In January of 2013, Jo Grant was appointed to the Amphitheater Governing Board to complete the term of her husband, Jeff, who passed away. Jo recently retired after more than 30 years of service to the State of Arizona. She was the Legislative Coordinator of the Southern Arizona Office of the Arizona State Senate and House of Representatives.
Amphi parents, students, teachers continue fight against Common Core
December 12, 2013
Tuesday night’s meeting of the Amphitheater Unified School District Governing Board was standing room only. Parents, students, and teachers came to discuss the District’s new Common Core aligned math and language arts curriculum.
During the general Call to the Audience, 8 parents, 4 teachers, and 1 Ironwood Ridge High School senior addressed the Board.
Parents made comments regarding the methods used in the teacher survey, which could not have produced meaningful results because the teachers did not have anonymity. Parents were critical of the Board for “not protecting” their children from the untested Common Core curriculum, and 2 of the parents read statements from teachers, who feared retribution from the District for their opposition to the new teaching methods.
A parent, Annette Hesselink, told the Board that “there is one set of hardback books, but only for classroom use. The students must use online resources.”
Hesselink said that while the District has agreed to increase the number of laptops, they have not materialized and as a result, teachers are giving up on using computer labs during class time. “The labs are too busy,” she said, and the teacher “felt the AP students should have precedence.”
According Hesselink, there is a bandwidth problem, slow performance, and slow uploading of assignments.
The Board was also advised by Hesselink the new curriculum requires that in order for a student to be successful, they would need extended access to a computer at home. However, because the Pearson online texts are not supported by Apple, too many students are unable to do the assignments. Hesselink said, “Apple products do not support Pearson online texts, so iPads/Mac books don’t help the kids at home.”
Hesselink read from a hand written note from a student to a teacher. The student was concerned about not being able to complete some online quizzes. The student wrote:
Hi Ms. (Anonymous),
My mother turned off our wifi and cable, so I couldn’t do the quizzes at home. When I got to school I tried doing it 3 times and two of those days the Amphi website was down. The day it wasn’t down the school computers weren’t loading and I waited 45 minutes for it too [sic] load. Then the bell rang and I had to leave. SORRY I was irresponsible.
Hesselink advised the Board that the situation was “heartbreaking. The freshman student truly felt she had been irresponsible and deserved zeroes for the quizzes. It didn’t occur to the student that the school computers should have worked the first time she tried accessing the quiz.”