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By BRITTANY SCHOCK
Daily Globe Staff Reporter
SHELBY — Since Shelby City Schools, with the help of a Race To The Top grant, instituted a new teaching model called NewTech at the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year, its project-based learning style and heavy focus on group work has been the buzz about town. Varying opinions have been voiced by both parents and school administrators in town, and with the close of the latest school year a group of parents have taken the next step in presenting their concerns to the school.
Kathy Emerson, whose two sons will be a sophomore and junior at Shelby High School for the 2013-2014 school year, has taken the lead in creating a petition that has been signed by more than 100 parents thus far, formally requesting Shelby City Schools “immediately construct a plan of action for school year 2013-2014 and beyond that permits parents the choice of enrolling their children in NewTech/Project Based Learning or traditionally taught, non-NewTech/Project Based Learning classes.”
“We’d like to be able to opt out of NewTech for people who don’t care for it,” Emerson stated. “There are people who don’t like it, and there are people who do like it and think it’s good for their kids. We’re saying parents know their kids and know how they learn, and if we could have a classroom with a NewTech course and a class with a traditional course, that would be a viable alternative.”
Towards the beginning of last year, Emerson started noticing NewTech was a popular conversation topic among Shelby parents, and therefore started the Shelby Whippets New Tech group on Facebook for parents to share opinions and information. At the time of publication, the group has 258 members. While the Facebook group was a way to connect NewTech parents and students with one another, at the end of the 2012-2013 school year Emerson realized it was time to create something more tangible.
“At the end of the year we kind of felt like we were stuck, so the petition idea came up so we could show on a piece of paper how many people are concerned,” she said. “We realized we needed to get a group of people who will write their names down and present it and say, these are the people who are really concerned with this. Hopefully that will start a discussion, a good conversation where we put all our cards on the table, and go from there.”
Although parents have talked individually with Shelby teachers and administrators, the petition will be the first time parents come together as a group in opposition of the NewTech teaching model. Emerson herself said she has voiced her concerns to Shelby High School Principal John Gies at various times through the year.
“I asked John Gies, what if it’s not a good fit for our school?” said Emerson. “We don’t understand exactly why they’re so adamant that we’re going to keep the program. The fact that there is no wiggle room is frustrating.”
In a separate interview with the Daily Globe, Gies explained the reason for choosing the NewTech teaching model was due to inevitable changes coming to the education system.
“We knew kids were going to have to be able to not just answer questions on a test, but explain their answers and explain their knowledge,” said Gies. “We knew the standards were pushing for collaboration and communication and critical thinking — 21st-century skills. We know all these things are coming, and for us to continue to teach the way we always taught, our students would not have been successful.”
Gies also noted in conversations with area colleges, they cite collaboration, working together in groups and critical thinking skills as things admissions offices are looking for in their future students.
“The things that we’re hearing that colleges want is what we’re doing,” he said.
Emerson stressed the idea that frustrated parents were not unhappy with Shelby educators, but rather the NewTech teaching model itself. She said the biggest problem parents have with the teaching model is that virtually all work is done in groups, which she said leads to a lack of individual responsibility and ends with students having to pick up the slack of others in their group.
“If you have a couple strong students and a couple students that aren’t so strong or don’t really care, the protocol is that you can ‘fire’ the student,” explained Emerson. “But your peers in a job you wouldn’t fire each other, let alone teenagers who have to walk down the hall with them, play sports together, eat lunch with them, they could be friends. But that’s a basic NewTech tenant, they want them to take responsibility to implement something like that, which I don’t think happened very often because the kids didn’t want to do it.”
Both Gies and Emerson recognize the NewTech teaching model has been successful for some students, and Emerson said she does not wish to take the model completely away for those students’ sakes.
“Everyone wants each student to get what is best for them,” she said. “We don’t want to take away NewTech from the parents and kids who it is working well for.”
While the ideal outcome for NewTech parents is for the program to be optional, Gies said this idea is not realistic.
“It doesn’t work that way, we just don’t have the staffing, we don’t have the course offerings where we could do that, we just don’t have the ability to do so,” he said. “We still think this is the best way to prepare our students for the future and for what’s coming.”
While changing the model after only one year of implementation is not realistic, Gies said for the future, Shelby schools will continue to assess and evaluate the success of the NewTech teaching model, but will do so in a scientific manner.
“What we do is we look at a lot of data, we don’t just go by what we think,” he said. “That’s where we’re in the process as a district of setting up a process of collecting all that data to take a look at it. There are a lot of things we’re looking at to track students and student progress.”
Gies acknowledged the change to the NewTech teaching model will be difficult, especially for students and teachers who were successful under the traditional teaching model, but due to changes coming to the education system the NewTech model isn’t likely to go away.
“We are going to have to continue to push in this way,” he said. “I don’t ever see us going back to the exact way things used to be, just because of what we have to teach and what we have to cover, and how we’re assessed and schools are assessed is completely different than before.
“I understand it’s different and I understand people don’t like to do things that are different, but this is how we’re going to be graded on things too, and so we need to make some changes on what we’re doing,” he said.
Emerson said the goal of the parents behind the NewTech petition is to attend Shelby City Schools’ next board meeting on June 27 at 7 p.m. and present the petition to the board. If nothing should come of that meeting, Emerson said the group has other steps in place. In addition, Emerson said aggravated parents will be taking action by enrolling their students in summer online classes to avoid taking NewTech classes, as well as some applying to open enrollment schools out of the Shelby school district.
“We do have a couple steps in mind, but honestly we hope we’re not going to go that far,” she said. “It’s not just the petition and then we give up, we’re going to keep on this.”
Emerson encourages those who wish to find out more about the petition or Shelby Whippets NewTech to call her at 419-347-1421.
“In the end, we just want what’s best for our kids,” said Emerson. “So we need to talk about it more.” |
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