ELECTION 2012 JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - 15
Teton County School District No. 1 Board of Education Four seats open, four-year term Closed campus
Foreign language instruction
Teacher housing
I am not opposed to it. It is a privilege and not a right. However, there are a number of factors that must be considered, such as cafeteria space and capacity, student opportunities for clubs, teacher support, staff utilization and logistics, student tardiness and safety. Incentives for students to make it more valuable to be on campus than away was a suggestion from a past student.
Most people in other parts of the world speak more than one language. Our world has fewer boundaries due to technological advances. The ability to communicate through technology or face to face is critical. Our dualimmersion program has been successful and continues to grow. It would be appropriate to review and determine if it might be expanded beyond the current option — more students, which language, what grade levels.
The Schwabacher project was in the works when I was elected to the board four years ago. ... Teacher turnover is costly to the district — training, lack of continuity, etc. The possibility of providing teacher housing or “teacherage” could be beneficial to the district if the county sees the challenges from several years ago impacting the ability to attract or retain quality staff.
Teaching to a test is a disservice to the student and the teacher. Some students are effective test takers, and some are not. It is not always a skill that can be taught or learned. The student who does not test well on a standardized testing format may be able to convey knowledge in another manner. Both should receive credit and be praised for success. Any accountability measure should take those variances into account.
I am not a fan of more traffic if we can prevent it. I think we should worry about the quarter-mile-long stream of cars with engines running for 40 minutes every afternoon from October to May. Environmentally, it is deplorable, and there is not instruction that I have seen to curb it. Perhaps we as a town could be more involved.
I’ve always felt all the classrooms should have Spanish ... and all the kids should have access. Kids who don’t have language today are going to have a huge deficit when they graduate. The first couple of years where they learn the accent will be a tremendous assistance when they get older.
Jackson Hole is one community, and I believe that the town and the county should be more involved in the planning aspect of these issues. We make better decisions for the entire community when everyone’s expertise is utilized.
Teacher accountability should be based on growth of a child’s learning. Johnny might come in at 30 percent and double his learning to 60 percent. Mrs. Smith may have just pulled off one of the greatest feats in child learning and development, yet she would still appear statistically subpar because the national testing requires all children to reach, say, 80 percent proficiency. ... Testing is like manure: A little manure will make the grass grow green, too much will kill it.
This is a great idea. It will limit or eliminates tardies ... after lunch and enable the district lunch program to have some certainty as to the number of kids it will serve from day to day. Many disciplinary problems will be avoided if the students come to school in the morning and stay at school until released. ... It will be examined in 2012-13 as a privilege to determine whether seniors (not juniors) should have the privilege extended.
[The district] encourages foreignlanguage training with the dualimmersion program, which is really cutting-edge. I would love to see a greater variety of languages available to our high school students; however, funding is limited. Thankfully, there are online opportunities that offer highschool credit for language studies in many languages. ... It is really a marvelous skill.
I do not believe that teachers are now priced out of the housing market. I do not believe that the school district should be involved [in] the development business. ... One of the problems with going ahead with this project was funding. Also, if a teacher were to qualify and purchase a home, if he or she left the school district, the former teacher would have to sell within 90 days. And in all likelihood, it would be the school district that would have to buy him or her out. ... This is pretty onerous.
There are a lot of components to good teaching that aren’t reflected in the test scores. ... Test scores cannot be the sum total of the accountability ideal. Certainly, if kids are able to respond effectively in class and really learn to be lifelong learners, that to me is as important as test scores.
It is a great idea. There is no reason for such a long lunch period necessitated by allowing them to leave. Many students return late, which not only affects their education but is disruptive to the rest of the class. Taking 10 minutes away from lunch leaves more time for teaching and learning. ... That being said, I think there are other creative ways we could offer other lunch options.
I am concerned that we do not offer enough variety of foreign language to our students. I think about the countries that are or will be the most populated and the largest trading partners for our children’s generation. ... I think we should consider offering classes that will help them succeed in the ever-growing global economy. It would be nice to see the district offer languages such as Mandarin, Russian, Hindi and even French or German.
There are several other organizations in the county that deal specifically with workforce housing, and I question whether it would be more efficient and appropriate for them to deal with the district’s workforce housing issues. ... I also am concerned about offering housing to only 11 teachers (and their families). I can imagine how this disproportionate benefit would affect the other staff.
The responsibility for educating our students primarily rests on teachers and, consequently, administrators. However, without support and encouragement of the students’ families, this effort can be impaired. ... I am in favor of utilizing tools other than simply testing, if we are able to under the government guidelines. However, testing is an important tool if it is used the right way to highlight areas where students need additional assistance or where they need further challenge.
From what I know at the present time, I think closing the campus seems a good idea. The present policy ... of trying to use limited open policy as a reward for high GPA is not fair anyway. For some students, it’s easy (or at least achievable) to get a high GPA. For others, there may not much chance of that for all sorts of reasons beyond not working hard.
I think dual immersion is a good idea, particularly for developing fluency in a language, but at some point, more formal grammar and reading (vocabulary-building) must be taught as well. A familiarity with some differences in the language in different countries is helpful as well. ... Other languages could be offered as well, depending on demand and ability to find a qualified teacher.
If private developers are being required to provide affordable and employee housing in their developments to take care of impacts, which they are, then government entities should also. Another key issue is ... the type of housing product. I am not inclined to provide single-family houses but, rather, a townhouse or other multifamily housing. That way, more housing can probably be provided at the same cost of subsidy.
The idea of holding teachers accountable for the learning levels of their students, particularly any standardized test, is fraught with perils. ... The potential for making really big errors is there if we are not measuring the important things. Using the standardized tests, even with all sorts of adjustments and factors to take care of statistical issues, just does not do the right job for evaluating teachers. In addition, the temptation is there on the part of teachers to try to teach to the test. All this said, we do have to comply with mandates from the state and federal government.
Open-campus lunch allows students from all four grades to eat at the same time. ... If closing campus to upperclassmen would require staggering the lunch period, it would have an adverse impact on the ability of students across the grades to participate in the same clubs as one another and to specialize their academic schedules and interact with students from other grades in those classes. ... A move to a fully closed campus would place a significant burden on our food service workers, effectively doubling the number of students requiring lunch every day.
Students who learn a second language in early grades are more successful in other subject areas and develop tools that help them throughout their education. In an increasingly globalized world, we need to ensure that our students will be competitive as they move on to higher education and to jobs and even the military. Foreign language instruction is a solid first step toward providing them with the tools they need to communicate effectively on whatever path they take.
When I was on the school board, I supported using the Schwabacher plot for staff housing. That said, with the shift in the economy, staff salaries and other factors, I don’t know what recent board decisions have been regarding this parcel. If elected, I will work with my fellow board members to evaluate current needs to help determine the best use of the property.
The district should make sure that students have the foundation for success to take to their lives beyond high school, but the measure of that readiness is not standardized testing in the frequency and format currently in place. We all know that students have different learning and retention abilities, and it takes skilled educators to evaluate their students and assist them in getting the most of the subjects being taught. Evaluating the success of any educator with a one-size-fits-all test is, in my mind, lacking some validity.
Farrow
Larrow
Mead
Russell
Varley
Yasrobi
Accountability and testing