For more than six years, two dozen Rocklin teachers have been championing math materials that have helped students in the suburban community boost their scores significantly.
On May 1, the teachers - all members of the Rocklin Teachers Professional Association - resigned from the program to protest the school board's refusal to value their input.
Twelve of the teachers had been part of a teacher, parent and administrator math committee that recommended that the district adopt updated versions of instructional materials they found most effective - the Everyday Math curriculum. The other dozen teachers had helped pilot two alternative math programs in classrooms around the city.
All of the teachers supported the continued use of Everyday Math "because in our professional opinion, it is what is best for the students of Rocklin," teacher Jennifer Powers told the board. "However, you chose to ignore the math committee's recommendation and accuse us of lying, withholding and manipulating survey information to make Everyday Math look better. We never heard any thank you for all of the hard work that we had done.
"Now we all stand together in unity to say 'Enough!'"
Backed by more than 160 teachers in attendance at the meeting, she added: "Your math committee is now dissolved. … We are all resigning."
The school board majority "just wiped out six years of work," says Rocklin Elementary teacher Jeanie Simpson. On a 3-2 vote, the school board "didn't just get rid of the Everyday Math series; they did away with it over our objections as if it were no big deal. We could have kept the text and the resultant high scores, but the board just said no."
"We were building a program and setting standards before the state even began wrestling with the issue," says Powers.
Powers said the teachers formulated opinions based on their educational knowledge and experience. When the board members ignored their recommendation, it raised many questions for teachers: "Should we bother piloting other curriculum? Should teachers go through all of the work of being piloting teachers if their recommendations will be ignored?"
"We want what is best for our students - your children," Powers told the board.
One board member added insult to injury by inviting teachers to quit teaching in the district if they didn't like the decision: "If [they] cannot accept the board's decision, they have the choice to teach in another school district," he reportedly wrote in an e-mail message to teachers. He repeated the insult in a letter published in the Placer Herald.
One probationary teacher, who spoke with the Educator on condition of anonymity, said that what "cemented" the decision to quit the panel was one board member's implication that teachers would misrepresent information about the effectiveness of the materials to prove a point.
The board members "didn't treat us or the process properly. They had no respect for all our work and our dedication."
Len Feldman