Adding a class in Stamford shortchanges everyone

As a science teacher with 120 students, I strongly oppose the addition of a sixth class to Stamford high school teachers’ schedules.

Providing meaningful feedback is important to students’ learning process, and it takes time. My students work through complex concepts — for example, determining the average atomic mass for elements with multiple isotopes, which requires many calculations. Every single calculation comes with the potential for error, so it is not difficult to imagine the time it takes to go over each step in the process with students as they work to master a concept. I could simply mark their calculations as right or wrong, but depriving my students of individualized feedback shortchanges them and goes against what every educator is trained and hired to do.

Science teachers with labs face additional constraints on their time because of the scheduling, preparation, and setup needed to ensure clean, safe, and sufficient materials and equipment. Without time to prepare for lab work, critical hands-on activities will inevitably be delayed or deferred altogether. The result will be missed opportunities for students to test, experiment, exercise logic, and see science concepts at work. When students test theories or recreate well-known experiments in my lab, the experience brings abstract ideas to life. I’ve also seen it create opportunities for students to discover scientific principles on their own!

We know that engaging students in STEM is important work; giving them less time to engage or giving them a watered-down curriculum is a move in the wrong direction.

We have no way of knowing whether the proposed sixth class will be the same as a course we already teach or a whole new prep. But even repeating a class — same curriculum, same lesson plans, same copies — for a different group of students adds a tremendous amount of work to any teacher’s load. Each student has individual educational needs that are part of our lesson planning process and need to be taken into account when planning. Add another 24 students, and we need extra time to prep for them. Add a different class, and we are also preparing new content; the time required increases exponentially.

Already there are barely enough hours in a day to get this work done. Adding a sixth class — which no surrounding school district does — will make it impossible.

Please stand with Stamford teachers and support our students by opposing the addition of a sixth class to their schedules.

Kathy Gentle is a Westhill High School science teacher.