Fresno Unified School District teachers and students face a crisis involving discipline and teacher planning time.
The district’s policy of ignoring student behaviors which are disrespectful, disruptive and dangerous in order to avoid suspensions while overcrowding classrooms is a threat to student safety and success.
Planning time is also critical. Teachers are having more and more of their time tied up in training. They receive great ideas, but little time to process and implement them. Thus 25 percent or so of these expensive trainings produce no results.
The planning time teachers do have is done in groups and streamlined toward the mass, not toward the specific needs of your children. As a result, teachers are working later and later and still not finding time to complete grades, set up parent conferences, prep for testing, tutor struggling students, and adapt lessons to their specific classrooms.
Fresno now wants to mandate longer teacher hours on campus. Longer hours will translate into more meetings and less prep time. Intentions are good, but the cost is overwhelmed teachers and hastily planned lessons.
What’s best for kids? Structured discipline, no overcrowding and quality lessons.
Melinda Bohannon, Sanger