Update

Student handbook meeting update –

With the big issue out of the way – cell phones – we covered over issues – after school policy (which means trying to usher students out of the building promptly), the mess created by students who eat outside of the hallways rather than in the cafeteria, and our atrocious attendance.

Listed below are my candid reactions. Read at your own risk.

You’ve been warned.

Sure you don’t want to stop yet?

You’ve been warned.

Nervous about what you might find?

Stop now.

You’ve been warned.

Stop now least your rose colored glasses melt to your face.

You’ve been warned.

Turn away now.

Well, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve got stomach and nerve for the truth. As I see it.

First, there seems to me two types of teachers. Ones who agree or follow along with the rules (or what are perceived as rules) and those who just plain bitch about everything, regardless of steps taken to remedy situations.

Personally, I am a mixture.

I’m trying to be more like two teachers at LHS whom I really look up to. Both are veterans and run very effective classes. One is part of what is undeniably “our good old boy network” (read coach, bullshitter, kiss ass, and not afraid to speak his mind). The other is not part of the good old boy network and never was (read opinionated, ready to rock the boat, honest to the point of brutality, critical of administration and yet the first to get a card for our bosses day).

I fall somewhere in between those two, only I’m behind them by a combined 50 years or so.

My responses will be a mixture of their attitudes.

This is your last chance to turn back.

Are you sure?

Really?

Be prepared.

From my notes of day #2 of the student handbook committee –

Issue #1 after school policy.

Our administration has said that they don’t want a set policy on this.

Does that make sense? To me, no. Why not? I shall elucidate this.

I agree that our school should be a welcoming place to students. That is excellent and very noble.

However, when a couple claims to have had sex in nearly ever stairwell? I’m not sure I feel good about that.

The problem is that kids don’t want to be in class – just school (preferably when it is after 3:30 and 90% of the staff has vacated). Their home lives are shit, so they want to escape to school. I can understand and sympathize with this.

I just fear that our school is not secure. My sister, who inspects our school, has great fears about this. So does the administration. Given we have a school that isn’t secure and kids in the hallways until who knows when, six or seven?

I have heard podcasts on schools being a welcoming place for kids from poor, shattered homes. But the don’t just open the doors and turn a blind eye. Instead, the actually try to get the kids involved in some kind of programs after school to treat the problem rather than offering them a dark stairwell in which to mate.

Our assistant principal claimed that he spoke to both our janitors and they had received few complaints about janitors having to deal with students lounging around after school. Yet, I had a colleague who actually spoke to the janitors themselves and they stated several instances.

Issue #2 cafeteria policy

We are in a bind here. As our assistant principal said, “We don’t have enough room for all the kids who eat during first lunch.”

To which I wrote, “What kind of a school are we?” We can’t have colored paper. We can’t order enough supplies since our supply budgets were cut by half. We can’t keep kids out of the building if we want to.

What sense does this make? I know of no solution for this problem other than scrounge up some money for more tables or a larger lunch room or a way to put more students in second lunch. I mean we can get two of the nicest bathrooms in the state, but we can’t get an efficient lunchroom?

Another problem is that just our principal and assistant principal are left to police them and that’s not enough.

Here’s where I come in. I’m heading up a group to look into organizing teachers into groups to help out as part of our duty time. The problem is that I know of at least two teachers who won’t be part of this. They rarely make staff meetings because their programs are more important than the school at large. And they can get away with it.

But most, I hope, will help out with this issue. I’m looking forward to it.

Issue #3 – attendance.

Again we were told from above that we won’t go to mandated attendance. We won’t force a student out of school. That is the opinion and it’s no use fighting it. There is a truancy board in place to try and deal with this.

The bind administration is in – since they won’t go to mandated attendance, which would open a whole other can of worms (but would improve our attendance) – is that parents simply don’t see school (or rather their child being present) as important. They simply excuse their absences, regardless.

Not much you can do about shitty parenting.

Another problem is that the county attorney isn’t going to do anything about students who have missed massive amounts of excused absences.

So I will be more of an asshole in my classes to try and remedy this. I’ll also have to be a more organized asshole.

Here is my policy –

If you have an unexcused absence, you receive a zero, regardless of the assignment. And here is the dilemma. What happens if you miss a massive assignment and will fail – and it’s only the second week? According to the policy, the student should be bumped from the class. But do you think that will really happen?

Not bloody likely.

But I’ll try to cozy up to the good old boy network and maybe that will help my cause next year.

For every excused absence, students will be given two days to make up the work. Now this is a nightmare for me because I will have to be a more organized teacher. But I’ll do it.

To his credit, our assistant principal works hard with me on students who miss a lot of time. But the results our rarely good. Kids who miss class a lot rarely pass.

So that’s my policy – zeros for unexcused absences (I believe their was an uproar awhile ago when our assistant principal said that some kids who get suspended need work, yet some said that being suspended was an unexcused absence and there was no work for them to make up since they’d get a zero on any of it – though I suppose they could still do the work for the good of their education – but what are the odds of a kid doing work that they know they won’t get credit for?) and zero credit for work that is not handed in within two days.

I can live with that.

And that concluded our meeting.

That wasn’t so bad was it?

Didn’t think so.

But you were warned!