UPDATE: New CHS Guidance Director Uses Access & Equity Plan to Force my Daughter to Stay in AP Class

I'm not sure how a District can measure itself against standards that start with words such as communicates, collaborates, enable, reflect, and augment. Whoever wrote those standards should be punished by having to implement them.

profgross said:

I don't doubt that, however, unfortunately the Board of Ed in this District is the rubber stamp of the administration. The policies implemented should have been done when there is not a cut back of funds. Putting students in classes with out the necessary pre req is not based on funding but on competent leadership. Do you think I want to fight like this? I don't, but I will if my child needs an advocate.

The district is accredited by Middle States. They have to prove compliance with certain standards such as:

"9.10 Communicates regularly with families regarding students’ progress in learning.

9.11 Collaborates with families to develop, if necessary, appropriate strategies to assist the students to learn and perform at the expected levels

The governing body and leadership ensure that the school uses assessments to measure student learning that:

9.15 Enable students to monitor their own learning progress and teachers to adapt their instruction to students’ learning styles.

9.16 Reflect understanding of different styles of learning.

9.18 Are augmented by information and insights about students’ learning and performance from students’ families."

It appears that they are not quite in compliance with some of these standards.

One can fight by complaining or seek change with what is available to us. I understand accreditation because we do Middle Stated on a college level. As an educator you have to present major benchmark docs to prove accreditation, I would love to see what measures the school used in these domains to prove compliance

I thought I read that her husband was offered a career opportunity in the NYC area that was too good to pass up, so she left her job to make the move.

profgross said:

I dont take RateMyProf as reliable. There were other news stories that made me think about who we hire in our district. She went from being a principal to a director of guidance, I suspect that she couldn't get a principal's position. The feedback regarding how they are running guidance now echoes her management style. Not good.

What gets me is how many times I hear that high school students need to learn to advocate for themselves and that parents shouldn't get involved. But scenarios like this make it apparent that if the parents did not get involved then the kids would have been screwed. What sort of message is that sending?

spontaneous said:

What gets me is how many times I hear that high school students need to learn to advocate for themselves and that parents shouldn't get involved. But scenarios like this make it apparent that if the parents did not get involved then the kids would have been screwed. What sort of message is that sending?

Same as its always been. Students should advocate but if its serious and that cannot resolvable then talk to get the parents involved.

We learn by doing.

These problems may partially be the result of students choosing to take a class which is a higher level than recommended by the district. If that is the case, it seems reasonable to require the student to spend the first quarter in the chosen class making a real attempt to master the material.

this was not the case. Even if a student asked for such a class, if they weren't given the foundation in the previous level, the school is responsible for advising against such a placement.

Or denying the request. But ask and you shall receive, it seems. Unless you want to drop. Then, no.

You do have to take rate my teachers with a grain of salt. Unless someone’s rated incredibly badly or well it usually doesn’t mean much. Ms. Murray gets a 2.3, which counts as pretty low. The type of comments also matter if there are a lot of similar ones. Most of the criticism seems to be about her being a control freak and taking the enjoyment out of school. The link is here:

http://www.ratemyteachers.com/pamela-murray/6410989-t

Creepy, focuses on leadership, does not care about anything except academics (no interest in any other aspect of our school life)

Control munger. Is a detriment to school district. Total narcissist

she ruined all the fun at our school. she got yelled at for not having school spirit. funny.

Shes completely insane. She's just awful. getting rid of class trips, and shes trying to get rid of senior privlege too

She is phony and lacks the respect of students and faculty alike (I'm faculty)

What kind of good principal makes the students frown when she walks into the room? Everyone has a sigh of relief the second she leaves and even the teacher makes fun of her and cheers when she's gone.

Even the few positive comments like this one, point to a person who cares more about control and power than flexibility:

I think she is a very nice lady. I like the way she runs our school a business, keeps it very professional. She's a great enforcer. I respect her as a woman in power.

joanauer said:

The type of comments also matter if there are a lot of similar ones.

Sometimes. But not on RateMyTeachers.

By providing a suggested level placement, the school is advising against taking a higher level. If they denied the request to be placed in a higher level, it would render meaningless their prior action of opening access to the various levels. To provide in-class support to students who are struggling would take time away from teaching the material for the higher level class. That should not be the result of opening up access to all students who want to try it. But once the student makes a commitment to try it by signing up for the higher level class, it is reasonable that they actually spend some time trying to succeed in the higher level class.

joanauer said:

You do have to take rate my teachers with a grain of salt. Unless someone’s rated incredibly badly or well it usually doesn’t mean much. Ms. Murray gets a 2.3, which counts as pretty low. The type of comments also matter if there are a lot of similar ones. Most of the criticism seems to be about her being a control freak and taking the enjoyment out of school. The link is here:

http://www.ratemyteachers.com/pamela-murray/6410989-t

Creepy, focuses on leadership, does not care about anything except academics (no interest in any other aspect of our school life)

Control munger. Is a detriment to school district. Total narcissist

she ruined all the fun at our school. she got yelled at for not having school spirit. funny.

Shes completely insane. She's just awful. getting rid of class trips, and shes trying to get rid of senior privlege too

She is phony and lacks the respect of students and faculty alike (I'm faculty)

What kind of good principal makes the students frown when she walks into the room? Everyone has a sigh of relief the second she leaves and even the teacher makes fun of her and cheers when she's gone.

Even the few positive comments like this one, point to a person who cares more about control and power than flexibility:

I think she is a very nice lady. I like the way she runs our school a business, keeps it very professional. She's a great enforcer. I respect her as a woman in power.

That link is to Pamela Murray from Abington Heights High School in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. Is that the last place she worked?

Yes. From the district:

Dr. Murray received her doctorates in administration & leadership studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a MS in Education, Development and Strategies from the University of Wilkes and a BS from the University of Scranton. Dr. Murray served as a High School Principal at Abington Heights School in Clarks Summit, PA and also served as Assistant Principal overseeing the day to day operations of 15 academic departments and student affairs. Dr. Murray also served as a science teacher prior to her promotion to administration. Dr. Murray’s work as school leader and background in leadership speaks to her strengths to cultivate relationships with students, staff and families to ensure that all students’ educational and social needs are met. Dr. Murray will start on August 22nd.

http://www.somsd.k12.nj.us/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=1&ModuleInstanceID=997&ViewID=047E6BE3-6D87-4130-8424-D8E4E9ED6C2A&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=14899&PageID=1

jmeusel said:
But once the student makes a commitment to try it by signing up for the higher level class, it is reasonable that they actually spend some time trying to succeed in the higher level class.

I would agree - except when a student realizes that an advanced class is inappropriate for him/her within, say, the first week of classes. People (kids are people) make misjudgments or receive poor advice, and should be allowed to rectify an error that's quickly recognized without being penalized.

This has always been accepted with AP and Honors math classes in our district and in many other districts (Millburn, for example). The advanced classes were scheduled for the same class periods precisely to facilitate this movement.

When there are quite a few comments on Rate My Teacher and a number of them have the same theme, if I know the teacher or administrator well, the theme has comported with my experience.

I understand that some of the comments on RMT are juvenile, and teachers (naturally) hate the site, but a lot of the comments on it are spot on. Teachers rate and label students (and some parents) all the time, but somehow it's not a two-way street. I think the site sometimes contains information worth considering.

The district did not hire a Director of Guidance to replace Jennifer Giordano. Pam Murray has a K-12 job as Director of Youth Development.

Although director of guidance is not her title, parents were told on either CHS Back to School Night or Senior Parents Night (I forget which one) that, for all intents and purposes, she is the head of the department.

Update, even though a tutor said she doesn't have the foundation. They ate still refusing to level her down. Goes to ore calc class and I had to advocate for her to get an outline. Even when the teacher wrote me in the AM stating she would give her the outline, that evening Inwas told that it "completely slipped my mind". If I didn't advocate for that it would be two weeks in the glass without the code to where all info is listed.

Basically it is her fault that she didn't understand that she would have to seek resources to learn trig during the summer. She was mostly not around for summer tutoring. What type of District promoting Access and Equity asks students to buy resources for a class. They don't offer trig in the school, so if she dropped Math and wanted to prepare for pre calc next year she would have to go outside school. They didn't offer any step up for students in the summer.

So tomorrow we are called to a meeting with my daughter and 7 other adults including last year's math teacher to figure out what to do. My daughter is nervous dealing with all those adults and ask me to ask them for an outline or statement of what they will be talking about. I told them what my agenda was based on whatcI think might be options.

Have they gotten back to me? No. This just doesn't seem fair. Is this an admin that practices by intimidation of children and families.

I have been sharing this with teachers in other district and they are speechless re: how things unfold in this school

This might seem like a silly question but - Why did your daughter choose to take AP Calculus?

She did not choose to take AP Calculus. She was in Honors Algebra 2, the teacher did not teach trig (as if the curriculum in Algebra 2, which I recently learned. It appears that an email went out to "chosen students" to be in the AP Pre-Calc/Computer Science course. I was sick this summer and was having medical tests during that week and on 7/30 by sister's husband died suddenly and I had to go down to Florida, thus I was not on my game and I couldn't respond to say she did not want to be in the class. She got to the class and it was with a teacher who uses Learner Center Learning as his teaching methodology. The students were told they would teach themselves pre-calc and he would teach Comp Science. Now, her Algebra 2 teacher might have mentioned that they needed to learn some trig concepts but my daughter didn't understand the intensity of this statement. We recently saw on the Math web page that these students going into these classes who did not have any trig background they would supposed to find resources on their own during the summer. I don't know about you but this is a crazy system. It again doesn't really allow ACCESS and EQUITY because she recently heard that students from another Algebra 2 course got a clear message about this and took a summer class at Newark Academy. CHS does not offer trig anymore so there was no summer course on line or classroom taught at CHS for her to even take something that would be less expensive than the tuition at Newark Academy (along with trying to get her there when we work).

There was no letter sent home for the students moving up with resources or an explanation regarding what was needed. We have been talking to the STEM supervisor and informed him that the tutor she went to was clear that this is too much for her to do to catch up. The STEM supervisor's response: I don't agree with the tutor, she can do this if she went to Math Lab on her lunch hour? Where are the supports that they are putting in to assist students in these instances. He has never met my daughter. I had to advocate for her to get an outline and the math teacher emailed me yesterday and said she was giving her the outline in class that day. She emailed me at night and said, oops, I never gave it to her, it just slipped my mind. She did send it to me late last night. She just gave my daughter a package on all she has to catch up on and it is too much for her. Anyway you slice it, if she stays in this class she will most likely fail the first quarter. We would have to find a tutor because the tutor we took her to was clear that this was just not tutoring and was too much to take on once a week. The question I ask is "why do I have to pay for her to learn something when she is legally due a public education. If we level her down she will be behind 3 weeks in that class as well. This is a student who never misses school or a day of homework. She is leaning towards dropping math his year and finding a way to prepare for pre-calc next year. She can't prepare in school because they don't have a trig course (as mentioned above). Frankly I am at the end of my rope here and very frustrated. They are having her (with me included) meet with 7 adults and I presented them with an agenda that I would like to see address and told them my daughter would like to have an idea what they want to talk about and we asked for an agenda or a statement and never received it. I am afraid that this will be an ambush tomorrow with them pushing what they want, rather than what she needs

The arrival of the official drop-down period at CHS got me wondering how things went for Rivoli, profgross and their daughters. If it's not prying, any updates?

In the meantime, CHS provided this opportunity for all students in level 5 pre-calc. I thought it was a good response to the concerns, if a little tardy. Given that this is the first year of a new system, they are doing their best to respond to issues.

October 21, 2016

Dear Parents/Guardians, and Students in Advanced Honors Precalculus:
We thank you for recent conversations about what difficulties your students are facing in Advanced Honors Pre-Calculus. In particular, we know that some of our students who moved up to a level 5 math class from a level 4 class last year may not have been exposed to some of the trigonometry content expected in the level 5 course.
In order to better serve our students, we have developed a “Trig Bootcamp”. The program is designed to help students who would benefit from a mini-unit on the trigonometry topics needed for success in Precalculus and is open to all students. The boot camp will be held from 3:15 to 4:15 after school on the following dates:

Tuesday 10/25,
Wednesday 10/26
Thursday 10/27
Tuesday 11/1.

Mr. Wilson and Ms. Skrivanic will be working with students in room B 340. Each day will feature a different focus of instruction with time for students to practice and get feedback and assistance. We recommend that students attend all 4 days.

At the conclusion of those 4 days, Mr. Wilson, Ms. Skrivanic and I will assess what progress students have made and what other supports may be needed, and we will continue to work to provide them.
Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns.
Thank you,
Jameel Misbahuddin
9-12 STEM Supervisor
Columbia High School

DaveSchmidt, sorry I didn't see your question earlier. The upshot for my daughter was that after being left in limbo for over 3 weeks, she did get to move to Calc AB, but she was stressed and had a lot of catching up to do. She ended getting a C for her first quarter grade - the grade that went to all the colleges she applied to!!! She now has a B and is doing fine. But when I see CHS encouraging students to sign up for the most rigorous classes they can, as they just did, my heart sinks for all of those who won't be allowed to transfer if needed.

I'm seriously considering sending my younger daughter to a private school rather than CHS, which makes me feel sick since the main reason I moved to SoMA was to be part of an integrated public school community.

Thank you for the follow-up, Rivoli. Even with other issues aside, I'm impressed, as someone who never did get that first-quarter C in calculus to budge in the remaining three marking periods, by your daughter's ability to get her grade up.

Rivoli said:

DaveSchmidt, sorry I didn't see your question earlier. The upshot for my daughter was that after being left in limbo for over 3 weeks, she did get to move to Calc AB, but she was stressed and had a lot of catching up to do. She ended getting a C for her first quarter grade - the grade that went to all the colleges she applied to!!! She now has a B and is doing fine. But when I see CHS encouraging students to sign up for the most rigorous classes they can, as they just did, my heart sinks for all of those who won't be allowed to transfer if needed.

I'm seriously considering sending my younger daughter to a private school rather than CHS, which makes me feel sick since the main reason I moved to SoMA was to be part of an integrated public school community.

@Rivoli, I believe that most colleges request a mid-year report that includes 1st and 2nd marking period grades. Unless she requested that her 1st marking period grades be sent, most likely they were not sent. And having a B in the 2nd quarter will help her. Also, she could speak to her teacher and see if she can do some extra credit to get her 1st marking period grade up since her circumstances were extraordinary. In addition, she should ask her GC to send a note along with the mid year report explaining her situation. Good luck.

dg64 said:
In addition, she should ask her GC to send a note along with the mid year report explaining her situation. Good luck.

I don't think you want to highlight for a college admissions officer that your child had to drop a harder class for an easier class. I think just let it be.

This will matter to colleges a lot less than you think it will. That's because it's invisible to the outside. Once the student passes a certain threshold of showing that they can handle a certain level of work (she's still taking calculus, right?), the only thing that matters are the things they can use in marketing -- like test scores, diversity, geography, and celebrity.