Reform school

Ooops, I meant school reform.

Actually, what our new principal is doing under the directive of "school reform" makes a lot of sense, and a lot of what doesn't make sense he doesn't have control over (eg., central admin, state inspectors...). As a school in its fifth year of "failing" under No Child Left Behind, we are supposed to "restructure." Actually, this has been taking place for the past year, although we don't know yet, of course, whether it will make our school reach the NCLB-designated "adequate yearly progress" on its test scores. I think the changes under the new principal have been positive--the general consensus among us teachers is high praise for the three administrators--but the fact is we don't have the staffing or financial or infrastructural resources to adequately address our high proportion of English language learners and low literacy students. We just do our best with what we have, we really do.

The latest effort is to create committees to address six aspects of the school: professional development, security, curriculum and instruction, parental involvment, community relations, and technology infusion. At the time I signed up, about half the teachers already had, and I was the only one at that point signing up for the technology committee. I won't be alone though; I'm sure the present and former tech teachers/coordinators will join it. I hope this committee will help in terms of our getting better equipment and my being able to effectively link research with technology instruction.