Big V asks:
What has any elected person ever done that has had a(n):
direct effect on you
was it positive or negative?
indirect effect on you
was it positive or negative?
Unless they run you down with their black SUV train, elected officials above a certain level have little direct effect. I have an interesting (to me) indirect effect.
Governor Cuomo decided to fight for Universal Pre-Kindergarten and Common Core. He did the necessary horse trading for funding etc... The governor came through with funding for full day UPK which the district jumped on immediately. Never mind that a full day program is not developmentally appropriate for most 4 year old humans (because
naps = baby sitting) and a waste of resources and money since you could with the same money teach twice as many kids the same material in 1/2 a day. Common Core and its testing regimen are certainly
inappropriate at the elementary level. Those were the obvious known items going in.
Naturally there are unintended consequences to the Gov's initiatives. The children with special needs who I serve(d) get their funding through the county department of health. They are funded for half day integrated program. This aligned nicely with either 1/2 day upk or 1/2 day Head Start programs. With full day upk children with special needs get full integration in the am with exposure to most of the academic programming. The pm SES children enter while children are getting up from nap. They are integrated for 2hrs and alone with staff for 1.5hrs. Obviously that does not meet the criteria of full integration which they must by law have unless the IEP stipulates otherwise. Staff also had to be hired for the hour nap-time. In our case, this didn't happen so we were in violation of either state employment laws or agency policy or both depending on how we three staff chose to cover lunch when 2 staff legally were required to be with children. So we were in the classroom from before 8 to after 4 with no opportunity to lesson plan, have team meetings, or organize the room. Remember that I work(ed) for a non-Union CBO doing contract work for the district and county. The nap coverage issue is supposed to be resolved when clearances come through from the state for a couple moms but I won't be there to see it.
note: I was ready for a career change anyway but this changed my time table, thanks Cuomo!