Learning in the Castle of Fear

Almost two years ago, my wife and I were looking for a public school for our son, A. He had been attending a private school since Pre-K, would be starting first grade the next fall, and we didn't want to continue to pay for private-school tuition. (Note: The private school had been doing a fine job, and its price wasn't unreasonable as private schools go, but the cost was putting a serious constraint on our ability to pay for other things.)

We had chosen that school, and entered A in Pre-K there, at the recommendation of A's daycare provider. The staff had recommended that we move him into a more rigorous environment, because he was pretty clearly bored with the limited stimulation available in the daycare facility.

Colorado allows parents to choose schools out of their home districts (usually with a lower priority than in-district families), but we started by looking at the schools in our school district, Adams County District 1, in the Denver metro area. Of those schools, only one was even marginally acceptable, though it (Valley View Elementary) looked pretty good. We visited the school, talked to the staff, and had pretty much decided to have A attend that school. Then we went to the open house held at the school in the spring. At that open house, we found out that the previous principal was leaving and that the new principal, promoted from another district school, was going to bring in all of the wonderful innovations that had made the rest of the district one of the worst in the metro area. (She didn't present it in quite those terms.) After that open house, we agreed that we would no longer consider this school for our son*.

At the same time as we were looking at in-district schools, we were also looking at schools in the neighboring district (Adams 12), which had several schools that wouldn't be impossible for our commutes and that looked like they would provide a good education. The first of these was a GATE school, but we knew that we were wait-listed and unlikely to get A in that year**. (In fact we were unlikely to get A in at all; the list is long and in-district kids have priority over out-of-district kids. The school admits almost no out-of-district kids.) The second was a very good charter, but its waiting list was also very long. (They recommended that we talk to them again when A was ready for middle school.) The third was closer to our home than the other two, but had been a bit troubled recently.

Pinnacle Charter Elementary didn't have very good test scores and it looked like there had been some problem with financial irregularities in the recent past, but we decided to visit during its open house as well. (Our options were a bit limited by this time.) The school had a new principal, its teachers seemed to be enthusiastic, and it was a Core Knowledge/Saxon school. It was also the closest of the marginally acceptable schools on our list. When Valley View fell through, we decided to take a chance on Pinnacle.

A has now been attending the school for a bit over a year, and last week we had our first parent-teacher conference of the new school year, and I thought this a good time to reflect on our experience with the school:

Math – Pinnacle uses Saxon's math curriculum. As many of you know, Saxon's focus in first and second grade is automaticity in addition and subtraction. In A's case, this goal has been partially met; he is automatic on about half of his math facts. To this point in the year we have had essentially nothing but review of last year's work, which point was made by A's teacher. She also said that the students would now be going into more difficult work and that we shouldn't worry if grades dropped a bit in the short term. Importantly, she made the decision not to continue with review by giving a diagnostic test to the students in the class. Most of the class was well over 80% on the test, even though it included a couple of questions about material that hadn't been covered yet.

As an aside, after seeing problems with students being unable to generalize from the specific format of Saxon's canned tests, the teachers in the school decided to give the students tests in other formats as well. The specific test we were shown included a few subjects and terms that had not previously been shown to the students. I'm a bit ambivalent about the latter issue, but rather support the former.

Reading – Reading is regularly assessed and students are given time to read ability-appropriate materials. The level of materials is customized to the student. In addition, the students spend some time reading to a “reading buddy”, who is an older student (6^th grade, in A's case). We had a bit of a problem with A's reading buddy giving A some anti-intellectual feedback. When we mentioned this to A's teacher, she immediately agreed that this was a problem, that his reading buddy would be changed, and that the problem would be addressed with the older student. I don't know that I especially like students being used as ad hoc teachers, but if this is to happen, I appreciate the responsiveness when problems arise.

Another aside: A's teacher said that in one case A wanted to take his dictionary out to recess to read. She didn't allow that, because he needed to burn off some energy. I fully support and sympathize with the teacher in this even though I'm glad A likes to read on his own time. 8-)

Writing – “Voice” and content seem to be more in the focus of the teacher's attention than grammar and spelling. I think this is the wrong order, but this area seems completely captured by constructivists in ed school. Still, the teacher seems to be emphasizing that transcription, at least, have correct spelling. Regular (weekly) spelling tests often cover words that have similar phonemic patterns, which makes reinforcement of phonetics more effective.

Handwriting – As noted in a comment to another post, A does not have good handwriting. The school has handwriting books on backorder, but has not spent much time this year on this, in part because the (young) teacher “used a computer all the way through college” rather than writing anything by hand. We discussed the requirement for proficient handwriting in math, which seemed to be a bit of a revelation. We'll see how this progresses.

Social Studies and Science – The content here is Core Knowledge, which I think is a very strong curriculum. The homework we've seen seems fact-based and entirely grade-appropriate.

Specials – Specials include Art, PE, Technology (computer use), and Music (I don't think I missed any), only one of which is studied each quarter. Specials teachers are nominally available, and if there were a real problem, I suspect they'd be available in practice. But meeting these teachers for a conference is much less convenient than meeting A's regular teacher. As could be expected from craft/skill-based subjects, the material in these classes seems grounded in the real world.

Discipline – Discipline is occasionally a bit too zero-tolerance for me, but at least the rules are well understood by the students. In addition, the administration seems willing to entertain the possibility that problems are not necessarily on the side of the students. In A's case, the teacher commented that “A only has a problem with speaking out of turn when he's really excited about the material”, and she indicated that she thought that was very normal for a young boy. The teacher also related that the 2^nd and 3^rd grades were have a bit of a discipline problem in the lunchroom this year. Upon observation, they determined that the staff was using negative reinforcement almost entirely. They implemented a program of positive reinforcement of good behavior which (per the teacher's report) has dramatically reduced problems. I view this as a generally positive situation.

Finally, nothing in this most-recent parent-teacher conference, or in any previous PT conference, was a surprise. We receive regular updates on A's progress from the school that include his score on each assignment and a weighted average of his score in each academic area. Grading is on a strict 90/80/70/60% scale, though the grades are 4/3/2/1 rather than A/B/C/D. In addition, his graded assignments are sent home for our perusal every day. If there's a problem, we can address it before it becomes unmanageable.

In summary, we're very happy that we had school choice available and also that we took a chance on this school. It's not perfect (by our lights), but it's strong in many areas and its weaknesses are remediable. We've seen good progress on A's part and responsiveness from the school staff. Barring evidence of undesirable changes, I expect that A will stay in this school through the elementary grades.

Oh, and the title of this piece? The school building used to be a K-Mart. Between the time that the K-Mart closed and the school opened, the building was used for a commercial haunted house called “The Castle of Fear”. (I worked for the man that also owned the haunted house as the editor of the “catalog for independent gaming shops” referred to in this article; my old office is now the office of the dean.

* I'm convinced that this was the right decision. A parent comment from the Great Schools website: “I have watched the school decline in the past two years due to district wide changes and the fact that the school has had 3 different principals in as many years. Constant change is not good for the students or teachers. Valley View was once the only school in this district or any other near by district that I would consider sending my children to, but now I am rethinking that decision.”

** In addition, we found out that the school had just gone to Everyday Math, which substantially decreased our enthusiasm for the school, in spite of its reputation.