CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Corpus Christi ISD officials were very concerned when they learned the number of students who were failing at least one class this semester and they are now offering an opportunity for students to make up some of that work. That will happen in the one-week break everyone was supposed to get after the first six weeks of school.
Susie Luna Saldana, founder of the CCAUSE United Teachers and School Employees organization tells 3News that many teachers in her organization wish they could do more to help their failing students.
“'I want them to be able to make up their work but I’ve got so many who are failing and I want to help them' - Those are his words to me 'I want to help them before they fail and there's just not the opportunity that’s there,'“ said Saldana.
Jennifer Arismendi, CCISD‘s Executive Director for Educational Support explained that the school district became aware of a higher number of students failing classes after the three week progress report.
“That following week we received how our students were doing at the three-week mark and campus principals were concerned. They did see an increase in the number of students who are struggling, so, the root cause of that hasn’t been fully understood,” said Arismendi.
That significant increase had school officials trying to figure out what they could do to keep all of those students from failing the first six weeks of school. The plan that was agreed upon was to allow those students to make up some of their work in those failing classes during the week break after the six-week period ends.
”The school district does not have enough consideration to let us know that they have change the grading guidelines ahead of time so that we can plan, it’s ridiculous, it’s unprecedented and, you know what, they change those grading guidelines without consulting any teachers with the District Advisory Team or the Superintendent's Advisory Committee or the School Board,” said President of the local American Federation of Teacher’s Union Nancy Vera.
Vera says she is wondering how teachers are going to have the time to grade those papers in time for report cards that go out on the Friday after that break, while Arismendi says the district is looking at coming up with a way to give teachers more time to grade those papers. The district is also trying to figure out what went wrong with so many students scores.
“We have an increase of students who are failing at least one class who strictly have never failed a class and, so, that’s the data we need to be responsive to as a school district a student who traditionally is successful,” said Arismendi.
The district says right now there are no plans in the future to allow students to make up their work after six weeks as they are being allowed to now.