I think the media is one sided. I think like any school there are pros and cons. I think raising the bar to higher standards isn't hurting our kids. My child has special needs and has a 504 plan and is keeping up with the information being taught. I think he'd have the same struggles at public school as well since he doesn't qualify for an IEP. The school does work to try to help him, but ultimately he has to learn to be organized and responsible if he's going to be successful so I don't mind that he has to try harder and find tools to work through his disability. It would have been easy to pull him out and put him back into public school but I think that wouldn't be in his best interest. This is his 3rd year attending Basis. I have another child in his 3rd year as well who is thriving and is excited about learning.
Stinks that these students/parents experienced this in San Antonio, but it seems like a very one sided opinion piece. I had several frightening experiences while my kids attended 2 different TUSD schools, but nothing like this ever occurred at Basis Tucson this year! At TUSD, during 2nd grade, my son was physically & emotionally abused by a substitute teacher (along with his classmates - but he got the brunt of it) and he was bullied several times by older kids allowed to play at the same time during recess while monitors didn't pay attention (I witnessed it happening once while waiting on the curb to move up to the pickup spot after school). Then the Principal video interviewed the other students without notifying their parents. The Principal never notified the parents - their regular Teacher sent home a letter to apologize for what happened when she returned from her week of outside training. The Substitute will no longer be allowed in a classroom, but I wish in hindsight I had called to make a police report about him so he would not be allowed in any setting with children. I know of a child at my kids' TUSD school who had a serious concussion from an intentional attack by another student and the school didn't even call the parents to report the injury, conduct an investigation or punish the other student. They sued the school because of this - probably wouldn't have if it had been handled appropriately. This same TUSD school went from excelling to being below the standards over the past 5 years. One of my son's has special needs - Basis was helpful in putting together a more proactive 504 accommodations plan than TUSD's staff had done and addressed one of his needs by taking their time to work with him individually after school with a specific learning problems. That never happened with a teacher at TUSD. The TUSD school they attended had very little security measures in place to keep tabs on who entered the campus during the school day. TUSD's GATE self contained program is mainly at it's lower income campuses - making it difficult for gifted kids in other areas of town to get the full GATE services at their neighborhood school campuses. The class sizes at TUSD were 30-34 kids in 2012-2013 for my kids' classes, with no Teacher Aide. At Basis, there are 2 teachers present in classes of 30 for grades 1-4 - so a 15:1 ratio. Basis offers after school student help (student hours) - teachers work till 5:30 in many cases. My kids had homework - but I didn't feel like it was unreasonable - they just have to be organized with their time and establish a routine and can get through it in a reasonable amount of time. They had great Art, Drama, Music, Kenpo and PE & after school interest and sports programs - I felt like they had a well rounded school experience at Basis and was pleased with what and how they were learning and how they were treated! Oh - and the Health Aide at the school was awesome!
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