All who read and add to the comments need to be ready to appreciate the stability that The Board is evidencing under the leadership of Dr. Votaw and the able assistance of Dr Connie Phillips. Mr. Rounds needs our support as he tries to place the District on the sound financial foundation we were so used to.Finally in the previous Board's defense, I wish to point out that we were willing to invest in keeping a superintendent who would listen to the administrators and the faculty as well as the support personnel in order to keep LCPS at the forefront of education in New Mexico. Jesse Gonzales is imperfect as all of us are, but we were not in disarray as we have been in recent years.Mary Tucker
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Sometimes I wonder if the world [district] is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. Mark Twain
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Stan the man... Did u find ur state statute? Have u found the missing day? Maybe Sonia needs a new driver!?
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Who can fit a square LCPS peg into a rounds hole?
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I vote for year round schooling for the entire district. Let's put this to a vote for all the players.
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Whats the rule on school romantic affairs? My 6th grade daughter said her teacher left becuse she had a fight with her at school boyfriend becuse her husband got mad!
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Here's a great new Olympic sport for principals: Gymnadiving...ie) they are gold medal winners in flip-flopping!
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If you think "researched based best practices" is gobble-de-gook and only used by those who speak in acronyms, Lord help us all!
posted by LCPS1 @ 12:31 PM
5 Comments:
Everyone I talk to who was traumatized by the recent Sonia Diaz episode and its resulting crisis has told me that things are much, much calmer now that the new school board members have taken over and under the direction of Mr. Rounds. Thanks to all of them on behalf of my three kids--for now....NEVER AGAIN
I have looked inside the minds of our leaders downtown, and here is what I have learned:
What they say: Research based best practices
What they mean: I have no idea what I'm doing, I hope no one figures it out
When I used the term 'gobble-de-gook', I wasn't referring to anything in particular. There should be no problem with research based practices, provided that the research is done in a scientific, classic research manner... rather than the informal, 'prove anything you want to prove' kind of research that is typically done in the public schools, and in the teacher prep programs that affect the way we teach. The comments in this blog site indicate that there have been too many untested, unproven initiatives that have failed in our district. Anyone who has been in the district for at least a few years, will tell you about some of those failures. How about the many attempts that have been made to try to turn the low-English kids into strong achievers? The high schools are full of 'students' who are still reading at the primary school level, and it's not because the kids are stupid. It is, quite simply, because we haven't found an effective way to get that job done. A hundred to a hundred fifty years ago, it was common for an 'English-only' teacher (preparation: an eighth grade diploma, two carefully studied books on pedagogy and teaching methods, and a required exam) to be placed in a school in an almost totally non-English community. Everyone (German, Scandinavian, French, Italian, Spanish, etc.) worked hard, respected cultural differences, and the kids learned at a very acceptable rate. Those teachers who introduced immigrants to life in America were cherished, and celebrated, for the rest of their lives. Are we missing something today?
What are the chances our district can seriously look at going back to the old grade level system? Elementary should be k-6, Jr. High should be 7-8 and High School should be 9-12. A lot of places around the country are getting away from the middle school concept and are having great success. Since the middle schools here have such problems, maybe we should look into it.
Why is it that everyone has to be so critical of Mr. Rounds? It saddens me that people are so unwilling to give him a chance. He has not even been here for two months and is already undergoing such criticism. We all know that our district needs a lot of healing brought to it. We finally have someone that can, and is willing to do so. Let's let him do his job and I'm sure we will be just fine!
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