Superintendent of Education Michael McDowell announced at a board meeting on May 14 that the Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD) will not proceed with the proposed contract between the New Tech Network and the Instructional Technology Teacher Collaborative (ITTC) which includes teachers from Tam. The announcement came during McDowell’s presentation about instigating a “common culture” in the district and preceded a vote on three district contracts with New Tech. The board did approve the two other contracts with the New Tech Network, one for Drake, and one for San Andreas and Tamiscal High Schools for the 2014-15 school year.

According to McDowell, the teachers participating in ITTC will look elsewhere for support in the upcoming year. “One of the challenges that we’re going to struggle with is a larger [more] robust network of teachers and students to collaborate with across the country,” McDowell said. “Not having that particular network, it’s going to be difficult to foster that kind of global collaboration, so I think what we’ll have to do is lean on our internal network.”

Because the community expected a vote to occur on the proposed contract with ITTC, over 100 parents and teachers attended the board meeting. Tam parent Melanie Russell attended the meeting to express concern about New Tech and learn more about why it was selected. Russell had no knowledge of the decision to take the New Tech and ITTC contract off the table before the board meeting. However, according to Russell, pulling the contract doesn’t fully address parent concerns.

“It seems to have been sudden, without communication to the board or larger community,” she said. “It reflects a reactive response to a larger issue.” Russell defined this “larger issue” as whether or not New Tech is the best support provider for the district. “My goal–and, I believe, that of other parents–remains improved communication and clear answers to questions that the administration is being asked by the larger parent and teacher community,” Russell said.

In an open letter to the school board, English teacher Austin Bah addressed his concerns with incorporating New Tech into Tam culture. Bah pointed out that the language in the contract obligates teachers to share all lesson plans created on the New Tech Platform with the New Tech National organization. “I do not wish to help New Tech grow as a business,” Bah wrote. “This relationship with New Tech will hamper my desire to collaborate. I do not want to give my work to New Tech, and I do not want to share with a teacher who may, someday, forgetting the source of the material, post that work to New Tech.”

Principal Julie Synyard said without the contract on the table, the goal for the future remains to provide continued support to teachers. One possibility is expanding the Core program, in which more than just English and history classes would share the same pool of freshman and sophomore students. “We’re still talking about and figuring out if that’s going to be possible,” Synyard said. “There is a number of folks in science that would like to see if they could jump on [Core] and see if they could try and support students. So we’re still playing around with that.”

She reiterated that the main goal is supporting teachers in educating their students. “Moving forward with [the ITTC, we are] still going to pursue learning how to do problem- and project-based learning, still learning how to infuse technology into the curriculum,” Synyard said. “We are still going to develop how we are going to work on support for next year.”

Superintendent of Education Michael McDowell announced at a board meeting on May 14 that the Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD) will not proceed with the proposed contract between the New Tech Network and the Instructional Technology Teacher Collaborative (ITTC) which includes teachers from Tam. The announcement came during McDowell’s presentation about instigating a “common culture” in the district and preceded a vote on three district contracts with New Tech. The board did approve the two other contracts with the New Tech Network, one for Drake, and one for San Andreas and Tamiscal High Schools for the 2014-15 school year.

According to McDowell, the teachers participating in ITTC will look elsewhere for support in the upcoming year. “One of the challenges that we’re going to struggle with is a larger [more] robust network of teachers and students to collaborate with across the country,” McDowell said. “Not having that particular network, it’s going to be difficult to foster that kind of global collaboration, so I think what we’ll have to do is lean on our internal network.”

Because the community expected a vote to occur on the proposed contract with ITTC, over 100 parents and teachers attended the board meeting. Tam parent Melanie Russell attended the meeting to express concern about New Tech and learn more about why it was selected. Russell had no knowledge of the decision to take the New Tech and ITTC contract off the table before the board meeting. However, according to Russell, pulling the contract doesn’t fully address parent concerns.

“It seems to have been sudden, without communication to the board or larger community,” she said. “It reflects a reactive response to a larger issue.” Russell defined this “larger issue” as whether or not New Tech is the best support provider for the district. “My goal–and, I believe, that of other parents–remains improved communication and clear answers to questions that the administration is being asked by the larger parent and teacher community,” Russell said.
In an open letter to the school board, English teacher Austin Bah addressed his concerns with incorporating New Tech into Tam culture. Bah pointed out that the language in the contract obligates teachers to share all lesson plans created on the New Tech Platform with the New Tech National organization. “I do not wish to help New Tech grow as a business,” Bah wrote. “This relationship with New Tech will hamper my desire to collaborate. I do not want to give my work to New Tech, and I do not want to share with a teacher who may, someday, forgetting the source of the material, post that work to New Tech.”

Principal Julie Synyard said without the contract on the table, the goal for the future remains to provide continued support to teachers. One possibility is expanding the Core program, in which more than just English and history classes would share the same pool of freshman and sophomore students. “We’re still talking about and figuring out if that’s going to be possible,” Synyard said. “There is a number of folks in science that would like to see if they could jump on [Core] and see if they could try and support students. So we’re still playing around with that.”

She reiterated that the main goal is supporting teachers in educating their students. “Moving forward with [the ITTC, we are] still going to pursue learning how to do problem- and project-based learning, still learning how to infuse technology into the curriculum,” Synyard said. “We are still going to develop how we are going to work on support for next year.”