Dear La Entrada Community,
It is now April and much of my attention and time is focused on the 2011-2012 school year. Because I am starting to get questions about class placement procedures, I thought I would devote this article to that process.
Class Placement
Our Beliefs About Class Placement:
-All of our teachers are able to meet the needs of any of our students.
-Classes are best when they're mixed on several levels: gender, social maturity, interest level, student background, etc. .
-Accepting parents' requests for specific teachers hampers our ability to make the best placements for all students.
For Students Entering Grades 4-5:
One of the Third and Fourth grade faculty's tasks each spring is to develop class groupings for the coming school year. ("Class Groupings" are not made with a specific teacher in mind. Actual teacher assignments are made by the La Entrada administration after class groupings are done.) Considerable thought and attention go into formulating classes that will work best for students. The teachers and administrators consider three major perspectives as we work together to develop class groupings: the needs of the individual child, the need to create balance within each classroom, and the need to create balance among classrooms at a grade level.
We seek to create balanced classrooms by considering such factors as gender, ethnicity, the academic readiness levels of the children, students' learning and working styles, and relationships among children. We ask ourselves these kinds of questions as we compose classrooms: Does each class reflect the range of learners from those who are highly independent to those who need special support? Does each class reflect a range of academic readiness levels? Will the social dynamics of the class foster a positive learning environment?
We take the classroom grouping process seriously, always striving to place the educational and social-emotional interests of the children in the forefront. Your child's current teacher will bring all she or he knows about your child's individual needs and capabilities to the grouping decision.
We believe that your child's current teacher possesses the necessary information and understanding concerning your child to make an appropriate grouping for the coming school year. However, if you wish to provide additional perspectives about your child that you believe we are not aware of and that could be useful to us as we engage in the grouping process, we offer that opportunity through email to me (lthomas@llesd.org). If you do plan to send me additional information via email, please do so by May 20. Remember, this is optional. Please be assured that equal care and consideration will be taken in placing each child. There is no expectation that an email be sent. It is simply our way of offering an additional opportunity for those of you who want to provide more input.
We do expect that parents will trust and respect the judgment of staff in making classroom placement decisions. We do not accept requests for specific teachers because such requests would compromise our ability to develop balanced classes - which would impact all children. Since requests for specific teachers are not helpful to this process, we ask that you do not formally or informally make requests for specific teachers.
While we do not accept teacher requests, it is helpful for us to know if you have had an older child in a specific classroom that did not work well for him or her. If that is the case, feel free to email me that information and we will do our best to place your child elsewhere. Please note that while we do our best to accommodate these situations in the core classroom, the process for math placement may not allow for such requests.
The actual process for composing classes involves all teachers at a grade level working together to develop classes for the next grade. As they work together during several meetings, the administration and support staff also provide perspectives based on their knowledge of the children. As appropriate, input from prior teachers is tapped.
One final note: although this activity begins this spring, a number of variables and unpredictable factors --- such as new enrollments, student transfers, staff changes --- delay the final class assignments until shortly before school begins in the fall. For this reason, classroom assignments will be mailed home in August.
For Students Entering Grades 6-8:
The process for these grade levels is much more "technology" dependent because we offer students a wide variety of courses in a manner that is more typical of a high school. We use a computer system to do the scheduling of students in grades 6-8. The process looks like this:
1. The students fill out their registration forms, listing their elective choices for the following year. (This has already happened.)
2. I develop a master schedule that has the highest probability of meeting the highest percent of student requests. This is a list of classes, what periods of the day the classes will take place, the teachers for each class, maximum number of students for the class, and the room the classes take place in.
3. Students' elective choices are entered into the system, as well as a list of the required courses they must take.
4. The computer places the students into a schedule which allows for the closest match of the student getting his/her top elective choices as well as the required courses.
5. The computer generates a list of students who were unable to be scheduled completely. We then look at the students' other elective choices to see how to make the schedule work, and we also experiment with other variations of the master schedule.
6. We print out a list of all classes and make necessary adjustments to try to balance the class groupings.
Again, although this activity begins this spring, a number of variables and unpredictable factors --- such as new enrollments, student transfers, staff changes --- delay the final schedule until shortly before school begins in the fall. For this reason, schedules will not be available until August.
I hope you all have a wonderful April. Remember that our 4-8 musical, Beauty and the Beast, will be on the evenings of April 28 and 29. I hope to see you all there.
Sincerely,
Larry Thomas
Principal
La Entrada Middle School
