APS Supt. goes to students for advice

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APS Supt. Raquel Reedy needs to improve graduation rates; she needs to decrease the number of drop outs.

She doesn't know what to do.
No one in the leadership of the APS knows what to do.

She's needs some advice.

APS teachers have among them, nearly 100,000 years of current and ongoing experience with students who end up dropping out or not.  Reedy and her leadership team could go to teachers for their advice. They haven't yet; they won't ever.

The problem is, once you open the box, you can't control what comes out.  One of the things that will come out is, the school board and their administration have failed in a number of very important regards.  Not the least of which is; the executive and administrative failure to maintain order in classrooms and schools.

Rather than listen to teachers and others working at the educational interface; where the system meets the clients, Reedy will entertain a select group of students.  She expects, link, that they together, will "tackle the big issue of improving graduation rates for the district.

So far, the students have let Reedy know that "students drop out for a variety of reasons."  Among them;

• laziness,

• school is not challenging enough,

• their need to work to survive, and

• school is not for them.

The student advisory council let Supt. Reedy know that "high school diplomas are important".

Unclear at this point; why did not Supt. Reedy already know that high school diplomas are important, and that students drop out because they're lazy, unmotivated, or have personal obligations that interfere with their ability to attend school.

Reedy's plan is to ask the students what teachers, parents, fellow students, community members, district officials, and elected officials can do to help.  This rather than ask teachers, parents, students, community members, district and elected officials themselves.

$111K a year crisis manager and public
relations head APS Exec. Dir. of
Communications Monica Armenta

This, like Reedy's dinner tour of the district, link, is a publicity stunt, pure and simple. Likely dreamed up by someone in APS' million dollar a year in-house public relations firm.

There's nothing wrong with making students feel like they're part of a decision making process.  But when it comes instead of making teachers feel like they're part of the decision making process, there is something wrong with it.




photo Mark Bralley