With A Brooklyn Accent: Summer School Nightmare- Turning Up the Head on "Student Achievement"

With A Brooklyn Accent: Summer School Nightmare- Turning Up the Head on "Student Achievement":
Summer School Nightmare- Turning Up the Heat on "Student Achievement"

NOTE: This was written by a teacher in a high poverty district somewhere in the Midwest. Child and Teacher Abuse in full effect

 A time to maintain achievement, right? To prevent the "summer slide" and keep students engaged and excited about learning. After all, it's building relationships with our students that can extend far beyond the confines of classroom walls.

 But what happens when the school offering summer school has no air conditioning? Does that sound beneficial? Healthy? Safe? Temperatures inside the classroom reading 98 degrees on the thermostat. How about that for the student with Epilepsy who's seizures are triggered by heat exhaustion and dehydration. Sound safe? Healthy? Beneficial?

 If that doesn't have your attention, let's turn up the heat a little more. Requiring teachers to supervise lunch for the students but not allowing them to eat. Not allowing them to sit down. Oh no, teachers must waste instructional time. While students eat inside the fiery furnace called the cafeteria, their teachers are commanded to stand and do flash cards or another educational task. Teachers are expected to not only suffer these conditions themselves, but to sit by and watch their students suffer, too. Every minute counts, right? Don't waste precious time walking kids to the drinking fountain, either. The water is not only warm, it's "against district policy" to use instructional time in too many transitions.

 Yes, the fire has been lit, folks. Our kids, who deserve better, are being burned. They deserve the best and brightest education. Your highly qualified, certified teachers and their students are suffering in silence while those at the top are sitting inside their air conditioned offices on the phone with the next best corporation who's in the running for the silver bullet. The next "new program" they will demand the teachers use in the classroom to bring up those test scores. Here's an idea for administration and school boards.

 If you want to bring up the scores and raise the achievement gap, turn down the heat on your teachers. Take some of the pressure off your With A Brooklyn Accent: Summer School Nightmare- Turning Up the Head on "Student Achievement":