Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Patti Whines; NAEYC Responds

A looooong time ago I posted about my frustration with the whole NAEYC accreditation process.  A NAEYC person kindly responded to my post in a comment, but at the time I was only checking mail for emergency stuff because I was spending all my waking time on my classroom portfolio.  (Did I mention that one of our spouses calculated that we were all making about $.19/hr. during that time?  I kid you not.)  Then I decided to take the month of February off from the blog after the portfolio was done to recover, freshen up my classroom, and to start going through the observation requirements, so I am feeling very bad about not thanking the nice NAEYC person (I think her name is Gina).

In fact, a nice NAEYC person CALLED MY WORK to find out if I needed more support!  Honestly, I did not expect that.  It just goes to show you how un-anonymous this whole internet thing is.  So, I have now finally moderated the comment that was left and here I’m going to put my comments on the comment.  Does that make sense?

First, again, THANK YOU NAEYC for being helpful and responsive.  I could not have hoped for more and I admit to being shocked in a good way.  It’s nice to know you’re there for the lowly teacher.

Second, my only complaint at this point is that I just don’t have the time to access the wonderful resources she listed.  I do have a TORCH account, but as I don’t have a computer at work (the office has one computer, our director has a laptop, but those are for sharing and it’s not very convenient) and even when I bring in my own laptop I can only get internet access from parts of the building, it’s inconvenient.  If those materials were sent with our application information, I apologize because I didn’t know they were there.  Again, I work in a part time program.  I am using my own personal time in many cases to do classroom planning.  If I want to do anything other than set up or clean my room it’s pretty much going to be on my own time.  All the accreditation stuff is extra (though our director found a little money to give us as a reward, which was nice but, as she calls it, just a gesture).  Anytime I have to do more digging on my own it’s taking time away from my kids, my studies, and my other obligations.  I know the other teachers were feeling somewhat resentful by the end of the classroom portfolio period, so it’s not just me.

Now the portfolio is done and we’re waiting to find out when our visitation window is.  I’m feeling pretty good about my classroom, but I certainly don’t want to be the reason we fail to achieve reaccreditation.  So I’m dreaming about it at night and occasionally going over the lists again during the day.  I’m feeling calmer and more rested now so I can put it all in perspective. 

So I feel sheepish for not being a good thanker but I still believe some tweaking needs to be done to the process.

4 comments:

  1. I'm up at 11:50 pm worrying about the Portfolio. I spent 2 hours just putting 1/2 the criteria labels on hanging file folders. I need to go out and buy about 75 more hanging folders! This is crazy and then that isn't even beginning the program portfolio.

    I work for a public school program but we are not getting any extra time to do this work.

    Sad thing is ... I heard of one program that had their visit and the validator didn't even look at the portfolio.

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  2. as a pre-k teacher working on my portfolio:I feel that The time it takes to physically prove what your doing in the classroom( aka portfolio) takes so much away from being a great teacher. Really the only thing that would help is if you could bring someone all of the documents and pictures and let them organize it and find the appropriate places, highlight, label, etc

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  3. It's the stress of knowing you're not doing what you should for the kids that gets you, isn't it? I've already decided that my next portfolio will be electronic, since I'm a geek at heart. By the time we go through this again (5 years) I'm sure I'll be able to find a laptop for the visitor to borrow to look at my stuff.

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  4. All I can say to this is how much I agree! I live in professional and personal fear of NAEYC. We are expecting an unannounced visit and after months and months of making sure the program portfolio and my classroom portfolio were up-to-date, I read that they won't even look at them. All those hours of my life I'll never get back!

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