Debate in the Christina School District over the state’s Priority Schools plan continued Tuesday at Wilmington’s Bayard Middle School. Faculty at the school, considered failing by state officials who selected it as one of six schools to participate in the initiative, met to add their voice to development of Bayard's individual school turnaround plan.
Teachers were upset to hear a data analyst detail all the ways in which their students lag behind the rest of the First State. During the long presentation, one teacher said, “I need a drink,” and then added, “I can’t even right now.”
Teachers said they shouldn’t shoulder all the blame for the poor student test scores that put Bayard on the Priority list. They complained Bayard is chronically understaffed and that many issues, such as a high student absentee rate and low parent involvement, are beyond their control.
“I do see quite a few things in this data that we’re being held accountable for that is far beyond our reach in this building,” said Melaney Scott-Cosden, a 7th grade Language Arts teacher. She questioned how fair it was to compare Bayard to other schools with more resources and different demographics.
“I was just raised, you don’t judge a frog by how well it can fly. You judge it on how far it can hop, cause it’s a frog.” she said.
Another teacher said that she and her colleagues are “in hell” because of issues like chronic understaffing. Administrators said they agree with teachers that Bayard Middle School has unique challenges. But, they argued, this meeting was about including faculty and community members in drafting the state-mandated plan, not disputing the numbers.
Wilmington City Councilman Nnamdi Chukwuocha also attended the meeting. Although he supports Priority Schools, he told Bayard staff that he understood where they were coming from, and wanted the city to get more involved in education.
“Not only are you looking at it from, [these are] your babies that you’re teaching, we’re looking at it from a city’s aspect of what’s happening to our babies when they leave these schools and how are they ending up on the corner of 8th and Monroe?”
The deadline to present plans to the state Department of Education is December 31st.
