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In elementary school we found out the day before school started. In junior high and high school, we got our schedules a few weeks before school started, but they were not official until the first day of school. The first day we had to pick up our official schedules, and there could have been changes.
We recently relocated out of state and our new school reveals teacher assignments for the next year on the last day of school in the spring. They make a big deal of it -- you get to go meet your new teacher, see your classroom, see who will be in your class with you. It's BRILLIANT! Kids are excited over the summer, not apprehensive and should they not love the teacher they got, they've had an entire summer to get used to the idea and come to terms.
The collective attitude of students is so much more positive and confident with this approach.
We recently relocated out of state and our new school reveals teacher assignments for the next year on the last day of school in the spring. They make a big deal of it -- you get to go meet your new teacher, see your classroom, see who will be in your class with you. It's BRILLIANT! Kids are excited over the summer, not apprehensive and should they not love the teacher they got, they've had an entire summer to get used to the idea and come to terms.
The collective attitude of students is so much more positive and confident with this approach.
Years and years ago our school district used to do something similar but it caused far more problems than people would imagine. Sometimes teachers needed to be transferred to a new grade level or school due to changes in enrollments and other reasons. Or teachers would resign and new teachers would be hired.
And, then the children who were thinking about having Mrs. Smith all summer ended up with Mrs. Jones and many times it took Mrs. Jones a long time to bond with her students. For a few kids, it would take weeks.
While our community is pretty stable even a few families moving out can make a tremendous difference on class distributions. We would sometimes end up with some ridiculous situations such as one 1st grade with 20 children and the other with 26 children, or the classes would be "out of balance" in other ways. You would think that this would not happen very often but it happened far more often than you would imagine. And the parents would be irate if we moved their child out of the class where they were assigned before school ended.
Also, with the names of teachers & classes known all summer, some parents complained and complained and harassed and harassed all summer to have their child moved to a different class or to have their child's best friend or best friends moved into the class (that happened a lot). Some of the parents became extremely vocal about teachers who they (often, incorrectly) did not feel were the best teachers in that grade and banded whole groups of parents together in protest. A few times, it got pretty bad, really ugly.
Knowing the teacher & classmates in advance was NOT all rainbows and unicorns. Since our district started to post class lists just a few days before school starts (perhaps 25 or 30 years ago), it has eliminated almost all of those problems. Class lists are balanced for all kids moving in and out and the teachers don't change.
Last edited by germaine2626; 08-17-2015 at 07:49 AM..
Years and years ago our school district used to do something similar but it caused far more problems than people would imagine. Sometimes teachers needed to be transferred to a new grade level or school due to changes in enrollments and other reasons. Or teachers would resign and new teachers would be hired.
And, then the children who were thinking about having Mrs. Smith all summer ended up with Mrs. Jones and many times it took Mrs. Jones a long time to bond with her students. For a few kids, it would take weeks.
While our community is pretty stable even a few families moving out can make a tremendous difference on class distributions. We would sometimes end up with some ridiculous situations such as one 1st grade with 20 children and the other with 26 children, or the classes would be "out of balance" in other ways. You would think that this would not happen very often but it happened far more often than you would imagine. And the parents would be irate if we moved their child out of the class where they were assigned before school ended.
Also, with the names of teachers & classes known all summer, some parents complained and complained and harassed and harassed all summer to have their child moved to a different class or to have their child's best friend or best friends moved into the class (that happened a lot). Some of the parents became extremely vocal about teachers who they (often, incorrectly) did not feel were the best teachers in that grade and banded whole groups of parents together in protest. A few times, it got pretty bad, really ugly.
Knowing the teacher & classmates in advance was NOT all rainbows and unicorns. Since our district started to post class lists just a few days before school starts (perhaps 25 or 30 years ago), it has eliminated almost all of those problems. Class lists are balanced for all kids moving in and out and the teachers don't change.
I agree. That would cause chaos in our district, which is known to be fast-growing, adding about 1,000 kids this year.
Two years ago, when my youngest was entering 4th grade, there were so many last-minute additions that when the principal posted the class lists 3 days before the start of school, one group did not even have a teacher's name at the top because she had not hired one.
Years and years ago our school district used to do something similar but it caused far more problems than people would imagine. Sometimes teachers needed to be transferred to a new grade level or school due to changes in enrollments and other reasons. Or teachers would resign and new teachers would be hired.
And, then the children who were thinking about having Mrs. Smith all summer ended up with Mrs. Jones and many times it took Mrs. Jones a long time to bond with her students. For a few kids, it would take weeks.
While our community is pretty stable even a few families moving out can make a tremendous difference on class distributions. We would sometimes end up with some ridiculous situations such as one 1st grade with 20 children and the other with 26 children, or the classes would be "out of balance" in other ways. You would think that this would not happen very often but it happened far more often than you would imagine. And the parents would be irate if we moved their child out of the class where they were assigned before school ended.
Also, with the names of teachers & classes known all summer, some parents complained and complained and harassed and harassed all summer to have their child moved to a different class or to have their child's best friend or best friends moved into the class (that happened a lot). Some of the parents became extremely vocal about teachers who they (often, incorrectly) did not feel were the best teachers in that grade and banded whole groups of parents together in protest. A few times, it got pretty bad, really ugly.
Knowing the teacher & classmates in advance was NOT all rainbows and unicorns. Since our district started to post class lists just a few days before school starts (perhaps 25 or 30 years ago), it has eliminated almost all of those problems. Class lists are balanced for all kids moving in and out and the teachers don't change.
There are logical pitfalls to every approach. It's fascinating that the goal of one approach is 'eliminating protesting parents' and the goal of the other is 'instilling confidence and excitement in students.'
Either way, in our top-performing public school of 800 students that adopted this approach 5 years ago, the support and reaction for this strategy has been overwhelming positive.
In the case of my 3rd-5th grade teachers, it was a matter of decades. The school was built in the 1930's and those three teachers had been there the whole time. My brother had them in the late 1950's, and I had the same trio seven years later.
They were great teachers. Between them, and my 6th-grade teacher, I don't think that I could have received a better elementary education.
My kids are in elementary school. We get a letter about 1.5-2 weeks before school starts telling us who their teachers will be and what school supplies are needed. Then, on the Wednesday before school starts, they have a "meet the teacher" afternoon. The kids can meet the teacher, explore the classroom, see where their desk is, see the daily schedule, put away their school supplies, check out the class list, stuff like that.
I'll elaborate on my earlier post. I teach in an elementary school and at this point I'm not even sure which grade level or subject(s) I'll be teaching. As far as the class lists go, teachers typically get them on the Tuesday of our first week back, which will fall on Sept. 1 this year. The school mails them out that day so that the families have them for Thursday's open house on the 3rd. School starts the day after Labor Day.
School starts Wednesday for our kids and the Elementary will list the Teachers names on Tuesday. Our son starts middle school and he has his list of classes now. They were handed them during orientation. This is the second year for a middle school in our area. Last year both the 5th and 6th graders headed off to middle school. Which is interesting. If they had kept the 6th graders at the elementary school they would have had a single teacher. Now they have 6 teachers. LOL
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