After reading Michelle Berger”s column I was left with so many rebuttals that I had to categorize them from most to least important and cut quite a bit out, because no newspaper could hold all of the words that I could muster to express how much I love my job and I”m not the only one.
All teachers are required to have a bachelor”s degree, a four-year degree from an accredited university, as well the completion of a one year graduate program for our teaching credential.
In this time we must take a three-part monster of a test called the CSET; this test costs more than $200 and can take up to 15 hours to complete. We must also pass another test called the CBEST; this is the least expensive test coming in at less than $100.
Another test we must take and pass is the RICA, which evaluates our ability to teach reading. After acquiring the fifth-year credential and a job, new teachers go through a two-year program designed to assess and support new teachers. Not only does every teacher have a BA and a fifth-year credential, some teachers have supplementary credentials and others are either obtaining, or already have, their master”s degree.
Burns Valley just said good-bye to its principal of 13 years. Although we lost Mr. Sherman, we gained an excellent administrator in Tarin Benson. Benson is a gifted teacher, and even won “Teacher of the Year” during her career as a fifth-grade teacher. She has inspired our staff and our students and when test scores improve this year, it will be in part due to that inspiration and passion. Our vice principal, Chris Shoeneman, is always on time, is visible on the playground, in classrooms and in hallways. He shows our students respect and kindness while holding their behavior and choices to the highest degree. But our administration has the support of our amazing office staff, Michelle Cain and Glenda Fields. These women are remarkable; not only do they take care of every office need our school has, they love every student. They know all 500-plus students by name. They even organize an annual pot of Christmas presents to give to at least one struggling family in our school.
Teachers, all teachers, are held to a strict rule of confidentiality that prevents us from speaking specifically about individual students by name.
On occasion one teacher might ask another a general question, such as “how would you encourage a student who isn”t completing assignments?”
If Berger had experience or education in the field, she might have recognized these discussions for what they were ? important idea-sharing conversations that lead to new and inventive ways of inspiring our students.
My final word: Who is this Michelle Berger? What education does she have in order to observe classrooms and school grounds and render an educated response? Of course the stories cited in the column were horrendous.
These were isolated, tragic, but isolated events at one school site observed and retold through the eyes of one 20-something-year-old with the education, experience, and affect filter of a 20-something-year-old.
If you want to know what”s going on at your child”s school, visit the classroom and find out. Please don”t read one condemning column that”s simply a sensational story with little sense.
Jenna Radtke is a teacher at Burns Valley in Clearlake. Radtke is also actively involved in community theater through Lake County Theatre Company, and is a Board Member of Lake County Arts Council. To contact her feel free to e-mail: jennaradtke@yahoo.com.
