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Halloween Costumes on Campus
Tag: teachers
On March 14th, students participated in a walkout to protest gun violence in schools and mourn the loss of those killed in the Parkland, Florida shooting. Many McClatchy teachers voiced support for this cause, although they themselves were not allowed to attend.
“Many of the advancements during the course of the 20th century in terms of women’s rights, civil rights, and more came as a result of protests,” said history teacher Mr. Limonoff. “So I continue to support those efforts to make a better world for us all.”
Other teachers voiced a similar sentiment.
“Shooting in school is a topic that needs to be addressed, and to me the safety of our students is the most important thing,” said German teacher Frau Templeton.
Along with their support, teachers expressed some worry surrounding the walkout.
“I think that if it’s used properly, and students have context and they’re not using it as an excuse to get out of class or just to give vent to shallow emotion, it could be profitable,” said English teacher Mrs. Downey.
“But the risk is that it’s difficult to reach every student on a level that is meaningful for political protest enough so that politicians actually look at a population of youth without disregarding them.”
Other teachers were wary about administration’s encouragement and seeming sponsorship of the event.
“Civil disobedience, like a walkout is supposed to be, isn’t supposed to be free from repercussions. If you’re doing civil disobedience you gotta figure you’re gonna pay the price for it,” said science teacher Mr. Warren.
Teachers by and large were not worried by the prospect of class time being disrupted because of the walkout, “We have too many disruptions throughout the year. One more is really not going to matter,” said math teacher Mr. Granados.
Teachers also felt a lack of organization leading up to the event. “One of the things I’m concerned is they keep saying ‘we have a plan’ and we don’t know what the plan is,” said science teacher Mrs. Coleman, the day before the walkout. “I emailed and said ‘when are we going to know what the plan is?’ Has anybody answered my email? Nope.”
Teachers were told by the administration that they were not allowed to participate in the walk out, even if their classroom was empty. Many teachers with empty classrooms gathered by windows to watch the event.
Still, teachers were supportive of a student-led movement, and have hope for the future.
“I fully support the students continuing to feed this movement that they started,” said government teacher Ms. Jablonski.
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What Happened to the Strike?
Ever since October 11, 2016 the Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA), has been bargaining with the Sacramento City Unified School District to make the schools better for students by reducing class sizes, adding arts programs, and increasing teacher pay.
No matter how hard the SCTA tried, the district has rejected every single one of their proposals, blaming the rejection on “budget priorities”.
Fast forward to November 2, 2017, when over 3,000 teachers rallied outside the Serna Center. They chanted, help up signs, and gave speeches, all while the Superintendent was meeting with the SCUSD board members in the building right behind them.
Around 4 PM that day, it was announced that the teachers were ready to strike, if necessary, on November 8.
As most people remember, there was no strike on November 8, 2017. Why?
Well, the day before the supposed strike, November 7, 2017, a tentative agreement was reached between the SCTA and SCUSD to avert the strike, with the help of Mayor Darrell Steinberg.
The main issue addressed in the tentative agreement was teacher pay raises. Teachers will receive up to an 11% pay raise over the next 3 years, with all teachers guaranteed a 2.5% pay raise retroactive July 1 2016, another 2.5% retroactive July 2017, and another 2.5% increase July 2018. SCTA representatives say the raises will help Sac City become competitive with the Elk Grove and San Juan districts in attracting and retaining talented teachers.
Reducing class sizes in elementary schools were also addressed by the agreement. Grades 1-3 will not have more than 28 students in a class. Grades 4-6 will not have more than 33 students in a class.
“We believe this tentative agreement will help move us in the direction necessary to ensure each and every one of our students has a qualified educator in every classroom, resources they need, and programs that will ensure their success,” said David Fisher, president of the SCTA.
Exactly a month later, SCTA members voted by a 98.1% majority to approve the contract agreements made between the SCTA and the SCUSD. The overall vote was 1557 yes and 30 no.
In 2020, the SCTA and the district, with the help of Mayor Steinberg, plan to craft a measure that will go on the 2020 ballot to ensure that new funds supplement existing dollars for arts, music, and sports programs.
Sacramento City Unified teachers have announced that they will strike on Wednesday November 8th, 2017, if an agreement isn’t reached between the SCTA (Sacramento City Teachers Association) and the Sacramento City Unified School District.
According to Larry Hopper, Secretary of the SCTA, “around 3,000” people showed up to a rally outside the Serna Center on Thursday afternoon, before the school district’s board meeting took place.
Smaller class sizes. Making arts and music available to all students. An increase of school nurses and psychologists to national standards. Those are only a few things that the SCTA has asked for.
The district has rejected these proposals through more than a year of bargaining with the SCTA. Both side blame each other publicly for the delay of an agreement.
What would a strike mean for students and parents? Should parents keep their children home from school? Will there be enough substitutes to keep the schools open?
Nikki Milevsky, mother of two and 1st vice president of the SCTA, said “I am very concerned about the safety of students in our schools during the strike. The district does not seem very prepared, and I am not sending my kids to school.”
“The vast majority of around 600 substitutes will be on strike,” said Milevsky.
“The district is recruiting anyone they can find, and they are offering $500 a day. They don’t even have to have credentials,” said SCTA president David Fisher.
Schools are not legally able to hire substitutes without the proper certification. So, in the event of a substitute shortage, students would likely be supervised by campus staff in a central area like the library or the cafeteria.
Last Year, the SCUSD (Sacramento City Unified School District) started Early Release Thursdays. Schools release students one hour earlier than normal on Thursdays to allow time for teachers to attend mandatory meetings. According to the SCUSD website, these meetings “give teachers dedicated time every week to get together and plan lessons, share ideas and discuss ways to improve instruction.” In practice, however, Early Release schedules have proven confusing to teachers and students alike.
To determine how teachers felt on this issue, I polled several teachers, asking them if they thought Early Release Thursdays were productive. Of those I polled, the large majority supported the policy: 20 of the 32 teachers polled said that Early Release Thursdays were productive, the information gained by the meetings was worth the confusing class times. Of the remaining teachers polled, 6 said they thought Early Release Thursdays were not productive, and the other 6 teachers were undecided.
As a student, I enjoy that Early Release Thursdays provide us with extra time on Thursdays to meet up, or work on projects, or just relax. However, the Early Release bell has been known to catch teachers off guard, often in the middle of a lesson. While this was humorous for a while, it has gotten old fast.
Mr. Warren, a biology teacher, was particularly frustrated with the Early Release system. “It shortens my class!” he told the Prospector. “My students would be better served by me teaching them rather than by me being in a meeting.”
Whether or not we like the Early Release policy, it seems to be here to stay for the time being. And although the shortened periods can be very confusing and annoying, most CKM teachers agree that the informative staff meetings are worth the large inconveniences the system can cause.
Plus, some extra leisure time for students each week doesn’t hurt.
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Game of Thrones Throwdown
Game of Thrones, HBO’s most viewed television show, has taken the world by storm with its latest season of action packed medieval drama. The series recently concluded its seventh season, yet did so with only seven episodes, as opposed to the usual ten episodes. Since the beginning of the series in 2011, the show has been very expensive to produce due to a number of exotic costumes, scenery, as well as special effects and CGI, which have only become more expensive over the years. In fact, season six cost roughly $10,000,000 per episode. That’s 100 million dollars spent on just one season! In an effort to reduce cost, the creators of the show decide to cut this season short in hopes having fewer, but more entertaining episodes. This extra amount of money created the chance to see some really amazing special effects and digital art, yet many viewers felt as though they got short- changed. The intricate storytelling of original author, George RR Martin began to feel second to the CGI dragons and zombies.
In order to find out how McClatchy students and staff felt about this, I interviewed Ms. Heitz, a language arts teacher, who is a big fan of the show. She said, “Ideally we would like to have some storylines wrapped up at the end of a season, but considering how the pacing happened… I knew not much would get wrapped up.” Inevitably time became the season’s largest flaw. In the finale, storylines of focal characters seemed forced to come to an end and appeared poorly planned. Ms. Heitz noticed this as well, “As I got to the end of the season everything was rushed, and focused on how fast can the dragons fly? How fast can the ravens fly?” Rather than the in depth and thought provoking show that was created back in 2011, this season seems to have taken a shift towards more theatrics and high-intensity drama. Unfortunately, Game of Thrones fans will have to wait until summer to see where this shift will take the rest of the series.
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Griffin Transitions into HISP Community
After 32 years of teaching and serving the McClatchy and HISP communities, Mr. Wong, alongside Mr. Tagg and Frau Rice, stepped down from his teaching position after the 2016-2017 school year. This year, AP psychology teacher Mr. Griffin, and history teacher Mr. Limonoff are to split Wong’s classes. Griffin is to teach sophomore HISP students, while Limonoff will teach the freshmen and junior HISP classes.
This wouldn’t be the first time Griffin and Limonoff are working alongside one another at McClatchy. According to Mr. Griffin, the two began their teaching careers at CKM in the early 2000s. “I did my student teaching here in 2003 with Mr. Liminoff. He was my greeting teacher. Then I did a couple years at Sac High and came back to [McClatchy] in ’05 to start teaching psychology.” During this time, Griffin also observed some of Mr. Wong’s classes. Later, both Limonoff and Wong would reconnect over similar interests: playing golf together and taking baseball trips. The two recently went on a trip to the World Series together. The two plan on completing the Sacramento Century Bike Ride together in October, where the proceeds will benefit both the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Sacramento and, the Volunteers of America. It’s evident Griffin found both a family and home in McClatchy.
Initially, Griffin wasn’t interested in pursuing a teaching career. After graduating from San Jose State with a double major in behavioral science and clinical psychology, he began working in an operating room as an anesthesia technician and autotransfusionist from 1988 to 2004, when he began teaching. At the time, he planned to pursue clinical psychology as a career in hopes to become a marriage/family/ child counselor. Ultimately, teaching would allow Griffin to translate his passions into his career.
Griffin has been with McClatchy for 14 years now. Over the years, he’s continued to share his passion for psychology, now at the AP level. He claims that the strong will that the teachers possess, as well as the established sense of community has kept him grounded and has given him a feeling of home. He also felt that a new, refreshing opportunity awaited him when offered Mr. Wong’s teaching position. He’s always had an admiration for history, and took courses on Middle Eastern Studies in college. “From an academic standpoint, it’s a chance to teach something else that I have an interest in,” says Griffin. “Getting a chance to teach something new keeps my brain flexible and allows me to learn new things.” Griffin sees this teaching position as an opportunity to step out of his comfort zone.
His hope for the course is that the quality and depth of the course, remains constant. When asked if there were any contributions that he was eager to add to the HISP community or McClatchy as a whole, he was very modest and complimentary of Wong. “New contributions? I’m not sure. I just want to ensure that the students that I have are getting the same kind of quality education that they received from Mr. Wong.”
Last year, many of McClatchy’s German students were saddened to learn that longtime German teacher Frau Rice was retiring. Frau Rice has given the role of German teacher and control of McClatchy’s German program to Frau Templeton.
Fans of the German club’s bratwurst sales and Christmas market will be glad to hear that Frau Templeton plans to keep these parts of the German program. “My teaching style may be a little different than the previous teacher, Frau Rice, but otherwise, we will still have German club, Oktoberfest, Christkindlesmarkt, and go on the field trips, so nothing really changes there,” she said.
Speaking of Frau Rice, Frau Templeton had many good things to say about her predecessor, “I have known her for many years. We used to go to trainings together. I think she is an amazing teacher. She is such a caring person, always there for her students. She just loves the language.”
Before coming to McClatchy, Frau Templeton had taught at several other schools. When asked about how McClatchy is compared to her previous schools, she said “The building is amazing, I’ve never worked in a school with such a beautiful campus.” She also said that the school’s appearance reminded her of a “typical American high school movie.”
Frau Templeton had some things to say to this year’s German Students: “I love German, being German, I am a native speaker, I love teaching about my culture and my language… It’s always hard, being the new one, because you are being compared to the previous teacher. You may not know it, but I am shy… it’s not the easiest thing, to go in front of 170 new students and introduce myself.” She hopes students “will get used to my teaching style, and who I am,” and that they will enjoy her German course.
Although members of the German class and club may miss Frau Rice, it seems that the German program is in good hands with Frau Templeton.