Summer school gives failed 8th graders a 2nd change to go on to...

All along, officials at Fairmont Elementary School in Lockport knew a good number of 8th graders had fallen behind in their studies, but it still came as a shock when they realized that 20 of the 35 in this ...

[Marie]

Why did all of these kids fail? I mean when I was in school my parents were told if your grades fell passed a 75%.

[Lockport IL]

There are several warnings that your child is not meeting academic standards - report cards, progress reports, etc. Admit it. This was not the first you heard your child was failing. How can you expect your child to succeed in Lockport High School (ranked in the top 5% of the country) if they are performing below their grade level?
The kids are lucky to have a second chance in summer school. Get involved! Your child's education is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. Make sure your child passes this time!

[Ozcan]

With a class size of 35, what would you expect? Classes were this size over 100 years ago! Class size should be maximized at 26, from Year Four on. It's time state and federal governments got real about class sizes...!!!

[Simple Math]

Read this again:
"Principal Stephanie Long admitted that this year's 8th graders were victims of bad timing. But she said last year's 8th graders were held to the same standard, and all 21 graduated. The difference this year is that more students slacked off of their schoolwork, failed to take advantage of many after-school tutorial programs and were generally disruptive."
How about THIS difference: 35 kids this year... 21 last year. Bad timing? Slack kids? Disruptive?!! It's simple math: an extra 14 kids in the classroom. While economic rationalism rules (rather than common sense) governments will continue to fail schools , students and parents.

[Lockport Local]

Ozcan wrote:

With a class size of 35, what would you expect? Classes were this size over 100 years ago! Class size should be maximized at 26, from Year Four on. It's time state and federal governments got real about class sizes...!!!

It makes no sense that they would have all of these students in one classroom. It surely isn't for lack of funds. NO other school in the area spends as much educating their students than Fairmont does. Assuming that all of these students were actually in one class, this makes no sense at all. Can someone answer this question? Were they all in one class? If so, no wonder they were disruptive.

That being said, why didn't the parents have their hammers on their heads as soon as they received the first progress report? These kids just didn't fail the last week of school. This was a long time coming and the parents knew about it. Would you rather your children fail 8th grade or get serious about school because they failed and do better in high school?

WAKE UP PARENTS! This is 100% your fault for not making sure your kids were doing their homework, attending classes and checking up on their progress. It's your job as a parent. The school can't force your children to do their homework, be respctful in class and pay attention. Only a parent can do that.

[Blame the parents]

" WAKE UP PARENTS! This is 100% your fault for not making sure your kids were doing their homework, attending classes and checking up on their progress. It's your job as a parent. The school can't force your children to do their homework, be respctful in class and pay attention. Only a parent can do that."
Yes, parents NEED to wake up. Your children's teachers need a better teacher: pupil ration than 35:1. No wonder teachers are leaving this underpaid, undervalued profession in droves, worldwide. If you value your children's education, stand up and be heard on the class size issue. You can't blame schools, forced to cram so many students into one classroom, if their learning and results suffer!

[Local]

First of all, for all of you that think 35 were in one classroom your absolutely wrong. The classes were split up half and half. So, for the 35 more students thier is still no exception. They just didn't care, and neither did the parents. The parents have no clue of what is going on in thier childs life.

Good luck 8th graders, pay attention on your second chance.

[Jumping Ship]

I know this is no excuse but I just saw a news report regarding this issue and they said that 98% of the school population are at or below poverty level.
Blaming the parents may be futile as in many cases, there probably are no parents. It's foster care, grandparents, single parents or parents who probably cannot read beyond a fifth grade level themselves.
Even so, for those who are parents on TV complaining or the grandmother I saw, even if you yourself are not well educated, you should want better for your kids.
We know all the signs were there but perhaps the "parents" could not read them; literaly.

[Lockport Local]

Are you sure they were all in one classroom? I'm not sure that has been cleared up yet.

[Clueless Parents]

Among those clueless parents, I wonder if any know how to correctly spell the following, verbatim from your response: you're, there, their, child's.

I won't start on your punctuation! If you are in fact, correct that there were 18 in one room and 17 in another (and I doubt that) then I guess we need to look to adults for an example. We could begin with spelling....

[suburban educator]

For those of you concerned that their classrooms have 35 kids in it, go to this website:
http://webprod.isbe.net/ereportcard/publicsit...

It tells you a lot about the school such as class size (22 kids/teacher), mobility rate (60.6%), low income (97.9%). Granted, these numbers are from 2007, but as a veteran educator in a similar community near Chicago, I can tell you the numbers probably aren't that different for 2008. That's a decent class size (given funding in IL), but the mobility rate is a huge issue (you can't learn if you are moving from place to place and having to catch up or re-learn things) as is the low income percentage.

As an educator, I have to say that I am thrilled that a school district has finally said "enough is enough." Over the years I have watched numerous students do nothing in school, not be supported by parents who, for whatever reason, aren't being parents and/or guiding and/or being interested in their children's academics or lives...and then I've watched school districts pass these students on because it's easier than dealing with the public outcry. I say KUDOs to Lockport for drawing the line and holding to it. It is time that we stop coddling both students and parents instead of demanding that they step up and do their part of the job (learn and parent) and stop blaming educators for all of the ills in a school system. There's only so much that can be done without cooperation from the other people involved.

Finally, I promise you that the parents were informed a MINIMUM of 4 times a year (our district has grade information sent home EVERY 5 WEEKS in addition to PT conf, phone calls, emails etc) that their children were not passing. For the parent to pretend to be surprised now is an outrage and a joke.

[suburban educator]

The data I sent the link to is from 2007. This data is for the group mentioned from last year. The new scores(for the current kids) aren't up yet. If you want to follow up later, the website is www.isbe.net . Click on the "report card" link on the left side (bottom) and then enter Lockport under city in the first search area. Make sure you can get fiscal year 2008 info or else you will have the same info I sent earlier.

[Lockport Local]

Let's also remember that there are 5 or 6 other local public schools feeding into LTHS and none of them have this problem, but none of them have the low income numbers either. This is a very small school district in an unincorporated area of Lockport. Low income is a big factor in the problem here, but not an excuse. Just because you don't have a lot of money doesn't mean you shouldn't be responsible for your child's education. There are plenty of other low income area schools that are not having this big of a problem.

[Statistics]

I've seen the same kinds of stats used to confirm that a state's classrooms have 19.2 children, when I know in fact that the majority have 30 - 32. My guess is that we need to have someone from the school confirm that we're really talking about TWO classes here. It certainly doesn't read that way in the principal's comments!

There's no doubt that poverty does affect learning outcomes, but Coleman & Jencks' research has been shown to be highly flawed. Effective Schools research (and practice) indicates that children from socio-economically disadvantaged homes can achieve outstanding results.

If this district's schools really do have the small classes shown in the site's statistics, you are to be congratulated. Your state must be leading the US in class size reduction. It will be great to see US schools at the top of the next international PISA assessments, rather than struggling to make the top 25.

[Jumping Ship]

Everyone knows that children from socio-economically disadvantaged homes can achieve as much as any other student under a good system. But that system also has to include parents who care more about the child's grades than they care about wether or not Johnny or Suzie is going to where the cap and gown.
According to news reports, the district finally put their foot down when they saw how many of the students coming out of Fairmont were dropping out of Lockport Highschool at age 16.

[oneleankat]

My son was in private (Lutheran school for many years). I was an actively involved parent (flouride mom, lunch mom, helped in the office, helped clean the church, I was there EVERY day). 2 days after Easter my son's teacher tells me he is going go to have to repeat 2nd grade. Out of a class of 16, with 12 boys, 6 were going to have to repeat. I asked the teacher why she waited so long to tell me, after all, I was there all day, almost every day (the PTA president's son was also going to be held back and she wasn't told until that time either.) I asked this teacher every week how my son was doing and was told everything was o.k. Then she told me that although my son's test scores were 'off the board', he wasn't doing well in the class. No further explanation provided...

My belabored point is that this teacher, with a class of 16 (!!!) was going to fail half of the boys (zero girls) I decided this teacher had been teaching too long, had become very LAZY and wasn't interested in 'teaching' anymore. Took him out of private, put him in public...

My now 7th grader has to go to summer school this year for pre-algebra and reading (he tests at a 11th grade level - which really p=ssed the teacher off). He's now pulling A's and B's in summer school.

What's the deal? I asked. "They're actually teaching us". In his school, the math teacher hands them the instructions, the assignment and says, "do it". No instruction offered at all. He was told if he did his homework, even if it was all wrong, he would pass. In summer school he gets real one-on-one help. This is stupid and scary and I guess what's really going on in the schools....

No child left behind??? That's really helping the situation.

[Lockport local]

Ozcan wrote:

With a class size of 35, what would you expect? Classes were this size over 100 years ago! Class size should be maximized at 26, from Year Four on. It's time state and federal governments got real about class sizes...!!!

You can't blame the state, the feds, the earth, the moon or anybody else for this situation. The students failed, the class size has nothing to do with what transpired.

The number 35 is the size of the 8th grade. This is a middle school program. The students are the same as a high school or college environment. They change class based on the subject.

The average class size at Fairmont, is very low in comparison with most schools. The average class size is not more than 15 students.

We can't play the "blame game" here. All concerned have to "step up to the plate", and be accountable for this travesty in educating the children at Fairmont.

[Lockport local]

Simple Math wrote:

Read this again:
"Principal Stephanie Long admitted that this year's 8th graders were victims of bad timing. But she said last year's 8th graders were held to the same standard, and all 21 graduated. The difference this year is that more students slacked off of their schoolwork, failed to take advantage of many after-school tutorial programs and were generally disruptive."
How about THIS difference: 35 kids this year... 21 last year. Bad timing? Slack kids? Disruptive?!! It's simple math: an extra 14 kids

in the classroom. While economic rationalism rules (rather than common sense) governments will continue to fail schools , students and parents.

You need to know more about the structure of the middle school program. This is not about simple math, if it was about that, 20 students would not have failed.(at least not math). The numbers have nothing to do with this situation. Throwing money at it, and class size does not necessarily bring success. Faimont is an example.

Sufficient budget, low class size,(not more than 15 students to a class, on average). Results have been a dismal failure, when we talk about these 20 students. There has to be a better way.

[Middle School]

Ah, well that helps explain it, I guess. Take a group of youngsters with a transient home background (60.6% you say?) and put them in a transient school program... and wonder why they fail. David E Kelley would love it! Folks, it's great to see you getting tough with those failing kids from failing homes with failing parents. Maybe the caring consistency of _one_ elementary classroom for kids this age might be 'the better way' the previous writer seeks.
Good luck with Middle Schools. They're certainly co$t efficient....

[friend of parent]

I would just like to say that being a friend of two failing students' parent. I two thought that something had went very wrong with the school district as well, but talking to this parent I've come to the conclusion that these parents just didn't do their job. They are really looking for some one to blame and it starts with a look in the mirror.

I also would like to say that growing up in a single parent home, below poverty level, education was most important in our home. My mom was very involved in our education. So I don't except that it's a "poor thing". It's a get off your lazy behind and grab what you need to have your american dream.