can count on every room in the chain being “as good as our best.” Every classroom in Memphis should likewise be as good as our best … but isn’t. Our son formerly taught Spanish at Manassas High School in a room with broken windows and paint peeling in large sheets off the walls. We have to believe that parents of White Station High School students, for example, would rightfully be up in arms if their children were attending Manassas or many other MCS schools next year. The new superintendent should be committed to refurbishing or closing substandard buildings that are not as good as our best. Our kids deserve no less. Robert Cooter is professor of reading and urban literacy education and Kathleen Cooter is associate professor of special education at the University of Memphis.

By teachermom

July 11, 2007 6:20 PM | Link to this

Why in the world would DPS want a cosultant hired by the Business Community ? Are these the same companies who welcomed “School Choice ?” I am very leery of how biased this report could be. Why doesn’t DPS just take the advice the STATE has already given them. They have already been told they were topheavy in Administration . Who’s to say the auditing won’t be done through a “Buddy Network” that will tell DPS Board whatever they want to hear ? Do people really believe that every record will be turned over for inspection. I am sure there is a hidden agenda here somewhere. As far as coaches are concerned, I’m sure the ones remaining are as good as Assistant Principals. Call them what you want, many of them were already doing administrative duties before and you can bet that will be the majority of what they will be doing now that our Assistant Principals are gone.

By Caroline

July 11, 2007 6:10 PM | Link to this

Hmmmmm, I’d like to see what those new literacy specialists are going to do. I have no doubt that some of the coaches do their jobs, but certainly not the ones assigned to my school!!! It would be great to have someone at school who would actually help the teacher rather than torture them.

By d

July 11, 2007 2:46 PM | Link to this

Null, There are NO full time coaches in the school buildings this year. Most former literacy and math coaches are now intervention teachers who will be working with students in reading and math, along with other responsibilities determined by the principal. There are 4-5 coaches in literacy and math who will be traveling around the district, none will be full time in the buildings. So there will be additional people in the buildings who can now work with students.

By Dave

July 11, 2007 11:30 AM | Link to this

The best reason to hire an outside consultant is that local business leaders know how to run their own businesses, but not necessarily how to run a school system. You don’t buy an engagement ring at Burger King and you wouldn’t ask the manager at Walmart to take out your appendix. If business leaders pay an INDEPENDENT consultant to examine the school system, they hire someone with the right background, with the time to dig into the school system, and that consultant is not “owned” by the school system.

By bobbino

July 11, 2007 11:18 AM | Link to this

The decision to delay another DPS levy attempt and the public relations messages by Montgomery County Human Sevices on television are early warning of the levy campaign to come. Prepare yourself for the guilt you will be made to feel should you choose to vote against the human services levy.

By null

July 11, 2007 10:55 AM | Link to this

How many years has it been since the district last hired a consultant to help “trim” costs? I seem to remember the report being very clear that administration needs to be cut. I am a Dayton teacher returning to a building that had many teachers cut. Our school day is shortened, yet we have one more full-time “coach” than last year. Our current staff roster shows THREE full-time “coaches.” This is not a game. Take that money and return the much needed asst. principal to the building. I have many times been inspired by fellow teachers working diligently at the same job as I, but not by any of the “coaches.” If they’re so good, give them students to teach and lower class-sizes.

By DPSParent

July 11, 2007 9:36 AM | Link to this

Charterschoolhater Did you read the article? The Local business leaders will pay for the study in place doing the evaluating the schools. This is how they want to lend a hand.

By David

July 11, 2007 8:56 AM | Link to this

If the business community can afford to pay for consultants they can afford to directly give the money to the schools to do things to fix the many problems they’ve caused themselves. Leave the 500,000 consultants out of the loop. If the human services levy is the problem, they need to think again. I saw Isaacs interviewed last night and her body language was tentative as she spoke. The Human Services shouldn’t ask for an increase with the huge payments they gave Szolke in the alcohol sector and then reemployed him. They could have saved money putting a lower paid newer worker there. Human services can save the public interest commercials out of public money they’ve been running to try to puff up for the levy campaign. That makes it worse. Some people in the county aren’t pushovers for the sympathy vote. But Dayton Schools should have asked for a smaller temporary levy to use while they continued cutting down and looking at their self-made problems.

By Eric

July 11, 2007 7:53 AM | Link to this

It’s a political move….they want outside confirmation that they done what they can so that they can show the voters. They don’t want honesty, they want to be told what they want to hear so that they have “proof” in 2008. If this isn’t the case, then it should be rather easy to ask the board to have an open policy for the public on ALL drafts that the consultant firm gives to the board. What are the chances of that happenning?

By D.T.

July 11, 2007 7:28 AM | Link to this

Charterschoolhater, the only problem with what you said is that Scott said the district use a consultant if “business leaders agree to fund an outside consultant�s study of its operations.” that would not be a waste of taxpayers dollars. it would however answer the complaints that DPS is too top-heavy.

By charterschoolhater

July 10, 2007 11:00 PM | Link to this

I really do not know why a consultant is a necessary expense. We have plenty of business people in the community who I am sure would be happy tp lend a hand in evaluating what the Dayton Public Schools needs to do in order to run a leaner operation. The problem with a consultant is they all too often tell you what you want to hear. Not what you need to hear. a total waste of our tax dollars to hire one if you ask me.