Teachers' Voices

	What have you liked about your experience(s) in school?
Teacher A	Process of learning
Teacher B	Interactions with students, and seeing students experience a feeling of success in grasping a difficult concept.
Teacher C	Working with the students, watching the students learn from me as I also learn from them.
Teacher D	Being able to see the growth of my students.

	What have you disliked about your experiences in school?
Teacher A	Grading papers, unproductive staff meetings, figuring out citizenship grades, getting up at 5am every morning.
Teacher B	Bureaucracy, increasing federal, state, and local regulations, often based on the latest fads and legislated for the purpose of being "politically correct".
Teacher C	Not enough time to do extra curricular activities.
Teacher D	Staff meetings that accomplish very little and lead to conflicts between staff members.

	What kinds of schools do you think parents/community members want
	for students?
Teacher A	Schools where their children are safe, successful as learners, and adequately prepare them for whatever follows graduation.
Teacher B	Schools which allow more opportunities for parents to be involved in their children's success.
Teacher C	Focused, child-friendly, safe.
Teacher D	A safe environment with the necessary materials.

	What kinds of schools do you think students want for themselves?
Teacher A	Schools that minimize homework; have interesting, entertaining, relevant classes, open campus.
Teacher B	Child-friendly, safe. A school to help them reach their goals.
Teacher C	Schools that give them more challenging work, the skills to be effective, responsibility, order, high standards.
Teacher D	Schools that are safe and have a positive atmosphere.

	If you could design the perfect school, what would it be like?
Teacher A	It would be a school where teachers have a class of less than a dozen students for several hours per day, where there would be a maste/apprentice approach to learning that many phases of life training and experience would be integrated, rather than the current assembly line approach to education. After a month or so, the students would move on to another teacher to receive the best of what the new teacher has to offer. Students' personal interest would be a major determiner of what would be taught.
Teacher B	O'Farrell philosophy. Connection with community. Small class sizes, teacher input (involved in the decisions). Site has opportunities for professional growth for the staff.
Teacher C	The ideal school is one where each student has a clear idea of a future after graduation. The ideal place is one where each student comes to class ready to learn and not focusing on all the distractions outside of class. The ideal environment would have each person show respect for each other, from administrators, to teachers, to students, to community members, and differences are appreciated. It would be nice for all teachers to teach their subject without undue interference, for greater attention to be given to actually educating students by what works in the classroom as opposed to what "looks good on paper" to satisfy a central bureaucratic system.
Teacher D	Schools with small enrollment that allow more teacher-student interaction. Enough materials for every student.

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