Some people feel that the move LAUSD made to remove the entire Miramonte staff will do more damage than good. Parents have even protested the bold move saying that it is equivalent to “throwing out the baby with the bath water” and feel that their children will suffer from the change by having their current teachers replaced with less effective ones. One thing is for sure: children’s instructional time and families trust in staff has been disrupted.
As someone who has worked on and visited campuses for many years I can honestly tell you that monitoring of classroom is not a major priority of school systems. They simply don’t have adequate personnel to conduct regular classroom observations. And some may say isn’t the Miramonte incident just an isolated problem that doesn’t happen at other schools? Well what data exists to show that? And besides in the end this incident will be played out in legal battles that may disclose more concerns or not.
I have been an advocate of classroom observation for many years – but not just by Principals and Administrators, but by parents. Schools are institutions of communities and how well they function should be the business of those communities; including parents, school staff, and other community members. But by no means am I supporting supervision of teachers by non-administrator’s of those teachers.
However effective measures need to be implemented to support teachers and schools. Properly trained parents and community members will add a significant presence and support for schools. But this measure would need sufficient support via resources such as training, child care, stipends, etc. Of course schools and districts could also choose to spend their resources on legal fees.