I hear you Deb. I hope the admin group see's your passion for the
students and your job. Granted, the premise of your job is still
the same, there are many ways to measure reading comprehension
outside of AR too. With all the budget cuts in the educational
world, I guess be happy we still have jobs and are creative enough
to come up with a plan B. AR in our school was an extra. It was
nice to have, showed results and kids loved to take home scores and
talk about a book. Without AR those skill sets are still possible
but perhaps not as easy. That could be where some misconceptions
come from too about AR. If something is easy, it allows teachers to
stop teaching and claim the program does it for them. If you allow
AR to work this way, it will do you no favors. (Speaking to any
teacher that thinks this way).

I love the way AR works but also realize that it is just part of the
reading program, not THE reading program. Personally, I think AR
is the best program out there for Librarians that have to monitor
data (From a personal reporting standpoint) to actually being a
program that is well used and liked by students at the same time.
I love the flexibility of the program and how you can apply
different themes and such from a creative standpoint. Its so easy
to build your reading program around it, but you have to be careful
that it does not consume your program. Decisions on products and
finances always change and as teachers we need to be able to change
with those decisions weather we agree with it or not. Sometimes
the changes are short term and may be as little as 1 year. So the
next time the opportunity comes along, try your best to get more
teachers and schools in your district to buy into it. Its easy to
silence one voice, but a group of voices carries so much more power
in decision making.

On 6/04/09, Deb ms/IA....update wrote:
> I met with the principal and he informed me that the
> administrative team talk about AR and already decided to
stop
> the AR program (keep the STAR). I still presented him with
all
> of the data I had with the 8th grade program. Due to our
> district not following the best practices of AR, I am the only
> person using it so its easy to dump. I closed out my classroom
> and completed a three day class and then I put all my research
> and documents together along with a best practices 9 page
> document and suggested that we wait one year and implement the
> program as it should be implemented and then decide if it should
> be continued. I zapped that e-mail off today. It went to ever
> person on the administrative team. I even volunteered to head
> up the program and come in and answer any questions. So now I
> wait and see.........
>
> I also now need to research how I make up for this loss in my
> curriculum and still monitor children and their reading
> comprehension. My kiddos read 1,300 some odd books this
last
> school year. I can't fathom doing that many book talks, book
> reports or projects!!!!
>
> Please excuse me for not answering back sooner. I appreciate
> your help Ima, Tom and test. I was busy ending the year,
> cleaning my room and typing up all this research and taking a
> class. NOw I can begin summer break!
>
> Deb ms/IA

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