Dear Editor:
I find it very apropos that you should be taking responsibility for the middle school scheduling failure at the Board of Education meeting this Thursday, September 10, 7:00 p.m. at Parsippany High School. I expect you will provide a substantive, yet biased report to the Board of Education and answer questions superficially as to what went wrong with the Middle School scheduling debacle.
I, having served on the Middle School Scheduling Committee, feel that there is no excuse for this disaster. I specifically recall that you and Eileen Hoehne were in a big hurry to change the middle school schedules. You simply wanted to know if our committee recommended 8 or 9 periods a day.
We, as a committee of dedicated professionals and parents had the students’ quality of education first and foremost in our minds. We brought to the table numerous concerns, then asked for another year for our committee to research solutions; followed by a realistic timeline for a small trial implementation of the proposed scheduling plan. This was denied.
When making a drastic change in middle school scheduling, if you had truly taken the time to read all of our extensive research, to heed our insight into the plethora of complicating factors that exist, and to competently and responsibly prepare a plan for this transition, based upon your and staff members’ longitudinal knowledge of how our middle school functions, I believe you would have never ended up in this situation.
You have achieved an utter fiasco: eliminating recess, reducing physical education, reading and writing, chorus, band, and significantly limiting the number of new electives that the children can actually fit in their schedules. Now instead of engaging in active learning for 8 classes 5 days a week, children have to sit 10 minutes longer in each period. They have 3 or 4 classes that only meet 3 days per week and/or numerous study halls, where there is nothing available to put in their schedules.
Do you realize how much stress your hasty, action, with lack of preparation has placed upon the students, guidance counselors, and teachers? I am not fooled by your semantic deception. Grouping children together in several classes is not defined as team. I understand the new schedules have essentially dissolved the core teaching teams that each grade had. Teachers have little to no prep time nor time to meet because there is no team in their schedules. Some are teaching three or four new, different core curriculums, to not only different teams, but also across different grade levels.
I am giving you this opportunity to prepare a detailed, objective statement on just how many children actually received full middle school schedules with the new electives that they were promised? How much extra is it costing the district to design these schedules and now have Genesis and PTHSD personnel, attempt to correct all the problems that you still have not solved? Most importantly, can you please explain how your new scheduling system has improved the teaching team model and quality of our students’ education?
Arlene M. Sklow
Concerned Parent and Educator
