We only have 4 copiers on site to provide for 2600 students. 3 of them are very old and break down constantly. Tech support used to come to repair the copiers within 24 hours but this year is different. Some copiers have been down for 2 weeks (since the first day of school). Teachers have no other way to make copies of handouts, worksheets, tests, quizzes, and other papers they need to provide their students with on a daily basis in order to best meet their students needs. Because teachers struggle to be able to teach their students effectively when the copiers are down, this is an injustice.
*As a side note, I took this photo 1 week ago. 7 days later (9/4/12) and the status of the copiers remains the same.*
According to the ELD coordinator at my site, there are 306 EL learners at M. High School this year (13%). On average, based on the data from the California Department of Education, there are 346 EL learners at our high school every year. That's interesting because even though there are fewer EL learners at my site this year, the number of overall students has increased (this year we reached 2600). There are 3-5 EL learners (Level 3) in each of my biology classes.
Link to California Department of Education, DataQuest (2010-2011)
How can we as teacher provide to tools to our students and be efficient at the same time if we don't have the proper tools? You are right, this is an injustice. Can you imagine if a 504 students need the copies of the teachers power point? what if the teacher can't provide them because the copier is broken. The students will not be the one to blame, I sure it will be tuned around and be blamed on the teacher.
ReplyDeleteI want to piggy-back on Ben's comment: yes this is an injustice! And I appreciate the connection to IEPs. If printing slides is part of the IEP, this is just awful! Especially if the student doesn't have computer or internet access at home to get the slides emailed. What a shame. Nice post, Rachel.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree this is an injustice. My site only has one copier and all the veteran teachers know that if they want copies they need to make them weeks in advance or they will never get time on it. I can't imagine what might happen then the whole thing breaks down....
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