It’s too late now, but this is the absolute right time to fix this for next year.

Multiple times a week I’m on a secondary campus. And without fail, during the Spring, I’m greeted with the same welcome… “Glad you’re here. Just want to let you know that we have a lot of subs on campus today.”

That will be true.  There are times that there will be ten or more classes covered (let’s not lie and say “being taught”) by substitutes. Where are all the teachers? They are coaches – off to spring meets, games and tournaments.

What’s the big deal? Let’s do some cruel, but truthful math…

10 subs X 7 periods X 20 students per period = 1,400 students receiving next to no instruction so 40 athletes can have access to their entire coaching staff. This occurs over and over again during the Spring Semester, otherwise known as, STAAR Crunch Time.

When you think of it this way, it’s completely worth it.

How do you fix this? Easy. Principal, sit down with your Athletic Director right now. Pull out next year’s calendar and the list of Spring sports.  Every after school, Saturday and Spring Break athletic event, no problem.  Every school day athletic event, there’s a problem that needs a solution. The solution could be not participating in that event. The solution could be replacing a school day event with an after school or weekend event. The solution could be to send the subs with the team and leave the teachers in their class.

The solution isn’t scheduling as many events as possible during the Spring and decimating the academic program of the entire campus. Which right now is standard operating procedure.

Just know that until this is addressed, the litany of complaints about secondary school STAAR scores are a whole lot less legitimate.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn…

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