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Today is a bummer of a day for 90,000 students across Chicago: the school year has begun. 132 schools across the Chicago Public School System are on the system's Track E schedule which is a year-round calendar. The students on Track E still have the same number of school days of other students but instead of the typical 10-week summer vacation, they'll have shorter breaks several times throughout the year. Chi-Town Daily News has more on the evolution to the year-round schedule.
But there's more: as teachers come back to school as well, they'll find some new restrictions on ways they can communicate with students. Chicago Now blog District 299 reports that CPS has banned teachers from using private email, Facebook, Twitter, and cell phones to communicate with students and their families. The blog even posts one anonymous teacher's issues with the CPS' overall tech policies. Now, we don't know how not being able to use Facebook and Twitter will really get in the way of teaching; we managed to get through school just fine without those. On the other hand, kids these days are way tech-savvy and maybe these sites are becoming an important way to reach them. If you're a teacher, let us know your opinion of this new policy in the comments and if you use these social media tools to connect with your students.
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I really don't care about Twitter or Facebook, but I use email to communicate with my kids' teachers all the time. It's been especially useful in the past when I've worked certain jobs with schedules that keep me away from a phone during any hour reasonable to have a teacher call me.
It seems to me that any method that manages to increase lines of communication between teachers and parents is a good method. This prohibition is just dumb.
I doubt most teachers are bothered by the Twitter/Facebook ban, and I'd say most teachers would rather communicate with kids/parents using official email rather than their own personal address. I have no desire to give students my cell phone number, however, when I need to call a parent, and I'm not in the school, I call them using my cell. Since this is no longer allowed in CPS, teachers can only call homes during the school day, when parents are often not home. In other words, they've just made it near impossible to actually speak with a parent.
The problem is, many districts are exploring new ways to use technology to enhance and supplement the classroom experience. Many teachers have set up blogs where they can post information about their class, as well as direct students to other info that may be relevant to classwork. It also allows the students to collaborate and share ideas. This ban effectively leaves CPS students behind other, more forward-thinking districts.
As far as email goes, most teachers that I know who use email as a communication tool have set up separate Gmail or Yahoo accounts (e.g. MrsJonesClass@yahoo.com) for their students to use, so they aren't sharing personal addresses.
well the phone does work in my classroom and i've always made it policy never to call a parent from home or cell. If ( a BIG if) the CPS version of online gradebook has the added feature this year of a parent portal so parents can always monitor student progress, then I can disclaim any responsibility for not reaching out to touch someone. However, for field trips, etc. cell phones are a necessity.