School Report Cards

Every year the Illinois State Board of Education provides a school report card for every single school in the state.  The public can find a ton of data on the report cards; the demographic breakdown, the number of days school was in session, class sizes, student to teacher ratios, revenue sources, average teacher salary, and academic performance.  Overall, if you were interested in any of this information, this is the perfect resource and it's easy to find!

However, my problem with it is that this often is the way that schools are judged if they are 'good' or not.  While it's easy to look on a piece of paper and see that test scores are slightly below the state average, you really are only getting a glimpse of the whole story.  I know people who have reviewed these report cards in deciding between public school and private school or where they should move to, and labeled a school as 'bad' because the numbers seem as if they reflect this.  But where the problem lays is that this is absolutely not an indicator of how every child performs or will perform.  What you don't see on the report card is what is really happening both inside and outside of the classroom.  You don't see all the growth and progress each individual student is making, you don't see the school culture and whether or not there are good teachers or bad teachers in the classroom.  You don't see the teachers spending their weekends working on lesson plans and grading assignments, nor do you see them in the classroom from before the sun rises til after is sets on this report card.

There is so much data that shows both how parental involvement and social-economic levels affect children's learning yet this isn't reflected in a school's report card.  The way a school fosters student social-emotional development isn't reflected.  The number of clubs and extra-curricular activities that are offered to students isn't shown on here.  Nor is how progressive and technologically competitive a school is.  The report card doesn't show how passionate the administrators are, how they know almost every single student's name (seriously in a school of over 600), will quickly respond to parent's emails no matter the time of day and will sit on the office floor to help console and calm a student who is having a meltdown.  It's not going to tell you if the students are happy and thriving and being motivated and pushed to meet their full potential.  It doesn't show you what opportunities the school provides that others don't.

My own personal experience with a school that looks like it doesn't perform as highly as it could is that I have an eighth-grade daughter who has had a ton of success during her academic career.  She is currently in honors classes and has been accepted to all honors in high school next year.  She cheers for her junior high's cheerleading squad and they are one of the top teams in the state.  The sports teams are always at the top of their division and as I am typing this the basketball team is preparing for their first playoff game, after being undefeated this season.  My daughter has had some of the most wonderful, compassionate, hard-working teachers you will ever meet, and the administrators constantly blow me away with how involved and caring they are with all the students.  Our district is a one-on-one district, with each student in K-2 having iPads and 3-8 having Chromebooks.  We have active parent groups that provide events and financial support to the schools to help with technology, supplies, assemblies and anything else that is needed.  My son, who is in first grade, is in a two-way immersion Spanish program that is unique to the area.  By the time he enters high school, he should be bilingual and bi-literate.  Our library is fully stocked, our physical education teachers teach CrossFit and have an equipment closet that many schools can only dream of and there's never a shortage of balls, chalk and jump ropes on the playground at recess.  Both my kids are extremely comfortable in their environments, have many friends and fully trust that they could turn to their teachers if they ever needed anything.  I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

So my advice to everyone is that you simply can't judge a school by a piece of paper.  You can't disregard all the hard work by the teachers and students alike.  Yes, academic success is without a doubt important, however, so are all the other ways of developing the whole child.

Here is the link for the school my son attends and I sub at:
Stony Creek Elementary School's State Report Card 2017-2018

Tech in the Classroom

I think it's crucial for students to be introduced to technology in the classroom.  As technology is increasingly changing so is the workplace.  If we want to set up our students for success in the future then they need to stay current on 21st-century trends.  Not only this, but just introducing children to this technology in the classroom will help them to discover potential interests and give them a basic understanding.  Children are introduced to typing skills, how to effectively search and find information and coding.   Even careers that aren't necessarily in the S.T.E.A.M. fields require at least a basic understanding of how to use computers and various apps.  I also think that the use of technology in our classrooms is getting students more interested in learning.  There are tons of fun, educational games and apps that many classrooms are using and children are not only having fun while learning, but they are more enthusiastic about learning.  Also, through the use of platforms such as Google Classroom, students are not only engaging more with one another, but also with their teachers.  With the use of internet and apps like Google Expeditions, children are able to discover and learn more than they ever have in the past!  Apps like Epic! and Tumble Books put libraries of books at a child's fingertips.  

While there are so many pros to including technology in the classroom, there are downsides. There is no denying that we are seeing the amount of children with ADHD at an all-time high.  Much of children's downtime is spent on video games, YouTube and television, and adding in extra screen time during the school day contributes to the problem.  I'm no expert in the effects screens have on our brains, but I recently attended a seminar with an occupational therapist who went into depths about how this 'one-way' input is actually rewiring not just children's brains but adults' alike.  Increased technology use by the means of computers and iPads also is affecting student's fine motor development and skills, as they are gripping and using writing utensils less.  While I personally love the exposure to 21st-century skills our youth is receiving, there definitely needs to be a healthy balance.