Tomorrow is the first day of school for Rochester City School District students. Registrations and orientations will be taking place in every school. Students will be moving between classes, teachers will be checking class lists and CUMS to see if they have the right students. Everyone will be hustling and bustling about hoping to get the first day out of the way.

At the beginning of the first full week of school, students will be informed of classroom expectations, expectations for behavior, and learning expectations. Some teachers will work together with students to create classroom rules others will have their rules in place when students arrive.

Teachers will attend staff meetings that will outline district expectations for their performance and administrators will explain their expectations for the school environment and staff.

In all of this very few students will be asked what are their expectations for the school year.

No one will ask students what they expect to learn, what they expect of their teachers, administrators, security, and all other school staff.

A conversation between and among all stakeholders in the school environment will not take place and very few will hear from or see their School Board liaison in the beginning or throughout the year.

There will be no cohesive expectation of success between and among parents, students, teachers, staff, administrators, the Superintendent, or the Board.

Everyone will be told of their individual expectations and no one will be held accountable for meeting or exceeding those expectations.

One important change for this school year, students will be expected to stay in school longer, some twelve hours a day, getting on their bus at 7 o’clock in the morning and not getting of their bus until 7 o’clock in the evening.

As this new school year begins, very little has changed to insure a better or even different outcome than we have experienced in the past.

Our children deserve a relevant, researched based, child centered education that holds all stakeholders in the process of education accountable for meeting and/or exceeding expectations of relevant success.

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