Renewed Parent Frustration and More Poor Decision-Making from District Administrators

Implementing new teaching methods can be a wonderful way to spark a student’s interest or create a better and more thorough understanding of material. It can just as easily lead to confusion, frustration and lessened motivation for learning, which is what we have seen over the past two to three years in our district with the move first to the Consultative Collaborative Model (CCM), and more recently with Building the Thinking Classroom for Math (BTC).

The CCM placed nearly all students in a general education setting. In this model, children with IEPs, 504s or who need other specialized help are placed in the general education classroom with (most often) a special education teacher who splits their time between two classes for each block. Students are expected to utilize the ALL (Academic Learning Lounge) for extra help. While some did well, for others it was a neutral experience, and for some it has been a failure.

The district used the CCM to present itself to the state as an exemplar of inclusion, receiving recognition as such, while more than a few parents expressed concern and even anger over their children’s experiences. The district remains committed to this model, with much public celebration, while quietly going back to having a couple classrooms based on learning ability after parents fought for their kids.

We are seeing the same now with BTC, but in the case of this new method of learning, the outcry from parents has been louder, as proportionately the number of students who are being affected negatively is much larger. BTC is based on 14 principles created by Peter Liljedahl. They can be found at the end of this article. The clamour from parents became loud enough that the district hurriedly put together a parent presentation for November 1st. The presentation, which should have been done when this method was first initiated, had been slated to take place in the cafeteria at GL, but was moved to the auditorium when the number of RSVPs exceeded seating capacity. That should have been a wake-up call for our administration. Parents were encouraged to submit questions ahead of time, and many did.

As roughly 100 parents filled the auditorium the night of the meeting, they sat patiently as the math supervisor, Drew Ziobro, led a slideshow and short teacher presentation. After 57 minutes, he then answered fewer than five pre-selected questions, having left only three minutes for this portion. The meeting was then shut down with ZERO opportunity for any live questions or parent feedback. For those who were in attendance, the reactions ranged from a mixture of resignation at what they had known would happen, concern over unanswered questions, and quite a bit of hostility and anger, which boiled forth as Mr. Ziobro refused further contact and Dr. Varley sat quietly watching.

In both cases, CCM and BTC, the administration left parents almost completely in the dark. When CCM was brought forth, the parents of students with IEPs were informed by their case managers, who had very little direct information to share. In the case of BTC, parents only realized there had been a change of instructional method when their kids began to see a drastic and rapid decline in their math grades as more teaching staff began to apply the principles in their classrooms. When pressed by parents asking for help in the matter, Superintendent Varley and other district administrators have dismissive, intractable, and they deny that there is a problem. Dr. Varley even went so far as to say, “It just wouldn’t be appropriate for a parent to weigh in on instruction. That’s our job as the district”. At the same time, the district is refusing to weigh in on the inequitable way the BTC method is being applied.

It is understandable for parents to be reluctant to come out swinging. Many have not yet experienced the indifference of our administration and prefer a collaborative approach. Parent fears include having their children retaliated against, being perceived as trouble-makers, or finding themselves at odds with friends and neighbors. It is understandable that parents aren’t willing to spend three or four hours sitting at a BOE meeting only to be limited to three minutes of speaking time, and to have questions left unanswered, partially answered, or misinterpreted, with no opportunity for dialogue – you know, a two-way exchange.

In the case of BTC, parents have been talking to each other, and information is being gathered; information that contradicts the district’s public claims. It has become apparent that BTC principles are being unevenly applied by teaching staff, leading to poor outcomes for students in a handful of classes, yet Dr. Varely and Mr. Ziobro refuse to intervene, stating “teaching is an art”. Yes, but not everyone is an artist. Instead of encouraging teachers to pool experiences and arrive at some kind of standard, which in turn would lead to a greater success of this new teaching method, they are turning a blind eye, effectively ensuring the model will be a dismal failure for many students. At the same time, they are redefining what it means for a student to be achieving success within the model, insisting that the number of students struggling has been reduced from about 100 to 25. This ignores the fact that parents are hiring tutors and some teachers have offered re-testing and extra credit as a way to raise grades. The pretense and disinformation has reached Mount Everest levels.

Given all this, how can we expect to have any hope of being seen as partners in our children’s education? How do we improve communication and collaboration between families and those who are responsible for the direction of our district when top administrators stubbornly refuse to participate? This author maintains that it is time for a change at the top. This refusal to let parents be involved, time and time again, should be taken into consideration. This is our children we are fighting for. How much do you care?

The fourteen principles for Building a Thinking Classroom in Math are as follows:

1. The type of tasks used: Lessons should begin with good problem solving tasks. In the beginning of the school year, these tasks need to be highly engaging, non-curricular tasks. Later these are gradually replaced with curricular problem solving tasks that then permeate the entirety of the lesson.

2. How tasks are given to students: As much as possible, tasks should be given verbally. If there are data, diagrams, or long expressions in the task, these can be written or projected on a wall, but instructions should still be given verbally.

3. How groups are formed: At the beginning of every class, a visibly random method should be used to create groups of three students who will work together for the duration of the class.

4. Student work space: Groups should stand and work on vertical non-permanent surfaces such as whiteboards, blackboards, or windows. This makes the work visible to the teacher and other groups.

5. Room organization: The classroom should be de-fronted, with desks placed in a random configuration around the room—away from the walls—and the teacher addressing the class from a variety of locations within the room.

6. How questions are answered: Students ask only three types of questions: proximity questions, asked when the teacher is close; “stop thinking” questions—like “Is this right?” or “Will this be on the test?”; and “keep thinking” questions—ones that students ask in order to be able to get back to work. The teacher should answer only the third type of question.

7. How hints and extensions are used: The teacher should maintain student engagement through a judicious and timely use of hints and extensions to maintain a balance between the challenge of the task and the abilities of the students working on it.

8. Student autonomy: Students should interact with other groups frequently, for the purposes of both extending their work and getting help. As much as possible, the teacher should encourage this interaction by directing students toward other groups when they’re stuck or need an extension.

9. When and how a teacher levels their classroom: When every group has passed a minimum threshold, the teacher should pull the students together to debrief what they have been doing. This should begin at a level that every student in the room can participate in.

10. Student notes: Students should write thoughtful notes to their future selves. They should have autonomy as to what goes in the notes and how they’re formatted. The notes should be based on the work already on the boards done by their own group, another group, or a combination.

11. Practice questions: Students should be assigned four to six questions to check their understanding. They should have freedom to work on these questions in self-selected groups or on their own, and on the vertical non-permanent surfaces or at their desks. The questions should not be marked or checked for completeness—they’re for the students’ self-evaluation.

12. Formative assessment: Formative assessment should be focused primarily on informing students about where they are and where they’re going in their learning. This will require a number of different activities, from observation to check-your-understanding questions to unmarked quizzes where the teacher helps students decode their demonstrated understandings.

13. Summative assessment: Summative assessment should focus more on the processes of learning than on the products, and should include the evaluation of both group and individual work. Summative assessment should not in any way have a focus on ranking students.

14. Reporting out: Reporting out of students’ performance should be based not on the counting of points but on the analysis of the data collected for each student within a reporting cycle. The data need to be analyzed on a differentiated basis and focused on discerning the learning a student has demonstrated.

©Peter Liljedahl