The Podium
Disgruntled is not the word I'd use
In eight years of teaching, I think I wrote maybe ten referrals (when you send someone to the office). I did it once with a senior who misbehaved when a sub was there, and another senior a couple of times for saying she was going to the library and then leaving campus, but I really never used the slips.
I get these things all the time now, mostly from the same teachers, but today I got one from a teacher I hadn't been involved with yet, so I took it a little more seriously.
In the spot where it said, "Nature of office," was written:
Cheating
Um, ok, cheating. At what? On a test? Don't you have rules in your classroom to deal with this sort of thing? Like a zero?
Honestly, there really is nothing to do with this. A teacher can refer a kid to the office for basically anything they want, but when it comes to academics, there really isn't anything I can do aside from back the teacher up if a parent decides that the "cheating penalty" is too severe.
I wrote him an email, asking for clarification, and I got this:
We were taking a quiz, I saw him looking at another person's paper for the answer (not just glancing). I told him to stop, and he did it again. Thanks!
Um, ok. That is cheating. But what does he want me to do about it? There really isn't anything I can do. I can suspend him, but not for cheating. Perhaps if it was a "cheating conspiracy" I could do something, but this? this is just one's standard run of the mill teacher problem. Not really sure how to deal with it, perhaps I'll figure it out tomorrow.
Everything being equal, I have no preference one way of the other toward private or public education. If a person wants to pay money to send their kid to school, then so be it. I don't have a problem with private schools teaching religion either, after all, parents who send their kids to such schools know about it in advance. Personally, unless one lives in the inner city or the public school is horribly bad, I don't really see the point of spending that money for something one can get that's probably just as good (and in some cases, better) and free.
That being said, this particular post is with reference to sports.
I attended a meeting for administrators and athletic directors that the section has every year. I've been to this meeting a number of times (this being the first as an administrator) and it rarely changes. It's almost as rote as a Catholic mass. The "higher ups" in control of athletics talking about how athletics is an extension of the school day, academics are the most important thing, and how sportsmanship is more important than anything else.
That's fine. In most cases I agree wholeheartedly. I do have my limits, and I do believe the "sportsmanship police" are completely out of control. When one has to have meetings about the poor attitudes of players on teams when the accused was never reprimanded in the game by the officials, none of the coaches witnessed it, and the only real witness is the "victim," I'd say that things are a bit out of hand. Good players play to win, and almost always, that requires doing things that are not really practiced. But as always, I digress.
There are rules about who can play, and where they can play. Generally a kid can go to any school he/she wants to go to at the start of their Freshman year. From the standpoint of athletics, it doesn't matter where they live. If a kid gets clearance to go to a school from the district, then they can participate for that school in sports. If they want to go to a different school later on, they can do that as well, but only once. Any time after that first school change, they need special permission (all of this is assuming the family didn't just get up and move, that's always ok to change schools). This makes perfect sense.
The big thing that most higher ups want everyone to accept is that private schools don't recruit. They want everyone to believe that good football players always go to this particular private school by coincidence. In fact, I really don't have a problem with that in the slightest. Technically it's not recruiting because a kid is CHOOSING to go to a certain school. Another thing private schools emphasize is the fact that they don't offer athletic scholarships to kids. They can't, that would be recruiting. Granted, a kid can get financial help because of their academic prowess, but not their skill as an athlete. Such is something I hear all the time (I am a little curious as to how a kid with a 2.4 GPA can be considered an academic giant that is so smart he should be paid to go to the best possible place for an education, but that's another issue entirely).
Many (probably even most) public high schools are in multi-high school districts. Many times these districts are what is referred to as "open enrollment" (which means a kid who lives in the district can go to any school in that district that they want to without needing any special permission). What ends up happening is all the good football players (for example) go to one specific school, and that school generally is the football powerhouse. The soccer powerhouse may be a different school in the district, depending on where the good soccer players choose to go.
So effectively, while there is a difference in public and private schools (a kid can go to ANY private school they want, regardless of where they live), because of open enrollment, many public schools can still compete relatively well.
Of course this all assumes that there is more than one high school in the district. At my high school, there is only one. Population about 1100 (+/- 100 in any given year). In an open enrollment district with 5 high schools, each with a population of 1500 (or thereabouts), each high school is drawing from 7500 potential athletes. At my high school, we draw from 1100. Pretty tough to compete with them, much less the private schools. In addition to this, despite the fact that we are the only high school in the district, and there's only one middle school, if our coaches go to the middle school and talk to the 8th graders, it is considered recruiting, a big no-no, and will lead to sanctions.
All that aside however, we do have a glimmer of hope. When kids that live in our district go to the private school for a sport like football because they want to win championships, and aren't good enough to play at those schools, we benefit when they come back (generally at the start of their Junior year). Our JV teams suffer, but the varsity team generally benefits immensely by these transfers. Because the first transfer is always free, there are never any problems.
The state now wants to make all rules with reference to moving from one school to the next uniform in all areas. Apparently schools in the southern part of the state (mostly private schools) are manipulating the system and taking advantage of the transfer rules. So much so that the state governing body has decided that transfers will not be allowed at all after the Freshman year, unless there is a compelling reason for that transfer. While this is bad news across the board, it is devastating news for schools like ours where we benefit when a kid realizes he isn't as good as he thought he was and goes to our school because he will likely play.
Consistently emphasized in these discussions is the fact that a kid is not supposed to go to one school or another because of sports. That's about the most ridiculous and naive assessment of high school kids I can possibly imagine. While a kid should go to the school with the best possible academic situation, most of the time they move schools to play sports, denying that is ridiculous. Ridiculous or not, the "powers that be" continue to say it.
In addition to this sort of thing, one thing that is frequently overlooked, and was mentioned at the meeting, is that most private schools aren't the sports juggernauts that others make them out to be. Most private schools are struggling in any number of ways and athletics are the least of their problems. For these small private schools I have a tiny amount of sympathy, but not much. They choose the path they're on and from a business perspective, if they can't "compete," academically, athletically, however, then they shouldn't be around.
Ultimately, it's not that big a deal. It is after all, just sports. But what ends up happening when the teams become less and less successful is that athletes start going to where the potential for victory is greater. They start leaving and they have no ability to return. When a school's enrollment is important for financial reasons and 1/3 of the kids play sports, this exodus of athletes can be a huge problem in areas other than athletics.
Part of my job requires me to check attendance regularly. I usually do so on a daily basis. Illness, etc., are supposed to be cleared either that day or the next. Sometimes such doesn't happen.
Last week, a kid came in with the slip saying he was unexcused and brought me a note. It was written by his mother and in Spanish.
I can usually muddle through the notes in Spanish...enferma, salud, etc. this had me confused:
"...no asistio a primer periodo por que estaba cerrada la puerta grande y no podia salir notinia llave..."
I figured out "first period," "big door," "to leave," and "key," but that made no sense to me. So I type it into the handy dictionary.com translator, which spits this out:
"...not asistio to first period so that the great door was closed and podia not to leave notinia key..."
HUH?
That doesn't make any sense. So, I wait until one of the counselors came back from his meetings (he speaks fluent Spanish), and he translated it the same way (though some of it was indeciferable ...).
So apparently this kid missed school because the big door was closed.
I said to him, "OK, so, that's the literal translation. What does it mean?"
He said, "um...well, the big door was closed."
I said, "Is there any other way that could be translated."
He said, "Sure, but it's all going to mean the big door was closed, that's why the kid didn't come to school."
OK then. I'm not really sure where the big door is, but apparently when it's closed, this kid can't come to school.
TR's NOTE: It was later discovered that he lives on a "ranch" which has a gate to the main road. There are two families that live inside the gate, and these families don't have a key to this gate. So, if the ranch-hands close it and lock it (or don't open it in the morning), these families can't get out. The mystery of the "big door" has been solved.
After "solving" the mystery, I told him it's really not an excusable absence, but since he only missed first period (the big door must have been opened) and it doesn't happen a lot, I would let it go. In the future he should call the front office, as normally there is someone available that speaks Spanish.
Ultimately, I'll probably excuse it every time. There are no stipulations in any handbook about whether or not being locked in by the "big door" is excused or not. As long as it doesn't become a habit, I'll say it's excusable.
First of all, the union would never allow math or science teachers to get paid more money than other teachers. Is their service more valuable than a Social Science or English teacher? No, but they can go into private industry and make a lot more money. Most Social Science or English teachers are stuck in the teaching profession.
What te government is consistently trying to do is increase the number of Math teachers, so kids can get appropriate education in math. It makes sense. Given the realities of the circumstances however (severe shortages of math teachers) it seems the government (as well as otehr groups) is approaching this problem from the wrong angle.
Right now, and now even more so with "highly qualified teacher requirements," Math majors are the only ones qualified to teach Math. That means all math. basic Algebra (x+4 = 6 ... solve for x) needs to be taught by a Math MAJOR.
WHY?
If there is a shortage of these teachers, why don't we let them teach the things NO ONE ELSE CAN TEACH? Like Calculus, even the simple things like Geometry are still a bit higher. But no, the system requires Math teachers have a major in Math, otherwise the school is not in compliance.
My suggestion is simple. Have all teachers voluntarily take a Math test. If they score high enough on it, they get a bonus. Math majors automatically get the bonus.
This bonus, if earned, would lead to another math test which would test the specific knowledge of another teacher. Kind of like a placement test for students going into college.
The bonus is the incentive to take the test, the placement test allows schools the ability to determine who is capable of teaching math and at what level.
Kind of like a supplemental credential.
This does not fix the shortage of Math teachers, but it does get people who can teach Calculus away from teaching remedial Algebra I to a bunch of morons who can barely count to five.
It's just something I've been thinking about. There are other details to it. I'll flesh them out as time goes on.
Thank God even the residents of Montana aren't stupid.
The real question here is why is this in the news as a "big story?" Granted, it's not something that's huge, but it was on in the headline section of CNN.com. If you read the article, it actually says the guy has very little chance of winning anyway.
So why is the news up in arms about it?
My understanding of the 1st Amendment (you know, that part of the Constitution that protects the press) is that all views are protected. The point of that is to allow dissenting opinion without consequences. One doesn't have to agree or disagree with the opinions, but one cannot tell someone what is an acceptable opinion that is allowed to be felt. If that's the case, who determines the standard for determining ok opinions.
Like the article says, the community probably won't vote for the guy. If they do, then they now have a White supremacist on their school board. It's not the end of the world, he's not going to run the school board. He has an opinion, it's an offensive one, but we can't stop him from expressing it, nor can we allow the government to tell him he cannot RUN for office.
Winning the office? That's up to the people of the community.
While I appreciate that they want to convict a Black person under hate crime statutes, this is clearly not the right case to do it. I'm all about erasing double standards, they're stupid, especially when you're a White male. Right, someone else, somewhere, was oppressed, and I was their oppressor.
No, I don't think so, I don't remember ever owning slaves, or taking rights from anyone, at least not directly or in any way of which I'm aware. But I digress.
This girl wants out of school. Let her out. This is obviously a disturbed individual, as generally if you want out of college you can usually leave, but what do I know?
This is not a case of doing something because she hates minorities. It IS a case of singling out people because they're minorities, but letter of the law is not always appropriately identified as application of the law.
Let's use some common sense. A gang of White kids beats a gay kid, or a Black kid, or Mexican, or Jew, that's a hate crime. If a gang of Jewish kids started a rumble with the local Catholic gang (sorry, digressing again, that would be something to see though).
If a gang of Black kids beat someone just because he/she was White...it's a hate crime.
Being Black, writing threatening letters because one wants to do something that is completely unrelated and just trying to make a point about something else that's completely unrelated...not a hate crime. Doesn't matter if everyone is from the same background, color, ethnicity, or family.
Let's start using common sense. Of course, this is education, that may be impossible.
