What are the building blocks for quality schools?
Small classes. Great teachers. Time with students to provide individual help.
Kent school administrators have lost sight of the basics. They’ve spent millions on smart technology but forgotten that the real goal is smart kids. Classes in Kent are now bigger and more crowded than poorer districts with fewer resources. Teacher pay is the worst in the entire Puget Sound region, making it a challenge to hire and keep the best teachers. Our administrators’ focus on mid-level meetings has now trumped teachers’ time with students. This year the school board laid off teachers (increasing class sizes even more), and proposed rolling back pay even further -- all so they could maintain a $21 million administrative savings account.
Our communities deserve to receive the great schools they pay for. The Kent School Board needs to get their eye back on what’s important. Kent teachers are standing up for the priorities that matter most for our schools.
Time. Workload. Compensation.
◊ The most valuable thing schools can offer students is time with great teachers.
In Kent, too much valuable teaching time is being wasted in administrative meetings. These meetings rob students of the chance to work with teachers before and after school to get the extra help that’s essential for them to thrive.
Students also reap rewards when educators have time to coordinate lessons with fellow teachers and to identify individual solutions for students who face particular challenges.
Students benefit when teachers have time to integrate new technologies, like Smartboards and constantly evolving online resources. Without time to become proficient, these new technologies become an educational opportunity that’s wasted.
◊ An unsustainable workload is robbing children of individual attention.
Students deserve to learn in moderate-sized classes, where teachers can address the needs of each individual. When classes swell to 30 or 40 or more, your child receives individual attention for just seconds a day. What’s worse, next year the district has laid off some teachers and specialists who provide the variety of classes that help maintain students' interest in school. Your child is affected when courses are dropped or the additional work is spread among the remaining educators, limiting individual time with each child even further. Students also deserve adequate attention from specialists such as counselors, psychologists and occupational therapists.
And for students to benefit from new curriculum and new programs, teachers need reasonable time to adapt them to their classroom. Our administrators must do a better job of ensuring there is sufficient time for educators to really learn and implement the new elements. Recognizing that that step is critical will positively affect the quality of instruction your child receives.
◊ The numbers show why Kent educators are concerned about compensation.
Kent schools must raise salaries to hire and keep top teachers. We’re currently at the bottom of the pay scale compared to other Puget Sound districts, and we're losing great teachers. So why is the Kent Education Association talking about teacher pay when the economy is tough? Because children won’t get a second chance at their education when the economy improves.
Even using the distict's salary figures that are padded with non-traditional items such as personal leave cash out, (see the chart at right) Kent still ranks well below neighoring districts in pay. The district’s analysis also omitted higher-paying districts such as Mercer Island, Seattle, Everett and Snoqualmie Valley. Nonetheless, our pay still ranked at the bottom.