Foss Fiasco

I sent the email below to Tacoma School District leadership on Thursday, September 23. On Monday, September 27 I received an email from Toni Pace, Director of High School Education requesting a meeting. I have yet to hear from her assistant to set an appointment.

Two parents of Hilltop Scholars have also sent emails. One was told "we'll look into it and get back to you." The other just sent his email yesterday.

Greetings:

I am writing to request that Foss High School be given a math teacher, a Spanish teacher, and an English teacher. Not having these teachers on staff is limiting student opportunities to get classes needed to be a competitive college applicant. The following are specific concerns shared with me by Foss students and staff:

1. Students are being removed from Spanish 5/6 (third year Spanish) if they are not “full IB” students. As you know, two years of foreign language is the minimum requirement for college acceptance. Offering third year Spanish at Foss, but not allowing certain students to access the class puts them behind other students at Foss and other schools. It makes these students less competitive and may even block their acceptance to the college of their choice. In some cases, parents were not notified of this important schedule change.
2. Juniors are not allowed to take Algebra 1-2 and seniors are not allowed to take Geometry. Instead, these students are being placed in Applied Math. If these students want to go to community college, they will have to remediate Algebra and Geometry (on their own dime) in order to reach college-level math.

In addition, many of the classes at Foss have an unacceptable high student to teacher ratio and are over-capacity. This depresses teachers’ and students’ morale and continues to limit access for students who want a quality education. In particular, there are concerns about the following classes:

1. English classes are so over-capacity that freshmen and sophomores are being placed in On-Line English classes. As you know, the one-class failure rate of Tacoma freshmen is over 50%. I worry that giving them an online class is going to exacerbate the problem, especially if they are asked to take the class at home on their own.
2. World issues and history classes are over-capacity and students are being placed in on-line classes.
3. Algebra 3/Trig is over-capacity.
4. There is only one teacher teaching freshman science, so biology classes are now over-capacity.
5. Art classes are over-capacity so students are not able to access this required class.

Last spring and summer, my students from Peace Community Center presented “Voices from the Gap.” These are the same students who are coming to me with concerns about what is happening to them at Foss High School. They know about the Achievement Gap and they recognize that they are being underserved by Foss and by the Tacoma School District. It is disheartening to see a student who wants a good education try to access it and be turned away.

As I said above, Foss High School needs at the very least, an additional qualified, good math teacher, English teacher, and Spanish teacher. Otherwise, the school and the District are blocking access to learning and to college for its students. In the future, I suggest the school schedule be built based on students’ academic needs and requests. It doesn’t appear that happened this year.

Please let me know of any actions taken in the next week or so to rectify this situation. If there is anything we can do as a community to help with this problem, please let us know.

Sincerely,
Laurie Fisher Ruiz

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Laurie Fisher Ruiz
Peace Community Center
"Touching Lives, Extending Peace"
Education Director
253.383.0702 ext. 109
eddir@peacetacoma.org
2106 South Cushman Avenue
Tacoma, Washington 98405

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The Beginning

Just started teaching CLASS last week. I am entering my second year of teaching this course. My freshmen are young, but trainable, my sophies are delightful and inquisitive, my juniors are like my very own children, and my seniors are brilliant. I can't wait to see how they all progress this year!

So far, we have done the basic stuff, like reminding everyone how to take Cornell Notes and organize their binders.

Our overarching theme this year is Prejudice. I decided to begin this theme by teaching the kids about 9/11. Just asking them questions today, I learned that they know a little about Al Qaida and Osama Bin Ladin, but some did not know that there were 4 planes involved and that the Pentagon was attacked as well. They were so young when it happened. Today I just taught them basic stuff like Al Qaida's responsible for 9/11 and Afghanistan was their training ground which is why we went into Aghanistan. There is so much more to the story, I know, but I have so little time to teach them!

I also learned today that one of my students is taking an online math class at Foss instead of taking a real live math class from a real live teacher. What the heck?

The assignment this week is for them to complete the Life Plan Assignment:

LIFE PLAN ASSIGNMENT

Your assignment is to make a timeline of your life. Indicate various milestones in your life by showing what age you plan to achieve these milestones. Some of the milestones you might not ever want (like marriage and/or children, or military service). If there are other milestones that are not listed here, please feel free to add them.

Be creative. These are going on the walls of our classroom.

Title your life plan with your name. Example: “Daniel’s Life Plan”

Milestones (in alphabetical order):

AmeriCorps Service
Begin career
Buy first house
College entrance (which college/university do you hope to attend?)
College graduation
First child
First job (part-time or summer job)
Fourth child
Graduate school (after you finish college)
High school graduation
Marriage
Military service
Second child
Third child