Changing The Courses

I made a suggestion to my principal the other week that I feel we should have two seperate tracks for math in the middle school, an advanced track (course) and a normal track. My reasoning for this suggestion is that some of the kids in my classes are bored because we are not going fast enough and they are not being challenged. Unfortunately for them, I cannot go any faster, because some of the students are struggling at the pace I am going right now.

This would allow me to challenge the more advanced students and spend more time on material for the weaker students. I feel this would benefit all the students in the school. I was actually rather shocked when I saw that the school did not have this, the math department does branch off into two seperate tracks but not until about grade 10 or 11. Grant it, two tracks would create rather small classes, but they have AP classes in the high school that have only 5 students in them. If they can justify and AP class with 5 students, there is no reason we cannot have an advance middle school math class with 8 students.

Also, this forces the school to hire another part-time math teacher or find someone currently on staff to teach a math class or two. That may be the only thing keeping this from going through. However, it would also open my schedule up and almost guarantee me a high school math class for next year. Last I heard, this was going to happen and I will be getting my high school math class.

I spoke with some of the parents about this option at the parent-teacher conferences. Some of them were rather upset the school did not already have this option, which I agree with them and their argument. I feel the school is often behind the times on certain issues and slow to keep up with things as them develop in the education field. I honestly believe this is attributed to the fact that the school director has complete power over things in the school and determines what happens. If she does not feel something should happen, it doesn't happen. Its her school and the final decision is hers to make. However, personally I feel this hierarchy has hurt the school in the past.

Aaron