Letter to the Editor, published in This Week News, August 7, 2014
As teachers resign/retire from Reynoldsburg City Schools, the district finds alternatives to replacing them, like canceling the class, hiring a paraprofessional, offering online classes and enrolling more students in each class.
As teachers resign/retire from Reynoldsburg City Schools, the district finds alternatives to replacing them, like canceling the class, hiring a paraprofessional, offering online classes and enrolling more students in each class.
Encore Academy classes averaged over 30 students this year. When I questioned this during the one Superintendent's Community Advisory meeting this year, Steve Dackin quickly stated, "That is an anomaly," and changed the subject even quicker.
Since then, I have also heard of large kindergarten classes, numerous large science and math classes at Baldwin.
Large classes make it much harder to tailor lessons to the students' specific skill levels, leave less time to address individual questions and delay feedback from any assessments. I heard many Encore students in large classes commenting that they would have to take the next test before previous quizzes were returned.
How can class size not affect students' learning and the so-important state test scores used to rate students and teachers' effectiveness?
A paraprofessional is basically a teacher's aide that does not have a college degree in education or a teacher's license. While para pros can be instrumental in assisting in the classroom, they should not be hired to replace a teacher. The teacher is trained to deal with student discipline, subject matter and lesson planning while a para pro is not.
Online courses have also become the quick cure-all to avoid hiring teachers. Currently, health and physical education are only offered online at the high school level. Online physical education?
I ask the Reynoldsburg school board to address these concerns, among others, and settle a fair contract.
Susan Riedlinger
Reynoldsburg