We have a really wonderful resource in Marion County to keep up with our schools. Each of our schools has a website. Each school website shows the list of faculty with links to their pages. There is a page for each and every class with the following very important sections:
Syllabus. This tells us what we can expect the students to learn from the class. What is being taught. What it's about.
Current & Upcoming Assignments This is what really excites me. Here is the section designed to let us all know what homework is assigned, what tests are coming up, when we will need to buy that posterboard for a project.
Past Assignments. This section could be especially helpful when looking ahead to see what classes might be like next school year. I assume teachers simply move information from the Current section to the Past section as time passes.
This is the brilliant idea I was talking about in the last post. In one place all parents can see what to expect for the week ahead. At least, that's my plan. You see, since I became a parent of a child in the public school system, it has been my intention to invest time each weekend to review the pages of each teacher my child has with my family calendar in hand.
There's a test on Thursday? Ok, we know we are staying home Wednesday night to make sure to get some studying done. Vocabulary and an essay due on Tuesday? I better check and see where we are at on those. And so on.
I don't know who had the idea or how this system came about, although I am trying to find out. It is fairly unique. I have checked out the websites in other school districts, even other states, and I have not found anything to compare with what we have.
In case you were thinking I started this blog to be a cheerleader, here's where you find out differently.
This is a wonderful tool that someone, some time in the past, thought would be useful. Maybe there was even an item on the ballots asking the taxpayers to fund this terrific new ( at that time) idea. I don't know.
But I do know we aren't using it.
Don't believe me? Go ahead, see for yourself. Here is the directory of schools in the Marion County FL Public School system, Pick one, any one. Look at the teachers' pages.
I give a grade of F for blank pages. It's the equivalent of my child not even trying. You'll find some smattering of teachers here and there using these resources. Most, however, are not.
Why?
No comments:
Post a Comment