PEF fights to save services to troubled kids Teachers: Bigger class sizes mean neediest students learn less By SHERRY HALBROOK The governor’s budget calls for raising the average ratio of students per teacher from 14 to one, to 16 to one at state facilities for kids who have run afoul of the law. But the teachers in those classrooms urge state lawmakers to reject that proposal, saying these are not average school kids and most of them require lots of individual instruction. Without it, they can’t learn. “These youngsters aren’t getting enough individual attention now. They need more of my time, not less,” says PEF Executive Board Member Bill Zhe, a teacher at the OCFS Industry School near Rochester. “These are the kids the public schools couldn’t deal with,” says Sharon Merulla, council leader of PEF Division 395 at the state Office of Children and Family Services. A vocational instructor at Lansing Residential Center for girls, Merulla has been fighting an uphill battle to educate troubled youngsters for 20 years. “Class sizes keep going up, the children come in with more and more learning problems, and the state keeps raising its educational requirements,” she says. Talk to virtually any teacher at OCFS and you are likely to hear similar concerns. That’s why PEF teachers and the union are educating state lawmakers and the public about this budget issue through letters, meetings and news interviews. Not your usual classroom PEF member Margo Kumpf, a teacher at Middletown Residential Center, works with boys sent to the center for intensive treatment of substance abuse. “I am teaching math and science to boys with a wide range of abilities,” Kumpf says. “I have one mentally retarded student who cannot read at all. But this is a small center for up to 25 students, and he is in the same class with other boys who can read. I have to modify and simplify every teaching plan, every test and every quiz for him, because he can only be taught and tested orally. That is his right under federal law.” Few 3-minute miracles “We are in a frustrating situation,” Zhe says, “because we have to teach to groups of students with too many problems and with too wide a range in their skills. Most are working well below grade level. To teach them properly, we would have to work with them one-on-one, or in groups of two or three.” But that’s impossible, he says, since classes only last 45 minutes “and we have no teachers’ aides to help us. A teacher with 15 pupils in a class, would have only three minutes per student to work with them individually. “In the 1980s, the pupil to teacher ratio was eight to one, but it has kept going up,” Zhe says, “while the students’ needs have increased.” Drugs and heartaches Learning problems aren’t the only obstacle to learning for these youngsters who often come from turbulent homes. “It’s hard to teach a child who is trying to deal with news that ‘My mom just got pushed out of our apartment and is living at a homeless shelter,’ or ‘My brother got shot yesterday,’” Kumpf says. Add to those issues, physical reactions to drug withdrawal and you have a student who is less than focused on learning how to add fractions. “This is a very intensive program, but it still takes about two months before they start to dry out from their addictions and begin to take an interest in what’s going on,” Kumpf says. Who wants to teach here? The kids and their teachers are up against one more big hurdle: chronic understaffing. “The state pay is so uncompetitive that we can’t keep the positions filled. Sometimes, vacancies go unfilled for more than a year,” Kumpf says. “But the students’ needs don’t change and the state doesn’t lower its expectations for their achievements.” “What’s going on here is scary,” Merulla adds, “because it’s New York State education standards vs. the hardest-to-teach kids, vs. larger classes. It just isn’t going to work.” The Communicator Home Page

LOBBYING — Bill Zhe lobbies an aide to NYS Sen. S. Saland. — Photo by Sherry Halbrook