Teacher's Desk: Florida's Example

State Sen. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial, is sponsoring SB-130, a pilot program for three charter schools serving autistic students. I remember talking years ago with Sen. Spence about her scholarship bill for poor students -- Colorado's voucher experiment -- being struck down in the courts. She asked me to check out what Florida was doing for special education students. I did and discovered the McKay Scholarship Program. Much as I like this year's SB-130, the McKay Scholarships are far better. The McKay Scholarship allows any student with an Individual Education Plan (IEP), Kindergarten through 12th grade, the opportunity to attend the school that the parent and student feel is the best fit. This includes, district public schools, charter schools, and private schools. The state of Florida will pay the choice school the amount of state funds used to educate that student, or private tuition, whichever is less. This can be as little as $5,500 per school year to $22,000 per year depending on the severity of the disability.

Senator Spence was originally supporting parents of autistic children with a similar version to the Ohio Scholarship Program. The Ohio Scholarship Program is a choice program for autistic students only and allows school choice for students with autism in a district or out-of-district school, or in a private school. The student must have an IEP with the autism disability designation. Unless transportation is noted in the IEP, the parents are responsible for transportation costs. The state will fund the student up to $20,000 per year depending on the student’s needs. Autism is a spectrum disorder which means there are many different levels of abilities and needs and all are under the autism umbrella.

I truly like the McKay plan best because it supports all disabling conditions. Many of our transient special education students are falling through the cracks. It is not uncommon to see sixteen and seventeen-year-olds reading at the first, second, and third grade levels. Those of us working with a quality reading program like Wilson or Language can move students two to four years in reading levels for one school year’s instruction if the student attends regularly and is motivated. Attending the school of your or your parents’ choice denotes buy-in; motivation and attendance is more likely to occur.

I like the McKay Scholarship over a pilot charter because it would impact students with disabilities immediately. Although I support the charter pilot program, it will take two or more years to develop a charter, pass a school district’s board of education’s specifications, find quality, supportive charter school board members, and market to the autistic community. Then, a principal familiar with charters, autism, leadership, and new school openings must be selected, as well as, the selection of curriculum, personnel, location …and much, much more. It would be so much easier to pay students’ tuitions for existing programs!

I don’t believe the general public realizes how many students need some form of special education and never receive it. We have an abundance of students with attention problems, behavior problems, various degrees of emotional and mental illness, and plain old dyslexia. Most schools’ special education (IEP) population is 10% of the total student population. My experience in district and charter schools leads me to believe that for every child we have in our schools on an IEP, there are two more that should also be receiving services. Most of these students are bright, capable people that need some additional strategies or services to become confident and successful.

Moving to “opportunity” scholarships for students of need will lighten the load for general educators who may be unprepared for the litany of interventions and strategies needed for some of these kiddos. In Denver, we have two private schools especially designed for students with learning disabilities that are leaders in the field. Unfortunately, only the elite have access.

A Colorado form of the McKay Scholarship Program is needed. Let’s call it the Spence Scholarship Program.

Kathleen Kullback is a licensed special educator at Colorado High School Charter with an M. A. in Educational Leadership from UCD. She is a former candidate for the State Board of Education.

Teacher's Desk: The Charter Edge

"Charters fuel DPS growth," said a Rocky headline this week. Why do public charter schools have waiting lists while old-line schools are losing ground? Story with details is here. From my experience as an educator in both types of institutions, it is obvious to me the diversity of student experiences, diversity of instructional programming, and the warm and friendly teacher/parent relationships that charter schools provide draw parents throughout Colorado to charter schools.

Denver Public Schools’ charter schools represent all grade levels with distinctly different approaches to instruction, while many of Denver’s elementary charter schools take a back-to-basics approach with E. D. Hirsch’s Core Curriculum, Odyssey Charter School provides an expeditionary learning approach for its students.

P. S. 1 introduces its middle school students to understanding their learning in an urban setting. KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy, West Denver Preparatory, and Denver School of Science and Technology provide instruction to middle school students with a highly structured approach and high expectations for all students. The teachers and leaders are dedicated professionals willing to put extra time and effort into an age group that at best can be called “little rascals.” If I had a hat, I’d certainly tip it!

Highline Academy, Omar Blair Charter, Amanda Charter (formerly Challenges, Choices and Images) Highline Academy, Odyssey Charter, Wyatt-Edison, and Northeast Academy continue their rigorous approach for a pre-K through 8 or K through 8 student body (Amanda Charter is through 12). While Community Challenge School includes the 8th graders in an 8th grade through 10th grade student body enrollment.

The high school experience in Denver Charter Schools probably shows the greatest diversity of structure, culture, and student body. KIPP, Denver School of Science and Technology, Southwest Early College and the new West Denver Preparatory High School are all highly structured, academically rigorous, no-nonsense programs. Amanda Charter focuses on improving the quality of education for African-American students. Life Skills provides an opportunity for students to finally reach for a diploma with a computer-based educational program. Academy of Urban Learning is a small school designed to help students of poverty and homelessness gain access to a diploma and work experience. Skyland Community works with students to develop personalized learning plans that include outside experiences and P. S. 1 Charter tries to raise and improve students’ awareness of their learning with both a day and night school. Denver Venture School is a new program combining the entrepreneurial spirit with strong academics.

My current school, Colorado High School Charter, is an alternative school that places emphasis on giving students a second chance at earning a high school diploma through small class sizes and every student graduates with a post-secondary plan. Both day and night school students must be 16 or older. All of our seniors attend a College Summit class daily that helps them devise a post-secondary plan, apply to colleges, sign up for student aid and scholarships, write a college essay, and prepare for graduation requirements. All students graduate with acceptance into a post-secondary institution; many are the first in their family to go to college!

All of these charter schools welcome parents and many require parental participation. When parents choose a school for their student, or an older student chooses a school for himself, there is much more buy-in and a greater likelihood that the student will succeed. Parents and students are flocking to charter schools because involved parents will choose the school their children attend, not depend on sending them to the closest school. A charter school relies on the fact that needed school dollars require them to provide quality instructional programming for their school or it cannot exist. Student success and parental satisfaction keep charter schools in business. That’s accountability.

Kathleen Kullback is a special educator at Colorado High School Charter with a M.A. in Educational Leadership and a former candidate for the State Board of Education.

Teacher’s Desk: Attendance & Motivation

Colorado High School Charter, where I teach, has an amazing culture, says a former teacher who came back as our discipline coach (called dean or advisor in some schools). We have an at-risk designation at our charter school. Our students are parents or are returning drop-outs or don’t fit into regular district schools or have been expelled elsewhere or have a relationship with the juvenile justice system or are English language learners or special education students and almost all qualify for free and reduced lunch. Like many urban high schools, large and small, we had a growing problem last year with student attendance. By the end of the school year, most days, we had only about 25 students attending out of 165.

Yikes! The School Improvement Committee got busy! We came up with a plan that placed high expectations, personal responsibility, adult follow-through, and consequences in place. “Ditching” school becomes an irresistible elixir, and like the alcoholic trying to quit “cold turkey,” it is just as difficult for students not used to attending class regularly, or anyone really caring if he or she is missing, to come to every class every day.

This year we instituted a new attendance policy. When a student first enters our school, he or she is required to attend 80% of his or her classes. We all have a group of students we mentor and see daily in “homeroom.” The mentors check the student’s attendance regularly and keep each student informed of his attendance status and advocate for the student if there is a family illness or death that prevents the student from attending classes.

If after the student’s six week period (called a “block"), the student has more missing classes than allowed, the student is placed on attendance probation for another block. Most of the time, this second six-week period helps the student change a poor behavior and gain a positive replacement behavior: acceptable, regular attendance.

However, if a student still cannot commit to coming to class daily, we place them on our waiting list for two blocks and ask them to look for another school that may be a better fit, GED program, straighten out personal problems, or get a job the student can commit to. If the student returns, we require them to have read a book (250 pages or greater) and write a five page book report. After handing in the report, the student thoughtfully discusses what he learned while he was not at our school. Only if the student commits to graduating by attending every day, do we ask the student to join us again.

When our returning teacher noticed a change in the culture, what he saw was students committed to attending class, following the rules, and committed to earning a high school diploma.

Kathleen Kullback is a licensed special educator with an M.A. in educational leadership and a former candidate to the Colorado State Board of Education.

Teacher's Desk: What Val Taught Me

I miss Val. Val was an ornery girl when I first met her. I mistook her for a he because of her gender-bending style. But she kept me on my toes, and she grew into a wonderful student by the time she graduated last year. Her attendance was nearly perfect, her skill levels rose and I had to move her out of remedial classes. She consistently made honor roll, reached her required benchmarks and credits to graduate, and became a school leader. Most important, Val taught me it was all right to tell my students I love them. At the end of the day I taught a math class that she attended. Students tend to be highly distractible the last period of the day and mathematics takes a lot of focus. My class was well-behaved one day as I modeled problem solving. Val passed me a note that said, “I love you, but this is so boring.” She spelled every word correctly, too! After that day, I used her spontaneous, “I love you,” to my students. With my classroom management style of “no nonsense,” this was a perfect companion.

After working at a large, impersonal Denver high school, being at our little school and hearing “I love you” float through the halls instead of profanities during passing period was true joy. When many of my at-risk students hear “I love you,” from a friend or teacher that may very well be the only “I love you,” they hear for a month or more. Val spread joy into many of our lives and truly added value to our school culture.

It was easy to add something to our school culture as the rules were already in place on the use of profanity in our building. If a student uses profanity, a profanity “report” is issued for the student to hand copy and present to the offended staff. If the report, which discusses the history of public utterances of profanity, is not returned to the offended staff, the student will not earn credit nor receive a passing grade for that six-week period. Unfortunately, many students do not even realize that taking the lord’s name in vain or using damn or hell is considered cussing. For many students, a worn out hand does the trick and students truly learn time and place.

I am including this profanity report with this article (see full text below) so that other educators can use it as well.

Kathleen Kullback is a licensed special educator teaching remedial classes at Colorado High School Charter, an alternative school. She holds a MA in administration and policy from the University of Colorado at Denver and is a former candidate for the Colorado State Board of Education.

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On Profanity

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Some of the best words in any language are taboo. No other words possess such power, such potential to strike ear drums like mallets. In English, our forbidden words are usually the profane, dirty, and rude ones. Yet these words are heard more and more often in more and more circumstances. Some people report that the dirtiest mouths belong to the likes of pirates and Marines, but a few footsteps into a high school reveals hearty competition.

Lately I have been rankled by not only how frequently students swear, but by how casually they do so. These words, whether F’s or –its, are usually used with the same spirit and weight as the words good and hello. This trend will bring undesired consequences for, paradoxically, the more easily these words are used, the less useful they are. Of course, some of the greatest books, plays, movies, and songs are peppered with profanities. One enterprising scholar once drained the volatile plays of avid Marmet of their F words and left them 30% lighter in length and 100% weaker in impact. Marmet, a master of dialogue, may be the Shakespeare of the F word; his characters use it, his plays demand it, and his audiences are richer for it.

But profanity must be used with skill and care. Like clichés and guitar solos, if cuss words are overused, they lose their gusto. Look at how television has changed in just the past few years. NYPD Blue adopted a few formerly taboo words and now sends the ripping over the airwaves each week. Instead of shocking us with its brazenness, however, the show has simply neutered a few more words that now are considered banalities.

This condition does not speak only to epithets. Consider the word awesome. Once it was used only when speaking of miracles, of genuine awe-inspiring acts of the divine – a sea parted, a leper cured. Now it describes the flavor of a piece of bubble gum. The same fate may be in line for profanity unless we keep these words restricted in certain arenas e.g., a classroom, their potency will fade until they in fact have no more force than the word doorknob.

Hence, Mr. Enrici’s Rule of the Tongue: You may not use profanity in the classroom, on your papers, or in your stories. Yes, I know these words have meaning. I know they are valuable. Sometimes they are the best and only words to use in art and in life. But that is precisely why I forbid them here. By keeping profanity taboo, we preserve its power, its integrity---and live to cuss another day.

Teacher's Desk: Unions & Charters

In New York the teachers union wants to organize a couple of KIPP charter schools. That couldn't be done in Denver without concessions by the local union, since every charter school employee is an “at will” employee as is written into all charter contracts with school districts or the state. No doubt NYC union teachers were severely disturbed with the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) required work week, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. However, the teachers are fairly compensated for the longer hours. Most teachers at charter schools would be considered probationary teachers at a district school. Why? Most of these teachers either do not have an initial license, professional license or have less than three years service at their schools. In Colorado, a probationary teacher is also an “at will” employee. The teacher’s contract can be non-renewed and the district does not need to give a reason. The teacher is then banned from working at any school in the district. I learned about this law the hard way when I worked at a Denver district high school. I was nearing the end of my last probationary year, when the interim principal who had only been in that position for three weeks and had previously retired from an elementary school assistant superintendent position, popped into my classroom, observed my instruction for only five minutes and then asked to speak with me after school. According to Colorado law, he didn’t need to step foot in my class. It was a crazy class that day with everyone and their father popping their heads in needing something. After a slow start, and after the interim principal’s departure, I had one of my better instructionally executed classes on finding the area of a circle.

I used my right to grieve and won my grievance as he did not use evaluative measures spelled out in the Denver Classroom Teachers’ Association’s contract with Denver Public Schools. Those evaluative measures are best practices and are used at every school I’ve worked with. Teachers are asked what instructional and academic goals they have for themselves that school year. The evaluating principal (sometimes it is an assistant principal) sets up an appointment to observe, observes, speaks to the teacher about what he saw, does a few “walk-throughs” during the course of year, pops in and observes another class, speaks to the teacher about what he saw, fills out an evaluation form and again speaks with the teacher. Sometimes the evaluating principal will also speak with colleagues and/or survey students so he has a well-rounded picture of the teacher’s work ethic and instructional ability. I had good evaluations before this “school leader’s” decision to derail my career and since. I won the battle, but because of Colorado’s probationary teacher law, I lost the war---so I thought.

The community, my colleagues, and my students were mortified, as was I, when we heard of my non-renewal, and both students and colleagues tried to speak with the interim principal to no avail. The students were told it was “none of your business.” The students and parents threw me a terrific going-away party with students pitching in their own cash on a massive fifty dollar cake.

I checked with my colleagues the following year and discovered the interim principal had hired an African-American friend, like himself, as my replacement.

Poor school leadership practices are why teachers’ unions flourish and why there is tremendous growth in the charter school movement. I applied for positions to charter schools close to my home and where I had previous relationships because they have their own hiring practices and do not participate in the non-renewal ban. Not only was I treated very well, but they also gave me recognition for a job well done. How often do any of us receive that!