Tough Decisions Ahead at Some Schools....

Two years ago the board voted to add an additional hour to several struggling elementary schools for the purpose of intensive reading instruction. I voted for this, with a bit of skepticism. Last year, with mixed data and the first year of new FCAT scoring that made progress difficult to measure, I again decided to vote to support the additional hour of reading at several inner-city elementary schools. I did so with "great trepidation"--I was even quoted in the newspaper saying this.

In the last two years at these schools, we have focused resources, outside organizations, volunteers, and specialists and subject area coaches on the task of improving reading scores. We have brought in outside groups to some schools in an effort to improve (Studer Education at Montclair, UWF at Weis) and we have asked our teachers to work longer hours (even though many were not happy with this, and left these schools to work at non-extended day schools). We experienced attrition of staff at all these schools. We instituted a mandatory 1st-grade retention policy for those that did not pass the FCAT in grade one.

We have worked and worked, and teachers have given so much effort in these schools that it is heartbreaking to see the results of the third grade FCAT reading scores that were released today. Today we see that ---through NO FAULT of the staffs, teachers, behavior coaches, volunteers, or any other