Day 10

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Today we stayed close to town. 

We didn't meet till 7:45 so a bit of a sleep in before we had a quick debrief and off to the first school. 

Today we started with a local elementary school that has just completed a turn around program. A turn around program is essentially a program for an extremely poor performing school and involves the sacking of at least 50% of staff and usually the principal along with an extensive plan of reform. The up side is the school then receives substantial financial benefit for a three year period with the view to turn the schools performance around. 

This school received $1.2m per year as a result and has gone from the 9 th lowest ranking school in New Mexico to one of the best over the past 4 years. One of the initiatives undertaken involved the extension of the school day by 1 hour every day. This would not go down well in Australia as after the three year turn around period they still continue to teach the extra hour but recieve no extra pay.  A very impressive school with a great staff. We also got to meet 8 mothers from the school who attend regularly for their own learning classes known as adult university. They are also engaged in parent engagement activities such as organising an upcoming May Day fair. 

We then travelled to a local Charter High School. Charter schools are still government funded but have control over their funding. They are filled via a lottery system. The only other way to get in is to have a sibling at the school or a staff members child. The concept was interesting. 

We returned to the hotel for lunch before an afternoon workshop. 

After the workshop Matt and I headed to a local pub where we spent several hours working on our reflection project before meeting with the rest of the crew for dinner and drinks. A good night for all. 


The first school today


Nice spread of donuts. Petty it is breaky time. 


Time for thanks


Charter High School. The students were very well articulated even if they look pretty rough around the edges. 


Hard reflection work in progress


Drinks at one of the local pubs. 






Comments

  1. MelfieldApril 17, 2014 at 2:15 PM

    Yeah not sure if I'd like the extension of the school day!!!! Xx

    ReplyDelete

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