Photo Credit: Career Cruising[/caption]Orange High’s teacher assistant (TA) program, which gave students the chance to help out a teacher during a class period, has been suspended by the administration until further notice due to a lack of accountability. The program may be brought back in “a year from now, two years from now, we don’t know,” according to OHS Principal Jason Johnson. Johnson said the school would have to “have some accountability measures in place” before the program could come back.
The administration considered other options before deciding to end the program. “We thought about doing an independent study where teachers would write up a course for a TA and a TA would follow those guidelines, but I felt like even that was too loose,” Johnson stated. Seniors signed up to be teacher assistants will have the course removed from their schedules.
English teacher Brooke Connor said she is “really sad that we will no longer have the TA program.” Although there were issues with the program, she would have liked the school to “have tried some other solutions instead of just overhauling” it. Some possible solutions were “a 15-minute meeting with teachers to make sure that they knew their expectations before having a TA and ISS for students who skipped their TA period.” She said that “having a TA for the past couple of years has been invaluable to me” and she hates “that I will no longer be afforded that luxury.”
Senior Kayla Phillips, who was hoping to be a teacher assistant next year, said that she doesn’t “understand why it was gotten rid of since so many students loved it.”
Other similar courses, like the peer counseling and help desk worker courses, are still available.
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