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Sunday, August 28, 2016

As we start week 3, it's time to hold the district accountable.

A couple people have reached out to me about class sizes, elementary school PE and other issues and my response has been it's the first two weeks, schools are shaking out the kinks, but as we enter week three, it is now time to start holding the schools and the district accountable. No longer should classes be exceeding the class size limit which in case you were wondering is:

  • 18 students in prekindergarten through grade 3.
  • 22 students in grades 4 through 8.
  • 25 students in grades 9 through 12.

Now the state gutted it so above is only for core classes but still I am told there are limits like a ridiculous 70 for PE, and yes that's 70 children.

Speaking of PE this is what the state told me when I asked.


(3) Each district school board shall provide 150 minutes of physical education each week for students in kindergarten through grade 5 and for students in grade 6 who are enrolled in a school that contains one or more elementary grades so that on any day during which physical education instruction is conducted there are at least 30 consecutive minutes per day. Beginning with the 2009-2010 school year, the equivalent of one class period per day of physical education for one semester of each year is required for students enrolled in grades 6 through 8. Students enrolled in such instruction shall be reported through the periodic student membership surveys, and records of such enrollment shall be audited pursuant to s. 1010.305. Such instruction may be provided by any instructional personnel as defined in s. 1012.01(2), regardless of certification, who are designated by the school principal.

Well the districts schedule says students are only getting 90 minutes of PE a week


Furthermore the media schedule seems to be optimistic at best.

From readers:

Media is a joke. At a school of 1100 plus we have a 1/2 funded position which is vacant. If filled we would have media once every 5-6 weeks. Right now a para is available for classes to check out books every other week. Sad! But not surprising. Doesn't seem like books are very valued in Duval right now as we use a listening comprehension curriculum that doesn't include using real books!! 

There are quite a few schools that only have resource (art, music, PE) once every 8 days. At my son's school art, music, media and PE is once every 8 days.

You are not wrong. We have media once every two weeks and we have physical education with the coach once every two weeks.

Ours is 45 minutes every six days.

Ours is 45 minutes every other week. We can take our class weekly to check out books (if the basic para is there) but we have to stay with them. Oh and currently our media position is vacant.

Will things improve? I hope so but they definitely won't unless we start holding the district accountable.

2 comments:

  1. Core classes at the middle school I teach at have over 30 students. I don't understand why the parents aren't screaming.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have 20 students in an inclusion class. We were told by our region chief that we can use nothing if it is not from Duval Reads. No supplementing without permission. I heard from other people in different regions that they are cutting Duval reads way down (or not using at all )and supplementing the rest. Our school is doomed to drop if we can not supplement this program. If a school was an A/B, we were suppose to be left alone to teach, well, we are an A...why the micromanaging?

    ReplyDelete