carpe diem testimony

As a parent I am enthusiastic about the relationships my children have made with adult role-models, especially with their teachers.  I encourage these relationships, and I want my children to see that their lives are more than the attitudes and values that my husband and I instill in them.  To make a child a well-rounded individual, it takes positive relationships with not only us but with other caring adults.  I encourage my children to see that there are many other points of view and many other values in addition to what they see at home.  I attribute who I am today as a result of the relationships with my teachers and their mentoring influence in my life.  This is what I want for my children.  This can only be gained with positive relationships with adults.  My children can grow to be concerned citizens making an impact in their community, making contributions to others and to the welfare of the society in which they live because of these relationships with and the influence of their teachers and other mentors.  Enriching relationships are the key to a child becoming a successful adult.  As a public education advocate, I advocate for small classroom size and a low teacher to student ratio.  Your school certainly is not what I advocate for and is not what I would want for my own children because relationship building is such a crucial part of any student’s success.  The smaller the teacher-student ratio, the more one on one time there is for a teacher to foster individual relationships with children and to provide for individual needs.  I can testify to this through my own experience.  As a classroom teacher, I could make an impact on the lives of my students.  I had no more than 25 students in my class, and I built great lifelong relationships with my students.  When I became a guidance counselor, a ratio of 1 to 400, I did a great job, but building relationships with 400 students is a difficult task.  I know I never made the same kind of influence on these students as I did when the ratio was only 1 to 25 or fewer.  Fort Wayne Community Schools provides the best environment for children.  As a parent, I do not see the need for nor do I support this charter’s basic fundamental instructional philosophy.