Open School Week Classroom Visits

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Author: Lauren Coleman-Lochner

Started: March 22, 2007, 12:00:46 am

Target: Stuyvesant High School Parents' Association

Category: Education

Supporters:

Goal:

100,000

Goal Progress:

Status

Active

Dear Mr. Teitel,

Following the abrupt cancellation of classroom visits during Open School Week this month, the members of the Parents' Association urge the administration and faculty to restore this successful event to its twice-a-year frequency.

Parents who are able to take advantage of Open School Week at Stuyvesant have found it extremely helpful and positive for obtaining a realistic picture of their children's situation. Its cancellation this month has greatly disappointed parents, and the PA has received numerous complaints. Because Stuyvesant is on a semester schedule and the students change teachers mid-year, it is most appropriate to have a period for parents' classroom visits during each term.

Moreover, parents are unable to understand the reason behind the cancellation and why they have been made to feel unwelcome in their children's school. If there were concerns about problems when parents visited classrooms, they should have been communicated to us, but we did not learn of any complaints until after this month's visits were already cancelled. The Parents' Association certainly would have worked with the faculty to address any problems -- perhaps by checking cell phones, for example, so parents did not bring them into classrooms. Had we been informed about some of the concerns the teachers had expressed after the October visits, we believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise with the UFT.

Again, we are dismayed and disappointed that our good-faith efforts to work cooperatively with the administration and the staff, and our extensive support of the faculty, have been rewarded in this manner. We hope that the once-a-semester classroom visits will be reinstated next fall.

Sincerely,
The Parents' Association of Stuyvesant High School