If your kids go to a regular public elementary school, which of these ‘extras’ do they have?
An art teacher?
A P.E. teacher?
A music teacher?
Foreign languages?
Teacher’s aids?
Anything else?
All of the above, and
a librarian,
a technology teacher,
a drama teacher
a band teacher
All kinds of after school sports/clubs run by different teachers.
This is in a K-8 school district.
I teach in a public school. The kids have special teachers for Art, PE, and Computers. Band and Chorus are offered as electives. There is a librarian, but she doesnt teach. Aides (paraprofessionals) are for students whose IEPs require them.
My kids go a regular elementary school in the Tucson Unified School District.
They have a half time music teacher, a half time P.E. teacher, and a half time librarian. They are also all taught chess 2 hours a week. They learn the recorder and have a track team.
They don’t have art besides what the regular teacher provides. Both kids have a half time teacher’s aid in the classroom.
They have enrichment programs after school that you have to pay for that offer a foreign language, theater, jewelry making, etc.
My daughter’s school has a PE coach for the fourth and fifth-graders - she is in 4th grade, so she has PE twice a week. Don’t know about a music teacher for all the kids, but there is a violin club that meets once a week after school. I think there’s an art assembly that everyone must attend once a month, but not sure if there’s an actual full-time art teacher, I need to ask her. There is a library with a full-time librarian, though. Last year, at her previous school in another district, the school library closed down for the year due to lack of funds.
The school district also provides an aide for any disabled child who needs one, as far as I can tell. There is a boy in my daughter’s class who is mobility impaired and has an aide to help him take notes and such.
Wouldn’t whether those are “extras” or not depend on the local educational requirements? I don’t think teacher’s aids even exist in Spain, but other than that, I believe the only one that isn’t required at some point within elementary levels is the music teacher.
P.E.
Music.
No band - that was dropped this year. No librarian, that was dropped a few years ago.
Lots of aids. ESL teachers, special ed teachers (included a G&T teacher), a psychologist, a social worker, a physical therapist and an occupational therapist, a full time math specialist and a full time literacy specialist (kids get pulled out for a special math and reading outside of the classroom math and reading).
The sprog’s school has all that stuff. I believe that some of the teachers split their time between schools, but every class gets to have art, music, library and gym every few days on a rotating schedule. The school district receives Title I funding, as well as funding from the Defense Department to educate Army dependents. The district can thus afford luxuries that other districts have had to give up.
It is hugely stupid to call most of those extras. Teacher’s aides are the closest to being a luxury. Foreign languages are most definitely NOT an extra. Kids need to learn them, and elementary school is the best time.
My daughters go to public school in Massachusetts in a school district that takes itself seriously. They have everything you described but more too. My oldest is already in French immersion which started in Kindergarten and goes all the way through high school. All classes are in French until 3rd grade when they start some English. The school also offers public Montessori as well as traditional programs. They have a dedicated art teacher and technology teacher. Band isn’t an option for kids that young but they do have a music teacher.
They are ‘extras’ because they are usually the first things on the chopping block when a school has to cut expenses. You won’t hear about a school district deciding not to teach math because math teachers cost extra, but many many schools have cut music, art, etc.
My son is in 3rd grade. His school (~450 students, grades 3-6) has dedicated teachers for art, PE, music, media (ie, library), and computers. There are a lot of teacher’s aides - I think they spend about half a day in each classroom. There’s a guidance counselor, of course. Foreign languages are an after school activity that you have to pay extra for, although it looks like Spanish is part of the curriculum for 6th graders. I think there must be a band teacher, as I know kids get on the bus with instruments, but apparently 3rd graders don’t do that.
We also have a hyper-involved PTA with an operating budget of $40k this year. Would anyone like to buy some wrapping paper?
My son is at a charter school now, but through 5th grade he was at a traditional publice school.
An art teacher? No, but they did some art throughout the year with their regular teacher.
A P.E. teacher? Yes, and he was great!
A music teacher? Yes, but they only had music one semester
Foreign languages? No
Teacher’s aids? Parents volunteering
Anything else?
Second semester of 5th grade they had drama and put on a small play at the end of the year.
They also had an active and engaged principal who stood at the entrance of the school every morning and greeted the kids and parents as they arrived. I loved that.
This is all dependent on the size of the school. We need a little more info as to how large the schools you are looking at are. I went to a K-8 school that was rural and had gone from 200 students to about 120 by the time I left. We didn’t have a dedicated PE teacher, and we lost our dedicated language teacher (French, of course, being Canadian) when I was in grade 2. Your one teacher taught you all the subjects, usually (there was some moving around with split classes and such). There were no electives, but Art and Phys Ed were requirements. No music instruction, but we had a principal for 2 years that worked hard on getting an extracurricular choir and theatre group going.
No aides, not even Special Ed. The school district would have taken the cost of transporting a special needs child to a better equipped city school over a dedicated aide.
I don’t feel I lost anything by not having a lot of the special stuff. I know I’m giving my opinion, but I was in Grade 8 just 10 years ago and have kept up with a lot of teachers.
In exchange for a lot of this stuff, we had an enormous playground (probably the size of the land a 2000 person school would have). You could throw a boomerang and still not get anywhere near anyone. We had the closeness of such a small community.
My kindergartener (public school), in addition to his regular teacher, has teachers for:
- PE
- Music
- Computers
- Art
There is also a separate librarian but I don’t think she teaches the class. It’s a double class, so there are two teachers, but no aides although they welcome “room mothers” (parents) to come and help out.
My second grader has “specials” a few times a week. There are two PE teachers, and also teachers for music, art, media,* and guidance. There’s also a computer lab, but I’m unclear if they have a separate teacher for that, or just their classroom teacher.
*God help you if you call the Media Center a “library.”
It isn’t just size, its priorities. We’ve had a lot of specialists dropped because we had NCLB issues - so Librarians and Band went away in favor of Math and Reading specialists. When kids are getting four hours of math a day, there isn’t time for foreign language, much less money (not that we’ve ever had elementary level foreign language - that’s a seventh grade and up thing unless you enroll your kid in a specialty school). Our art specialist was lost decades ago to students who needed aids - and her salary was insufficient to cover the ASL interpreters, the full time aid for the kid with CP, the ESL teachers for Spanish, Somali and Hmong, etc., that we have at school.
In the meantime, we haven’t increased funding for schools because taxpayers are tired of seeing more money spent with no results on a population level. But the kid with CP or the one who needs an ASL interpreter is getting a better education than they ever had.
ETA: We’ve also added full day kindergarten for everyone and this year added free preschool for four year olds - not mandatory. Figuring that if we get these kids earlier and start them on math and reading skills younger, we might not spend so much on intervention later.
I went to a very small K-12 school, and from what I hear from my niece, things are pretty much the same, except they changed the elementary/junior high library into a room for special needs students, and the elementary and junior high kids share a library with the high school now (but I don’t know what they did with the elementary/junior high librarian).
They pretty much have all those things, but they’re shared with the high school. The same lady teaches elementary, junior high, and high school music, and directs the choirs. Another lady does band for all years (when I was in school, band started in fifth grade). The elementary PE teacher is also a junior high/high school basketball coach. There are two art teachers for K-12, but one of them also does junior high/high school home economics, and the other one also teaches Spanish.
My daughter in fifth grade has all of those in public school except for the foreign language. That’s not taught here until Middle School. There’s also a technology teacher in the computer lab. There are two classroom music teachers and two instrumental music teachers–one for strings and one for anything else, but they rotate around to other schools. (We have three elementary schools in town.)
Edited: I’m in Massachusetts. And my daughter got a PERFECT score on the Math part of her MCAS test!
My daughter teaches in King George County, VA - she’s a 5th grade science teacher. The “specials” as they’re called in her school are Music, Art, PE, Library, and I think computers. They also have aides for kids with special ed needs - I don’t know exactly how that works, but one of my daughter’s students has an aide present during science class to help keep him focused.
No foreign language, but a fair amount of parental involvement. I’ve gone over a few times to help her out with special experiments/activities. I’ve noticed a number of parents in various grades. Sadly, the kids who really need parental involvement apparently don’t get any.