It looks like the administrators at the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) are getting ready to blame their teachers for the woes at the district’s “Persisently Low Achieving Schools.”
Below is an email that the teachers’ union sent to their members, announcing their plans to fight back against the lame administrators at the SAUSD:
Dear XXXXX,
For several weeks, SAEA has requested a copy of the Persistently Low Achieving Schools (PLAS) plan and a description on how the District plans to involve teachers in the process. Every time we were assured, by the Superintendent and members of her Cabinet that teachers would have input in the content of the application. Furthermore, at the last School board meeting, the Superintendent told the School Board that teachers would have input and this would not be a top-down process.
SAEA and the District have been in negotiations regarding the articles in the collective bargaining agreement that affect the PLAS schools. The Bargaining Team asked on several occasions to see the plan, the District told us there was no plan formulated for the six schools. Finally, on Friday afternoon, the Bargaining Team got a copy of the application and we were outraged at its content.
The Cabinet and the six PLAS principals wrote a top-down application that blames the teachers for all the problems at these sites. The application lacks the important components of parent accountability, student accountability, a discipline plan, an attendance plan, and the proper placement of students! Oh, but it does provide a “wonderful” description of flawless principals.
The bargaining team bargained early Monday morning. Some changes were made to the application, but it still blames teachers and lacks the important components that we know will bring about change.
The Association has been saying since the beginning that the plan needs to be a collaboration piece with teacher input, not a top-down plan.
We’ve had enough. I know it’s short notice, but its time for action!!!
We are asking all of you, as a teacher at a PLAS school, to attend the School Board meeting on Tuesday, May 25, in the Boardroom, at 6 p.m. The School Board needs to know that except for administrators, no stakeholders were included in writing the plan and you have not even seen the plan.
In order to bring real change the plan needs to be developed by the sites with input from everyone involved!
Please share this email with teachers at your school.
Thanks!!!
Susan Mercer
President, SAEA
714-542-6758
I have to say I find it hard to believe that teachers would be the main reason for low performance in schools given the system they are required to work within and the unique challenges of meeting the diverse needs of kids in Santa Ana. Sometimes I wonder if the challenges they are facing are even realistic. It’s tough to deliver the quality of training they need especially in reading & writing. While blame is getting shifted around, parents & kids have to hang in there but there’s options for enhancing performance. In Irvine, there is a summer creative writing program (grades 2-9) that gives kids extra help in the fundamentals of writing. They’ll write an original story & have them collected and published in a book. http://brwi.org/project-ink-summer-camp/
The district super’s are not really blaming us for the low acheivement designation; they are annoyed that we won’t follow their lead like little ducklings in applying for state school improvement grant (SIG) monies. What they don’t recognize is that teachers don’t trust administrator’s judgement, because the admin’s don’t know what the actual problems are in classrooms. They don’t know that they don’t know. They never ask us to describe our problems, and the solutions District and principals propose don’t address those problems. They would propose new sparkplugs for a car with a broken fuel pump.