School board dissatisfied with Common Core survey

Huntington School Board trustees expressed their frustration with the AIMHighNY Common Core survey at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Board members said that the survey was tedious, and didn’t provide an adequate forum for participants to express their thoughts and opinions.

“I thought the survey was very disappointing,” Trustee Emily Rogan said. “I was excited for a feedback opportunity, but this is really a roadblock.”

Superintendent James Polansky said that the survey’s fast-approaching deadline has made it a challenge for teachers to try and complete it in time.

The survey was posted in October and will close on Nov. 30. Once the responses are in, a group of educators will analyze the results and present recommendations to the Board of Regents by the end of the year.

“It’s a very difficult task because of the time constraint,” Polansky said.

Teachers have tried to split the survey so that each person is only answering a certain part of it to cut time, according to Polansky.

But Rogan said she wondered if that was counterproductive because then the teachers are not able to fully voice their opinions.

AimHighNY gives an in-depth review, with many subjects divided into multiple subtopics.

A participant can review both the English language arts and literacy section of the current common core and the mathematics section.

In order to get to the feedback portion of the English language arts and literacy section, a participant has to go through more than two-dozen subcategories. The first major category list is for the different grades, and then, the categories can get as specific as craft and structure for a literature subcategory of reading for the sixth grade English language arts section.

The feedback portion of the survey has five choices, ranging from the participant thinks the standard written in its current form is suitable, to the standard needs to be completely rewritten. There is also an optional box for comments.

Vice President Jennifer Hebert was critical of the feedback option, stating, “The questions are constricting, with only small boxes for a response.”