Dear FAST Families,
Thank you for entrusting us with your children and for your ongoing support. I appreciate the kind words and encouragement from many of you. I recognize that we’ve had a rough start to this school year, but please know that we are working diligently to address issues and challenges to ensure our students have the best education that FAST can provide.
I would like to update you on some high priority topics, including the proposed resolutions and timeline of these four areas as we move forward into the new school year.
Scheduling
Priority 1: Being an innovative school, our goal was to create a block schedule to provide our students with 90 minutes of instruction time per core subject including innovation, Genius Hour, project-based learning, and STEM. We worked diligently throughout the summer to create a schedule that would allow these large blocks of time. After our first run of the schedule last week, we discovered that block scheduling would not work at FAST as we had hoped. Our school is unique in that we provide a true version of personalized learning for students. We have many students who are advanced, accelerated, and double accelerated in their learning modes. Our schedule must accommodate the needs of all students, and block scheduling with our current resources did not allow for this personalized learning.
Resolution: To resolve this, we are working to revert to the previous schedule model of 55 minute periods for core and special subjects. To assure we maintain the integrity of innovation and Genius Hour, teachers will be able to facilitate innovation across the curriculum, as well as allow time for Genius Hour. As with any start of a new year, there will be some scheduling changes for specific students.
Timeline: Today is our 6th day of instruction. By week’s end, all scheduling should be completed. We are also aware of issues with student data in Infinite Campus and we are working with Fulton County to resolve them.
Staffing
Priority 2: As many of you know, there is a nation-wide teacher shortage. FAST is no exception when it comes to challenges in filling teaching positions. According to the National Labor Statistics Bureau, 300,000 teachers have left the field between February 2020 and May 2022. In addition, there are fewer college students entering the teaching profession. This means we have a much smaller pool of teachers to recruit from.
Neighboring districts like Cobb County and Atlanta City Schools are in a position to offer huge salary increases and signing bonuses. Our budget at FAST does not support those same types of allocations. This further adds to hiring challenges at FAST.
Despite the current state of the profession, FAST continues to seek highly qualified candidates for all positions.
Resolution: There is not a quick fix to resolving our teacher shortage. However, we are working with colleges and universities to recruit pre-service teachers, and we are working on retention incentives for our current staff that include culture and climate initiatives. Our goal is to increase morale, minimizing the number of future vacancies.
Timeline: We are actively recruiting teachers. Vacancies are posted on multiple sites daily. We continue to interview candidates weekly and will until we are fully staffed.
Certification
Priority 3: Because FAST is a Charter School, we have flexibility in hiring our staff. While we are allowed to hire teachers with degrees who are not certified, we have only actively hired those who are either already certified in another state, are preparing to take the GACE for Georgia certification, or are in a certification preparation program (like GATAPP.)
Resolution: We are working with all of our teachers who don’t currently hold Georgia certification to become certified in Georgia.
Timeline: Taking the GACE certification assessment is scheduled periodically throughout the year, and our teachers are actively signing up for this assessment. We also have teachers who have recently enrolled in a GATAPP certification program and some who have recently applied and been accepted. Our teachers with out-of-state certification are in the process of transferring their certification to Georgia.
Talented and Gifted (TAG)
Priority 4: FAST has a large number of students in the Talented and Gifted (TAG) program. Per state guidelines, TAG classes must be facilitated by a TAG certified teacher. FAST has supported many teachers through obtaining TAG certification in the past. At the end of the last school year, we lost nine TAG certified teachers.
Resolution: The lack of TAG teachers led to shifting our elementary TAG model to the state standard of a full-day pull out for TAG. This allows for all TAG students to be instructed by a TAG certified teacher. Our TAG middle school students will still be served in TAG Science and TAG Social Studies classes. We are supporting all FAST teachers towards obtaining TAG certification.
Timeline: The TAG Endorsement is a year long rigorous course, and we support all teachers who volunteer to apply for the endorsement.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this update, please feel free to reach out to me.
Thank you again for your patience and support. We look forward to a great school year!
My Kindest Regards,
Dr. Kay Williams
