In early May, dozens of McClatchy sophomores and juniors that signed up for a TA period next year were called out of class and informed by their counselors that the District would no longer allow student TA’s, in an attempt to increase graduation rates across SCUSD schools.
The reasoning behind the District’s decision is that students should only be taking classes that give them credits towards graduation, which TA periods do not.
Students and teacher alike have expressed concern with the District’s decision.
Mr. Starace said that he relies heavily on his student TA’s, as most teachers do. They help with copying papers, keeping things organized, and recording scores and grades.
“Just the process of recording scores can actually take hours,” said Starace. He also added that for science teachers, TA’s are extremely helpful in preparing labs that otherwise would take too much to time for a teacher to feasibly set up during the school day.
“I think the frustration just came from the reason why they were being taken away,” said Starace. “It seemed like if you just enforced the rules that were already in place, you wouldn’t have that initial reason,” he said, in reference to already-existing rules meant to keep students on track with A-G graduation requirements.
“No one should be a TA if they’re credit-deficient or not on track for post-high school options,” said Starace. “But I know sometimes too that an effective TA will also use that time to study, to prep. It’s not like they’re just relaxing.”
McClatchy counselor Mrs. Taormina mentioned that TA-ing was the last Regional Occupational Program (ROP) class offered at McClatchy. ROP classes used to teach students skills such as cooking, woodworking, and other non-academic life skills.
“It’s our last sort of hands-on, skill-learning class where you learn responsibility and organization and office skills and all those good things other than just sitting in a desk all day,” said Taormina.
Even more students than usual signed up to TA for the 2018-2019 school year in order to reach the required number of six classes, as recently determined by SCUSD. Students who signed up to TA had to pick an academic class to replace their TA period.
The District’s decision came in the middle of counselors’ scheduling process for next year. Students selected classes in March, but counselors and schedulers were not made aware of the elimination of TA’s until mid-April.
“At the last minute, [the District] sent an email and canned the whole process,” said Taormina. “We had to pull [students who signed up to TA] in and break the news and change their schedules.”
As the counseling department reschedules dozens of student schedules and teachers prepare for life without TA’s, the District is still discussing the TA issue.
According to Mr. Starace, teachers were informed at a staff meeting by Principal Peter Lambert that TA periods would be allowed for students who are on track to graduate. However, Assistant Principal Leise Martinez said less than one week after Lambert’s announcement that there would be no TA’s whatsoever.
“Now I know the principals are having a discussion at this time with people in central office, so at that level there’s a discussion,” said Martinez. “But in terms of at our level at this point it’s a no.”
For now, counselors are not scheduling TA periods for students in order to comply with the District’s new rule, but the status of TA’s could still change.
Photo credit: Riley Burke