As the week of parent teacher conferences have past, I have
reflected on the many conversations with parents. The main concern that kept
coming up was middle school placement. I am a fifth grade teacher who works in
a school that is in a neighborhood of high economic status. The school also has
an extremely high population of gifted students. The middle school that our
students will feed into is comprised of a very different demographic. In fact,
it is a title one school. Parents fear that if their children are not placed in
the gifted track they will not be with like- minded students as they currently
are at my school. I can sense through conversations they fear diversity and
have heard stories of severe discipline issues that are in the “standard”
classes. Parents plead with me to place them in higher classes to avoid the
discipline issues. I have to continually remind them that there is a list of
criteria to be placed in standard, gifted, or accelerated classes.
When parents realize their child is placed in standard
classes, they consider the option of private school. This year alone I have
filled out 15 private school applications and they continue to flood in. These
parents have the privilege of considering this option for education. I continue
to be a supporter of public education and it saddens me that these parents biggest
concern, while it is not stated directly, is purely the vast diversity at the
school. In my opinion, students need to be exposed to all different
environments. This continues to be an issue every year at this time. My school
is unique in that it is the only high achieving elementary school in the
district. The other 5 elementary schools are title one.
Yasaman,
ReplyDeleteI can relate to some of the challenges you are facing with parents. The school I work at is a relatively new Title I school. Our first year as a targeted assistance Title I school had its challenges. Parents did not want their students to attend a school that was so diverse and they feared that test scores would drop simply because of the Title I designation. I feel like there is a common misconception of what Title I is. It's the fear of the unknown. Once our parents actually had a chance to spend some time hearing about the extra resources that came with Title I their opinions began to change. Hopefully that happens next year when their children are attending the Title I middle school.