September 14, 2014 James Sanchez and Phillip Varoz, This is my 18th year of being an employee of Center School District. Never during the past 18 years have I ever been “embarrassed” to be an employee of this district. Quite the contrary, I have been honored to have the opportunity to work with such respectful students, and such a devoted staff and administration. These students come to school daily eager to learn, and the staff and administration are ready to teach and support each other in our efforts. Throughout my tenure of teaching, I have been asked, “Why do you still teach in Center?” and my answer has been, and always will be, “Because of the support of the administration and the great students and community of Center”. I asked you, Mr. Sanchez, why should I be embarrassed? Attached are our scores for 2008 for our students. I would agree, we had a high percentage of our students scoring below Proficient level. We needed to change some things, and we did. Through the CADI rollout, it was determined that the Superintendent should not be the “sole person to make decisions, but rather the Superintendent should create a District Leadership Team to begin making the decisions of the necessary changes that need to be made to create an environment of learning”. Our first District Leadership Team consisted of Mrs. Diane Parker, who represented Center High School; Mrs. Shirley Atencio, who represented Skoglund Middle School; and Mr. Lloyd John Garcia, who represented Haskin Elementary School. These fine teachers sat side by side the administration to determine the districts Unified Improvement Plan. This was a task that was not easily solved since our district was entering Priority Improvement Status by the Colorado Department of Education. Changes had to be made. This idea was brought to the entire staff of Center, and we decided that we needed to up the rigor of our lessons, and become very intentional of what is was that OUR students were going to learn. We created our Building Leadership Teams and our Professional Learning Communities. Through our PLC’s, we sought to deepen our understanding of quality teaching and engagement strategies to help us increase our achievement. Our efforts are paying off. Below are OUR scores from 2014. EVERY grade level showing marked improvement in our scores. Again, these scores are not embarrassing, but the opposite, they are quite rewarding. I am very proud that my students, as well as the students across the district, are showing such great growth in their learning. Now, as a middle school math teacher, I understand how difficult it is to read and understand data. So, I am going to give a small math lesson on Mean. Mean is defined as the average of a set of numbers. To calculate the mean, you simply add all of the numbers in the set together, and then divide by the amount of numbers in the set. So, let’s look at the Achievement of our scores in 2008. If you add 32.61+21.05+27.59+36.36+8.00+8.70+9.68+2.56=146.55. We then divided 146.55÷8=18.31875. So, on average only 18% of our students were scoring Proficient or Advanced. Now, let’s take a look at our 2014 scores. Again, we add 56.3+53.8+31.7+44.2+28.6+34.8+18.4+9.1=276.9. Now we divide 276.9÷8=34.6125. So, in 2014, 35% of our students are scoring Proficient or Advanced. In just 6 years, we have been able to almost DOUBLE the percent of students scoring at Proficient or Advanced. What a fantastic accomplishment, all under the supervision of our superintendent George Welsh. As you can see, our ACHIEVEMENT, as defined as Proficient and Advanced, has greatly improved and will continue to improve. So, again I ask you, “Why should I be embarrassed to be an employee of this district?” There is so much data that continues to support that what we are doing in our district is working and is the right thing to do for students. Our district is one that is looked at by the state, as well as other districts, as what things to do to increase student achievement. I ask you, “Why does this upset you so much?” Now, what I don’t understand is your unwillingness to learn from all the data that you have been given. At the September board meeting, every one of the Principals gave you a clear picture of the successes our students and schools are achieving. Yet, at the end of the meeting, you assert that we are not achieving. Did you not pay ANY attention to what those fine professionals were telling you? From being at board meetings in the past, I bet you were too busy talking to each other, or looking at your computers to even acknowledge what was being presented. YOU are the ones that should be embarrassed that you have no idea about what is happening in this district that you are supposed to be representing. You spew nothing but inaccuracies and personal judgments against people you know nothing about. You have NO idea of how hard EVERY employee in this district works on a daily basis, because you don’t educate yourselves. You don’t want to talk to the staff about what they are doing because you know that they will stand behind their administration. You don’t talk to the students, because they stand behind their teachers. You don’t even talk to ALL of the members of the Center Community. Why, don’t you work for ALL of Center? The teachers, students, and most of the community stand behind George Welsh and the administration of Center Schools. The teachers stand by their administration not because we are intimidated by them, but because of the respect that they show us as professionals and they allow us to do our job which is to educate the students of Center. You are not going to win this war of destroying what it has taken us years to build. It is time to put your personal vendettas behind you, stop acting like teenagers trying to get a group of people together to “jump” someone, and become an educated working member of this team. If you can’t do this, then perhaps it is time for you to look in the mirror and ask yourselves, “Are YOU embarrassed to be a part of this great organization?” If you are, then maybe it is YOU than needs to resign immediately, and the entire community of Center can elect someone who really does BELIEVE in the hard work that every employee of this district puts forth. Stop this continuous attack on OUR school, OUR students, OUR administration, and OUR hard work!!!! Sincerely, Linda Donaldson
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 12:59:12 +0000
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