Double Whoops! In the “Parent Mode” teachers are rated on Expectations, Difficulty and Respect (E, D, R): In the “Parent Mode” since 4/3/08 parents have rated Middle School teachers 6 times. Here’s an example of a Comment about Mr. Cassell, music teacher - ”This young teacher is absolutely amazing. He commands student respect without ever wavering his professional demeanor. Other teachers could learn much from this young man. I hope WMS recruits others like him.”
Parents also rated Academy teachers 10 times since 4/3/08. Here’s an example of a Comment about Glenn Anderson, History teacher - ”I had Mr. Anderson as did my son and daughter. Amazing teacher. Very motivating.” Also for Jamie Swift, English teacher – “Amazing teacher. My daughters loved her despite her high expectations and demanding homework. Enthusiastic students willing to learn love her.”
Whoops Again! There were 9 additional ratings of WA teachers on 4/4/08 and a total of 13 new ratings since this article was posted. Before that in March there were only 2 ratings for the entire month and no ratings on April 1st or 2nd. Two new teachers were added since 4/3/08 also.
Whoops! Mr. Cassell at the Middle School received one more sterling rating yesterday (3/4/08) giving him an average rating of 4.9 (an A+).
Four new ratings were applied to Academy teachers on 4/3/08, three low and one high. Ms. Taylor who left the Academy under fire received one of the new low ratings. The comments associated with these new ratings have not yet been posted pending review by the site administrators. It’s possible that Ms. Taylor received more ratings that had to be deleted because of content in posted comments. It’s also possible that just the comment may be deleted, not the rating.
See the important new comments under the article “Principle vs. Principal…” The latest comment by ‘Woodstock Mom’ is intriguing.
Two weeks ago I read an article in the New York Times that talked about an Internet site where students at colleges and universities can rate their professors at www.ratemyprofessor.com . The idea intrigued me but I was concern that this was only a rage site where only negative things would be said. So I went to the ratings for professors at my old college, Bethany College (the small college of extinction) and was surprised to see that most of the ratings where very positive with few exceptions. I went to Harvard and MIT thinking that there would be many smarty pants students that would put down their professors. This was not the case though – the average ratings of a high percentage of Profs were very positive. It becomes clear that students consider these ratings when choosing classes for their next semester.
This intriguing option dwelled in my mind such that this morning I wondered if there was a similar site for students to rate their teachers in high school. I searched Google for “rate my teachers” and the number one hit was www.ratemyteachers.com , a national web-based service that allows students or just about anyone to rate teachers within any school in the nation including elementary and middle schools. There’s also a page where parents can rate teachers. If you look at elemetary or middle schools, most have no ratings, but most high schools do. To find schools in Connecticut simply bring up the URL www.ratemyteachers.com/schools/connecticut and to find only Woodstock schools bring up the URL www.ratemyteachers.com/schools/connecticut/woodstock/ . Replace “woodstock” in the URL with any CT town name like “norwich” “pomfret” or “winsted” and you will find all of the ratings of teachers that have been posted for any school in that town, including private schools. So I searched for Woodstock schools and found 5 schools listed – “Homebound” (have no idea what this is), Hyde School, WES, WMS, and the Academy. For the Academy I found that there had been 402 ratings of 99 teachers and administrators with most occuring in the last two years. Read the rest of this entry »
