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Blog: FCAR
Speakout
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By Chris Spiliotis
Seminole County Teacher
February 11, 2007
Given the spate of F#&% editorials in the papers this weekend, I thought that
this might be the time to tell my story about how the emphasis on F#&% has
affected the instruction of my ESE students and my teaching career.
After 18 years as a teacher of self-contained classes for emotionally disabled
students in a high school in my district, I had the opportunity to play a part
in the establishment of a stand-alone, magnet school (specializing in
information technology).
I had served under my new principal when she was an assistant principal
responsible for ESE at the aforementioned high school. While there, she had
earned her doctorate in ESE law and had led an ESE department that was very
successful in providing for the special needs of its special populations (ED,
SLD, EMD, VI, HI, S/L). I served, for a period of time, as the department chair.
I decided that I'd "follow" her and help to build the new school.
Our new magnet school implemented an inclusion model in which all our ESE
students (SLD, ED, HI, S/l), all moderately disabled, received all their
instruction in mainstream classrooms (standard, honors, AP). I served as the
inclusion specialist charged with providing supportive facilitation in said
classrooms and providing resource class type services when needed.
Since none of our ESE students were enrolled in ESE classes, we did not receive
heightened funding for their instruction. The district funded my position at
60%, but for four years my principal was able to find additional funding for the
balance of my full-time position.
After some disappointing school-wide performances on F#&% exams and a mandate
for more reading coaches and teachers, my principal informed me that she would
not be able to fund the extra 40% to pay for a full-time position. My students
and their teachers would have to make due with part-time services. I was
compelled to leave my position and transfer to a special center for the
instruction of severely emotionally disabled students (SED).
Last year, my first at the center, I provided physical education instruction for
about one-third of our students. Even though there was a concerted effort to
raise F#&% writing scores, I was freed, to a certain degree, to concentrate on
my students' more pressing individual needs because PE standards are not tested
by the F#&%.
This year, since none of our students have "passed" the F#&%, many have been
enrolled in remedial reading and math courses. Elective class offerings have
declined even at our special center. Now, I provide PE instruction to only
one-tenth of our students.
As you might imagine, our special center has never received monetary rewards
through the A+ School Recognition Program, nor do we teachers ever expect to
earn STAR (Special Teachers Are Rewarded)
performance-pay. Yet, the administration and teachers at our center still are
passionately dedicated to meeting the special needs of our students, despite
reduced planning time and increased F#&% staff
trainings (three out of four meetings per month). With severely emotionally
disabled students, we have little choice but to place their needs first.
But how well are other schools and teachers meeting the needs of more moderately
disabled students and of "regular" students?
As long as F#&% is the high-stakes, end all-be all, students' needs will be
secondary to the politics of ideologues and the profit motive. How should F#&%
be reformed? Use it only as a diagnostic tool. Make the needs of all students
the primary concern!
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