Letters to the editor, May 12, 2008

Barstow schools need to start sooner

I have too long been silent about a major problem we have in our town, our school schedule. I am a teacher at Barstow High School. I love my job, I love my students, but I hate what is happening to our schools. In the upcoming week, all employees of Barstow Unified School District will be voting on a calendar for, not only, next year’s schedule, but for the next three years as well.

This year the district started school after Labor Day; some teachers, classified and administration felt that returning to “the way it was” would be better for all. But it was not. Returning to the way it was has brought a heavy hammer down on Barstow High School. We are now in week two of state testing, throwing in the California High School Exit Exam as well as eight advanced placement testing exams for college prep courses. Our students are burned our, our classified are burned out and our teachers are burned out!

There are those here at BHS who would say that start dates have nothing to do with testing, but they are not dealing with the entourage of tests. They are senior teachers who do not test state, teach no AP classes or classified who are not in the classroom. This is a very important year for our school — our scores have to rise, or we will be in trouble. How can we expect students to do well, when we have bombarded them with tests? Teachers across the district are tired; and students just want all this to end.

We have heard so often, especially in the letters to the editor how we need to have a cohesive Barstow, where we truly are a community in every sense. But how can we call ourselves a real community when we are not even looking at help from our community? I have often brought up Silver Valley High School as an example and have been shut down because the demographics are not the same as at Barstow High School. Why? Because they are housed by the military. Yes, they have more military families than we do who move in and out of the district, but we have the same type of moving at BHS, just not military. Silver Valley just received a five year accreditation from WASC, we need to see what they are doing right.

One thing is starting school earlier in August so they have the maximum amount of time they can with their students. This past year Silver Valley started mid August, we started early September, they tested the week of April 21, and we started the week of April 28. Two extra weeks of preparation, and all teachers prepare, not just certain subjects. We need to align with our community college as well. Most of our students will probably start at BCC, so let’s make it easier for them to do that.

When I first started teaching in Barstow, the slogan was Better Schools, Better Barstow — what has happened to that? We need to look at what is best for student education, not focus on a two week shorter summer break. How about putting the students first, spending time in education and not in the summer sun?

Leah L. Johnston,
Barstow High School teacher