Intercambios

A Newsletter of the Iowa Chapter of the AATSP

Intercambios is the official publication of the Iowa Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP).

Current Issue

Spring 2007

District Sharing is Win-Win for All

Gail Cline
Download Intercambios

Brooklyn, Iowa -- Faced with the prospect of losing a foreign language program, one East Central Iowa school administrator took the challenge and, using the Iowa Communications Network (ICN), created a unique teaching model, providing a financial incentive for a teacher and maintaining an academic option for his students and others.

“We’ve learned to share,” says Brooklyn-Guernsey-Malcom High School Principal Rick Radcliffe.

Iowa and the nation struggle with a foreign language teacher shortage. However, in a period of just three days in May 2005, the BGM district saved a teacher’s job, rescued the Spanish program and those of other districts, and kept the possibilities open for almost 200 Iowa students to meet foreign language requirements.

BGM Spanish teacher Nicki Maestre submitted her resignation for monetary reasons. The high school had already phased out French and was receiving German over the ICN.

“I was faced with losing a program for 120 kids,” said Radcliffe.

Scratching out some figures, Radcliffe proposed to the school board and incoming superintendent, an incentive plan for the teacher to teach over the ICN.

“If I could get 60 students from other schools and the schools would pay $250 per student to us, I could give her (the teacher) a percentage,” said Radcliffe, creating a stipend to entice the Spanish teacher to stay. The board and superintendent said “go with it” and Maestre rescinded her resignation and agreed to try it.

With the assistance of the Department of Education’s Iowa Learning Online program, the BGM district advertised the availability of the Spanish classes over the ICN and the contacts started coming in. North Mahaska couldn’t find a Spanish teacher, East Marshall was overloaded in Spanish and couldn’t fit in students, and Bedford lost their shared Spanish teacher from Lenox.

While scheduling is sometimes cited by schools as an obstacle to using the ICN, North Mahaska simply changed their daily schedule to coincide with BGM’s. They pushed their start time up by 10 minutes and both schools have a common start and end date for the school year.

Maestre has almost 200 Spanish students in seven class periods, six sections of which are taught over the ICN. The stipend she earns helps to cover the out-of-class time she spends updating her web page, scanning notes for students, tracking grades, and recording classroom notes for one visually impaired student, among other things.

“It takes a lot of extra time to put papers online and we didn’t want her doing it during our time. So the stipend is to cover the extra work she has to do,” said Radcliffe.

Maestre has 60 students from North Mahaska (the district’s entire program), 15 students from East Marshall and 5 from Bedford. She has been able to originate her classes from two of the other schools and travels at her own expense because of the stipend. When she travels to the other districts the substitute for her BGM classroom is paid from the extra income derived from the sharing.

“I love the technology,” said Maestre about the ICN classroom, which has more technology than she has in her regular classroom.

“I can pull up pictures on my computer, use videos, music, DVDs. It’s all right there at my fingertips,” she added.

Maestre understands the importance of interaction when teaching over the ICN. She has seating charts, which all the students use, and in learning games and classroom participation they can call on anyone from any school.

“The students have a good relationship between schools. They like to call on each other. They are actually very supportive of each other’s schools and teams,” said Maestre.

She says things have been slightly more challenging than her previous ICN teaching experience. She spends time each day scanning class notes and making them available online for students and parents to access and currently has 14 grade books organized in Excel, because the state is waiting on WebCT licenses. WebCT is the online learning system Maestre will eventually be able to use for administering tests and recordkeeping.

“It’s been a lot of work because of new textbooks and organizing everything for 200 students,” said Maestre, “but eventually the program will run itself, which will free me up to go to the other schools more.”

Maestre said the relationship she has with the assistants in the other classrooms is very important. She e-mails lesson plans to the principals at the other schools, and the aides, who use them to keep the students on task, when there are conflicting school schedules. She has four different administrators she deals with, different term dates, different early days and days off. But thanks to the aides and hard-working students, everyone has stayed on track.

What’s in the future? BGM Principal Radcliffe said they will see how this year goes but his goal is to find other schools they can help, and at the same time, keep their Spanish teacher and share her skills with others.

“It’s a win-win situation for all,” said Radcliffe