04-10-2013, 01:51 PM
Julie,
Charter schools ARE public schools! We do receive far less funding from the state, but Cyril Pahinui isn't going to be teaching kids ukulele in a DOE school, but he does at Connections! In a DOE school, classes can be as much as twice the size as at a charter school, and teachers in secondary at DOE schools see as many as 175 different students in a day. There isn't a lot of room for personal relationships with those kinds of numbers. Unless you've had a student in a PUBLIC charter school here in Hawaii I don't think you really have any basis for comparison.
Charter schools in Hawaii came about because many Hawaii families were frustrated at the lack of local input and control that a single statewide school district provides, if a child is not part of the middle range they teach to, parents go looking for alternatives. Most of the charter schools on the Big Island have long waiting lists, so clearly many parents are voting with their feet. The legislature has been trying to starve charter schools out of existence ever since they started, this year we got half the funding that DOE schools get and we pay for our own facilities out of that per pupil funding. However, if you want your child to have a personal relationship with their teacher or teachers, if you want a school where everyone is part of the same ohana, no matter what ethnic background they have, where bullying is dealt with swiftly and decisively, where the classroom teacher has time to really get to know your child, then Charter schools are worth looking at.
CKG,
As far as Gifted and Talented education goes, few schools anywhere offer special programs for those kids anymore. My daughters were tested and evaluated as TAG students (the label our school district used) and the program was slashed so far due to budget cuts right afterwards that we never really saw anything offered to them. That was back in the 90s and the funding hasn't gotten better anywhere since then.
As a teacher I love having gifted kids in my classes, I have a 7th grade student who is writing a 5 page double spaced typed and properly cited research paper on the conflict between rights and laws, instead of doing what the rest of the class is doing, because that is what her intellectual need is. I think any teacher who is confident in their teaching welcomes the gifted child. I also know that the dropout rate for gifted children is higher than that of special education students, because their needs are not met in the classroom so much of the time, so as an educator I view it as a very important part of my job to meet the needs of those students, every bit as important as meeting the needs of the special education students in my class.
Perhaps my perspective is a little different because of my experience as a student (who left for college after my sophomore year in HS because my small town school had nothing left to offer) and as a parent of two gifted children whose needs were not met in what was considered one of the best school districts in the country, but I try to meet the needs of ALL of my students, and teaching in a public charter school gives me the freedom to do that. I can meet the needs of all my students in ways I would just not be allowed to do in a DOE school.
In the long run, it is the job of parents to meet the needs of their child, if your school doesn't do that, then either go school shopping, or find ways to add on to the richness of their lives with other educational experiences. School is far from the only place to learn, I have seen parents of gifted students meet the needs of their child through art, music, fencing and dance classes, there are both Puna and Hilo chess clubs, theater groups that cast kids, if you are at least part Hawaiian, Kamehameha schools have great summer programs, Imaloa offers intersession classes too, and a friend of mine empowered her daughter to write two full length novels before she graduated from HS by getting dragonspeak for their family computer and prioritizing when she could use it. Be creative, if you have a gifted child you are probably pretty smart and talented yourself, think outside of the box and find out what your child wants to explore and then help them do it. You will never regret it.
Carol
Edited to fix a silly typo.
Charter schools ARE public schools! We do receive far less funding from the state, but Cyril Pahinui isn't going to be teaching kids ukulele in a DOE school, but he does at Connections! In a DOE school, classes can be as much as twice the size as at a charter school, and teachers in secondary at DOE schools see as many as 175 different students in a day. There isn't a lot of room for personal relationships with those kinds of numbers. Unless you've had a student in a PUBLIC charter school here in Hawaii I don't think you really have any basis for comparison.
Charter schools in Hawaii came about because many Hawaii families were frustrated at the lack of local input and control that a single statewide school district provides, if a child is not part of the middle range they teach to, parents go looking for alternatives. Most of the charter schools on the Big Island have long waiting lists, so clearly many parents are voting with their feet. The legislature has been trying to starve charter schools out of existence ever since they started, this year we got half the funding that DOE schools get and we pay for our own facilities out of that per pupil funding. However, if you want your child to have a personal relationship with their teacher or teachers, if you want a school where everyone is part of the same ohana, no matter what ethnic background they have, where bullying is dealt with swiftly and decisively, where the classroom teacher has time to really get to know your child, then Charter schools are worth looking at.
CKG,
As far as Gifted and Talented education goes, few schools anywhere offer special programs for those kids anymore. My daughters were tested and evaluated as TAG students (the label our school district used) and the program was slashed so far due to budget cuts right afterwards that we never really saw anything offered to them. That was back in the 90s and the funding hasn't gotten better anywhere since then.
As a teacher I love having gifted kids in my classes, I have a 7th grade student who is writing a 5 page double spaced typed and properly cited research paper on the conflict between rights and laws, instead of doing what the rest of the class is doing, because that is what her intellectual need is. I think any teacher who is confident in their teaching welcomes the gifted child. I also know that the dropout rate for gifted children is higher than that of special education students, because their needs are not met in the classroom so much of the time, so as an educator I view it as a very important part of my job to meet the needs of those students, every bit as important as meeting the needs of the special education students in my class.
Perhaps my perspective is a little different because of my experience as a student (who left for college after my sophomore year in HS because my small town school had nothing left to offer) and as a parent of two gifted children whose needs were not met in what was considered one of the best school districts in the country, but I try to meet the needs of ALL of my students, and teaching in a public charter school gives me the freedom to do that. I can meet the needs of all my students in ways I would just not be allowed to do in a DOE school.
In the long run, it is the job of parents to meet the needs of their child, if your school doesn't do that, then either go school shopping, or find ways to add on to the richness of their lives with other educational experiences. School is far from the only place to learn, I have seen parents of gifted students meet the needs of their child through art, music, fencing and dance classes, there are both Puna and Hilo chess clubs, theater groups that cast kids, if you are at least part Hawaiian, Kamehameha schools have great summer programs, Imaloa offers intersession classes too, and a friend of mine empowered her daughter to write two full length novels before she graduated from HS by getting dragonspeak for their family computer and prioritizing when she could use it. Be creative, if you have a gifted child you are probably pretty smart and talented yourself, think outside of the box and find out what your child wants to explore and then help them do it. You will never regret it.
Carol
Edited to fix a silly typo.
Carol
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb