Schuylerville Teacher Creates Night School to Combat Curriculum Challenges

Written by Chelsea DiSchiano

November 29, 2012

SCHUYLERVILLE - After seeing a lot of change in curriculum this year due to the newly-implemented New York State Regents Reform Agenda in schools, Schuylerville Elementary fourth-grade teacher Peter Carner decided to take matters into his own hands and begin a night school for both students and parents to attend.

Carner said that it can be hard to get through all the new curriculum during the limited time of school days, making him think about different ways to effectively teach all the material to the kids.

“Basically what I’m doing is hosting parents and students in my class once a month, and we go through a full math and reading lesson so the students’ parents can see how it’s done,” Carner said. “I also teach the background of it so that [the parents] are teaching their children the same way I am. During the last [class], I taught them different ways to go to websites to re-teach lessons using videos and different manipulatives so kids can actually have multiple learning styles, and have their parents and teacher working with them, along with other tools.”

Carner said bringing the parents in with the students has helped him apply lessons to real-life scenarios—for example, if he has taught a multiplication lesson, parents can chime in with how they still use multiplication as adults.

“I love that the parents are so connected and come along with the children,” Carner said. “For so many years I’ve been able to do this kind of stuff in the classroom, but because this new core curriculum has guided us in a certain direction, we’re almost taking away a little bit during the regular class day. So now with the parents’ help, I can bring that back into the regular lessons.”

Carner did add that there are a lot of online components to go along with the new curriculum.

“We’re fortunate that a lot of our curriculum now has an online component, so basically if we can get through the meat and potatoes of the lesson in class, we can do the enrichment part of it in the night school component,” he said. “This way we can all work together using same the language styles, and parents can also be heard in the classroom.”

So far, the night school has been a great success: when it started in October, the class had 43 participants—including every student in the class (except one), and one or both of their parents. Attendance has been steady, and Carner said the parents and students like it. The program has been so effective that it is even spreading to other fourth-grade classrooms.

“Another fourth-grade teacher is starting her [night class] this week, and the other teachers are going to pair up and do similar projects, so it seems to be pretty beneficial right now,” Carner said.

Carner added that he meets with the students and parents one Tuesday a month, usually providing them with pizza and drinks—parents have even started showing up with desserts for everyone to enjoy.

“It all works out really nicely,” Carner said. “The class has been growing in number since we started—I’m not making it a set precedent, but I think it was something that was important and was well enough received in the first one that I would continue, and we’ll continue it right up through the end of the year.”

(Peter Carner is a member of Schuylerville Teachers Association. This article appeared in the December 7-13, 2012 edition of Saratoga Today.)