Why have none of Susie Gran, Zsombor Peter, nor
Andrea Schoellkopf done an expose on the single
most blatant and egregious violation of school rules
and of school board policy, by students?
... sagging
Is it because? they are not allowed to investigate and
report upon the issue of students being routinely
permitted to engage in prohibited behavior
in plain sight, and without consequence.
Is it because? they can't report upon sagging without
reporting the failure of the leadership of the APS
to enforce their own board policy, even on students.
and that students are in charge in schools in the APS
...every single hour, of every single day,
and in every single school.
The leadership of the APS cannot show stakeholders
even the simplest form of
a District Wide Discipline Philosophy.
No one has ever put one together.
In all of these years they have never found it necessary
to underpin their policies with philosophical foundation.
That is why so many of their policies are philosophically
indefensible. That is why their policies so often fail.
That is why kids are sagging on every school campus in APS.
And it is never going to change.
Because the leadership of the APS are accountable to no one.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Education Reporters; Conspicuous in Their Absense.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I told you over lunch how I had the same problem at Charter Vocational High. We had a supposedly "zero tolerance" policy toward any violation of school rules, and the ACVHS student handbook was exactly like the APS one. (In the absence of a individual school policy of discipline, the policy reverts to the "mother school district, in this case APS)
I see a teenage boy sagging, at least four inches of underwear showing, the back of his pants hanging about to the bottom of his butt. I call him on it and take him to the office, fully expecting the zero tolerance rule to kick in.
Instead, I am yelled at by the student, who has seen that sagging enforcement in a joke everywhere in APS,; a rule that is almost never enforced. He thinks I am harassing him for asking him to cover his underwear.
The kid wants to get violent, but I am a non-violent intervention instructor and talked him down.
I had to use my skills as a peace-keeper becasue there was a rule that I was trying to enforce that had not been enforced.
Bruce Smith does nothing to the boy, just sends him to class and he is still sagging.
I say get rid of the rule if no one will enforce it, or by God start enforcing the policy.
You cause nothing but conflict when you say "the Easter Bunny is Real" and then no eggs, or "the Tooth Fairy is real" and no money for the teeth.
Those few of us actually distributing money for teeth and leaving painted eggs around somehow are the bad guys, since we should have know the rule is just a wink and a nudge?
Revise the rules if you refuse to enforce them, APS.
Several of us (teachers) at a NE High School made complaints to our admin that "why should we have to enforce the sagging pants policy if these kids walk through, and stay in, the admin office, with saggy pants, and no one does anything about it?"
The answer "We'll enforce it...some of us do"..and yet nothing changed and now none of us care about it anymore.
--An APS instructor
In the last school I was in, teachers wouldn't even do duty anymore. They were worried they might witness something illegal and have to bring the kid to the office where he would get a pass back to class. Guess whose tires are slashed as a result. Not the administrations. I'm sick of rules not being enforced. If you are not going to enforce them, then throw away the rules. All we teach kids by sweeping everything under the proverbial carpet, is that it is ok to ignore rules. They are running the schools right now. Remember Lord of the Flies? Well... where do they learn this behavior? Just stand on the campus of any school during drop off or pickup. You see parents gleefully ignoring all traffic procedures that were put in place for their children's protection. Sometimes they only narrowly miss one of the security officers. Dicipline is a joke any more in APS.
Post a Comment