Letter: Uninterrupted time is teacher’s best ally

Sunday, March 25, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.

Teachers must ensure each child is competently instructed so as to be able to successfully pass state-mandated achievement tests. The district has instituted cookbook-type curriculum guides with expectations that they teach and complete the content in lockstep fashion.

Time becomes a critical factor as teachers try to complete mandated curricula by the end of the course. In many schools in the district there are so many untold distractions imposed on teaching that it often becomes impossible to introduce and teach concepts as well as have time to remediate students lacking subject mastery.

Few people realize there are days with class periods interrupted for school orientation, photos, pep rallies, school fundraisers, motivational speakers, fire drills, school terrorism lockdown drills, vision, hearing and scoliosis exams, mandated state practice testing, course selection and placement counseling, plus other activities not directly related and essential to classroom instruction. Each is a dilution of instruction time such that some classes are interrupted more than others and end up having very unequal teaching time. Yearly loss of 20-30 teaching days is very significant.

District policies in the past minimized class interruptions for activities; the idea was that teachers needed time to teach. It seems frivolous interruptions have greater priority today. School and student failures are not solely the fault of the classroom teacher; the loss of teaching time may be more of a factor in low achievement than the public realizes. The district needs to reexamine policies about activities that interrupt and subtract from classroom instruction; the fact remains that teachers need time to teach!

Virgil A. Sestini, Las Vegas