My letter to the Jefferson County School Board. #standup4kids Stephanie Rossi Leanna Rutka Stephanie Oliver To the Members of the Jefferson County School Board, I am both a Jefferson County graduate and a former employee. I attended Kullerstrand Elementary, Everett Middle School, and Wheat Ridge High School, graduating in 2001. I worked as a para-educator at Vivian Elementary and Fletcher Miller School for 3 years, as well as completing my Speech-Language Pathology internship in the deaf & hard-of-hearing department. I feel a strong sense of ownership having spent so long in the district and hope to be a part of it again one day. I have been closely following the recent events in the district and was especially saddened by Cindy Stevenson’s departure and the recent discussion regarding the history curriculum. While Jefferson County does have room for improvement, as any school district does, I believe that the current board actions are moving us further away from the quality of education that the district can provide. As a student, my teachers always pushed me to achieve higher and higher goals in every subject. In elementary school, Nita Kulesa stands out as a teacher who taught me that achieving the average was frankly lazy. She taught me that if I wanted to learn something, to figure something out, to achieve a new goal, I could. I just needed to ask for a push in the right direction. In middle & high school, honors and AP classes continued to build on this foundation – pushing me time and time again to achieve above average. My teachers not only taught me to achieve in the traditional academic way (i.e. getting ‘A’s on tests and papers), but to guide my own learning. Specifically, teachers like Stephanie Rossi in her Honors American History and Indigenous Studies classes taught me to find resources, read them critically, and write analytically. Ms. Rossi never accepted less than my best, calling me out when I simply rewrote what the book had told me, making me rewrite papers with a critical eye. She taught me to not accept information at face value, which now makes me an informed citizen and media consumer and a good scientist. In 2006, I completed my bachelor’s degree at The Evergreen State College, a liberal arts college with an interdisciplinary approach and no grades. Most of our work was very self-guided, required us to find our own resources, analyze those resources, and integrate a wide variety of concepts & subject matters. Large portions of class time were spent in seminar, discussing theories, philosophies, and ideas. We had no grades to measure of our success, writing self-evaluations instead. Many of my fellow students struggled in this environment. Throughout their high school years, they had been simply lectured, expected to repeat it back, get a good grade, and then move on completely. They struggled with self-motivation and time management, with finding and analyzing sources, with working for the sake of their education instead of the grade on a piece of paper. They struggled to voice their thoughts in seminar and to combine ideas from various sources into one. Jefferson County honors and AP teachers taught me all these things and I excelled. I learned how to learn for the sake of learning, to gain knowledge that would allow me to impact my community, instead of working for that piece of paper. I am now a Speech-Language Pathologist, completing my Master’s at CU – Boulder in 2012. I have worked on a multi-million dollar, countrywide grant researching the literacy skills of students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing. I will soon be moving to Atlanta to work at the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf, providing language therapy for children who are deaf/hard-of-hearing with additional disabilities. My education in Jefferson County set me on this path and my employment & internship there helped me build my very specialized skillset. This skillset and the reputation I have gained amongst my coworkers as an analytical, self-driven, and conscientious worker has led to this opportunity – a highly regarded state school recruiting me from across country as their newest specialist. I know that as I continue on this path, the first bricks of which were laid by Jefferson County Public Schools, I will have a great impact on many students and their achievements – whether academic or in their daily lives. I hope to be the educator who inspires her students to analyze what they are taught, to not take anything at face value, and who helps to create productive, impactful members of society. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you will reconsider your stance on how history is taught, knowing that it doesn’t just impact a student’s knowledge of events, but how they approach their own learning and their view on their role in our society. Sincerely, Elizabeth Dierschow
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 17:26:34 +0000
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