Gilbert Classical Academy likes to toot its own horn, which has created an indignant backlash from other schools, students and parents in The Town of Gilbert. Horn tooting is an established practice in Gilbert Public Schools, and we see that Superintendent Christina Kishimoto is already dreaming up awards for some of the vendors who participate in district planning efforts — they seem to have their hands in her pockets. That’s better than the former Executive Director of Technology, who had his … no, we’re not going there. Let’s leave it at “Steve Smith was a former GCA parent, the Superintendent appointed him to the committee to select a new home for GCA, presumably to bring the committee around to suggesting what the Superintendent wanted to hear.” Congratulations, Paul Holland, for getting an award from the superintendent for telling her what she wanted to hear serving on her committee to give GCA the new home of her choice.
Let’s look at how a Very Important Teacher at Gilbert Classical Academy is messing with Superintendent Christina Kishimoto’s fixation on making Gilbert Classical Academy’s successes part of the *national reputation* thingy that’s so near and dear to her heart (if she has a heart). First of all, the Carpetbagger Leadership of Christina Kishimoto and her hapless marketing maven Irene Mahoney-Baloney-Paige have really messed up advertising and marketing to an incomprehensible degree. Today’s focus is on the so-called marketing of GCA and its emphasis on the *Highly Qualified* teachers at this *special school.*
Every teacher in Gilbert Public Schools must be *highly qualified* in order to teach. This comes from the No Child Left Behind federal law. “Teachers’ mastery of the academic content they teach is critical to engaging students and is a significant factor in raising levels of student achievement,” the Arizona Department of Education website states. Westie is really impressed that the ADE folks know how to use apostrophes to show plural and possessive at the same time, which turns out to be a rare skill that the Superintendent of Gilbert Public Schools has yet to master. <sigh>
The way that GPS, GCA, Paige and Kishimoto have been *marketing,* you would think that GCA is the ONLY school in GPS with highly qualified teachers. This is a face-smacking insult to all other GPS teachers. Perhaps no one has told Paige and Kishimoto they have egg on their faces. We can understand. <snicker, snicker>
Look at the ad for GCA at the top of this post. It really grabs your attention and makes you want to attend GCA, doesn’t it? <sarcasm> We’ve posted before about GPS and Irene Paige’s incompetent anemic marketing. It’s insulting to other teachers, schools, parents, dogs and cats. Even the usual acolytes have noticed, and Irene has trotted around to silly Facebook groups to defend her inexplicably bad marketing campaigns. But that’s a story for another day.
Today, let’s examine the letter from the Very Important GCA Teacher about how gosh-darn UNFAIR it is that the Superintendent and Governing Board won’t do what she wants done for GCA:
Each successive year we have been forced to accept more students than can safely and effectively be taught using our educational model and in our facility. I was hired in 2007 with the expectation that I be willing to teach 6 periods per day no matter what subject matter or grade level I taught (for no additional compensation); the tradeoff being that my class sizes would be smaller than at a comprehensive school.
In addition, I would always have less classroom time (average 47 minutes versus the 55 minutes in a comprehensive school) due to the extra credits our 7-12 students must take. I was eager because I knew that with twenty to twenty-five students in a classroom, it allowed for Socratic-style learning with seminars and discussions and a higher degree of individual interactions with the students since we are all-honors/Advanced Placement classes.
I worked bell to bell and accomplished more on average because of the focus I was able to give directly to the students. I could comfortably integrate one-to-one technology and work directly with my students more often to take advantage of teachable moments.
Okay, GPS teachers, you really need to talk to this Very Important GCA Teacher about how to improve her teaching skills within the challenge of *large* classes that now exist in all GPS schools:
How can I be reasonably expected to do my job with thirty or more students crowded into a portable classroom, where simple movement is a challenge much less implementing rigorous standards-based lessons while maintaining appropriate classroom behavior and student engagement? I am responsible for 176-196 students in any given week. That means more assignments, more assessments and more data to evaluate on an ongoing basis for less compensation than my colleagues at the comprehensive schools. This begs the obvious questions, “Why do we force more students into our system than we can reasonably handle?” “Why are we expanding instead of providing the resources necessary to do it the right way at the more appropriate size?”
While you’re at it, perhaps this Socratic teacher needs some help with the concept of *non-sequitur,* but since this is just a rant, we’ll faithfully repeat exactly what she wrote:
Our teachers and parents are very vocal about what we see as the fundamentals of GCA and one of the most important is our overall size. We purposefully have our student body wear uniforms so that the distraction of clothes and competition can be minimized, but that also makes our kids stand out.
That is one of the reasons a “school within a school” is absolutely inconceivable. To put any other school or “program” with our students should not be a consideration under any circumstances. GCA students have often been referred to as “the nerd school” by other GPS students and by their parents. It is unpleasant to hear them minimized because their prowess does not lie on the athletic field. Forcing shared facilities would foster an “us and them” mentality and break up the community we strive to create.
Now we get to her real argument: GCA was never intended to have a lot of students, which meant GCA teachers would teach the small groups they prefer:
One of the biggest draws for our parents and one of the benefits I used to enjoy with a reasonable school population was the ability to get to know and interact with a large majority of the students throughout their GCA 7-12 career. The relationships that I could develop were greatly enhanced and it added positively to the overall commitment to the 10 Traits of virtue that previously were a hallmark of our student body.
We’ve laughed at the many times The Chosen Ones have referred reverently to *the GPS way* as a virtue. Now we discover GCA has a new and improved way, the GCA way! BTW, this Very Important Teacher says that concept is getting lost in the growing crowd.
Fewer and fewer of our students know and understand the “GCA Way” because they are starting to get lost in an ever growing crowd. Our students depend on the focused environment our small-school community was designed to be and trying to share facilities with any other “filler” or “ala carte” program would be a disservice to everyone.
The small school community is intentional providing a focused academic learning environment to students who want the challenge and the rigor. We are not the 1% or the elite of our district. Many of our students would not qualify for gifted or honors classes at any comprehensive junior or senior high school much less in all core academic subjects. We represent all socio-economic levels, races and bring in out of district students with our reputation. We also have first or second generation college students who see a future they never imagined for themselves before attending GCA.
I firmly disagree with the idea that our ideal size is 750 students. That would require a watering down of the relationships that are fundamental to creating our campus community and would greatly impact the graduating classes. We have a unique and very special graduation ceremony that could not be continued with such a high number of graduates. We also would have a much harder time facilitating the mandatory Senior Thesis Project which is run through our Service Learning classes. The staffing and work load would pose a tremendous difficulty.
The muck is getting thick, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll continue with the specific demands of this Very Important GCA Teacher in our next post. #SAVEGJHS