It's come to my attention that it has been quite some time since my last post. Truthfully, this blog had fallen to the back of mind mind, filed away under 'things to do when life calms down and gives me a moment to breathe'. Even though life hasn't calmed down one iota, I figured I owed you all a nice long thought provoking post. Either that, or a post updating you on all that has happened to me that you'll just stop reading part way through because all of it is school, work, more school, and more work. I decided that the thought provoking post would go over better.
Today, I come to you with a heavy heart. I'm not sure how many of you keep up with the local Las Vegas news, but a travesty has occurred quite recently. Every single faculty member, from teachers to support staff, are being forced to reapply for their jobs at Chaparral High School for the next school year. The man that made that school the fun and interesting place most high schools aren't, Kevin McPartlin, is being removed from his principal position. He is to be replaced by some unknown person who will be announced Friday, March 18th.
Now, you may all be wondering the reasoning for such a drastic measure. Well, join the club, because even I am mystified. The school district has said that, due to low test scores, low graduation rate, and high drop out rate, Mr. McPartlin has failed as a principal. Because of that, the school needs to be put under new management. This new person must review every application put in by the current staff and is allowed to keep up to 50% of them. So, no matter what, at least half of the staff will be complete strangers. However, s/he can choose to keep none of them.
The school district thinks that by bringing in all new staff, it will pull the students out of the rut they have currently fallen into and bring up all test scores, bring up the graduation rate, and lower the drop out rate. The numbers will look good and they can bring those to Washington and the country can see that we are no longer failures. Yaaaaaaay!
If only the boys and girls at the district weren't complete idiots. If the rest of the country were idiots like them, maybe their plan would work. As it is, I would love to strangle the person who came up with this idea. Something like this will never work, and let me tell you why.
I went to that school. I know the types of people there. I know the students, I know the staff, I know the Chap dynamic. Yes, Chaparral High School doesn't have the lowest drop-out rate. The big wigs forget to take a lot of things into consideration when this comes into play. In an economy like this, a lot of students are forced to take jobs in order to help support their families. Because of that, they drop out of traditional high school, some of them even going on to do Adult Education in an effort to still get their diplomas. Now, I know that not everyone who drops out does it because they have to get a job. There are those students who just don't see the point of going to school. Trust me, I know. I'm friends with some of them. However, that way of thinking starts in the home. Parents who didn't get an education themselves, didn't stress the importance of school, will inevitably produce offspring who think the same way they do. In essence, they raise kids to not think at all.
The graduation rate is something that can also be accredited to some students trying to balance school and work. Test scores, however, are the majority of the reason many students don't graduate. Teachers are charged with preparing students to pass their proficiencies. Even as low as kindergarten, students are trained to know the things they need to know in order to pass. With the state budget for education so low, teachers are forced to teach classes of 40+ students a lot of time. How on earth are they supposed to give the students the attention they need in order to properly teach them? Most teachers spend more time reprimanding disruptive kids then they do actually teaching, which again goes back to the home life. It's not a teacher's job to teach kids how to have respect, how to behave, how to be civilized adults. That's something that falls on the parent. However, we have so many parents around that just generally don't give a shit about their children, so they grow up to be disruptive hooligans. So, because teachers have to spend too much time telling students to be quiet and listen, the rest of the kids in the class don't get the adequate education they need. After failing the tests multiple times, may kids just feel like they are too dumb to function, so they just drop out.
With the way education is being run in this state, we're setting our children up for failure. We tell them they need to be at a certain level by a certain time, yet we punish them when they aren't because they don't have the adequate means to get there. Aside from the mentioned points, there's one other large part that I want to cover.
Teachers are a big part of a student's life. Provided they don't drop out, teachers are there for 13+ years of their lives. Though the teachers change each year as we as students grow older, we can always remember those teachers that we connected with on a deeper level. We all have those teachers that encouraged us when we things got tough, that talked to us when we were in a bad place, that made us smile when we really needed it. Teachers are more than just people who teach us things; they are a vital support system. In the world today, sometimes teachers are the only support system a student has. I was raised by a phenomenal woman. She has a past that she doesn't like mentioning all the time, one that eventually led to dropping out of high school. However, when I came along, she got her GED and started working far harder than any person should have to work. She was a single mom and was always working, so a lot of the time I was with my grandparents. Even so, she always taught me that education is the most important thing we could ever get. She taught me how to be respectful and how to be a decent human being. However, because she was gone a lot, she wasn't so much a support system as a parent who I love dearly, but didn't really connect with. I relied heavily on my grandmother.
When I was in the eighth grade, my grandmother passed away. I was in an extremely dark place. I barely managed to finish out the eight grade and move on to high school. It was there that I met a few wonderful teachers. I met Marsha Borovicka, the woman that taught me how to sing my cares away. I met Wayne Leavit, the man who taught me how to laugh and to never stop writing. In my freshman year of high school alone, I got back two things that I loved dearly. If it weren't for those two, I probably would have ended up taking my own life. The next year, I met a wonderful woman by the name of Ginger Clayton, who's views on life never cease to amaze me. She also encouraged me to write, and also taught me to never look at the world from one point of view. Always look at it from all around, because it's then that you truly learn. My Junior year I met Mrs. Gloria Lee and Mrs. Kelley Polson. Mrs. Lee taught me to read, read, read everything I can. She is also an extremely witty woman who always has my brain churning out comebacks for her remarks. Mrs. Polson taught me to never stop caring for others. That year, I also met Mrs. Courtney Craig, who taught me to stand up for myself no matter what.
It was because of these fantastic people that my high school experience wasn't the hell that so many I talk to claim theirs was. They taught me so much more than was in their job description, and because of that, they will always be in my heart and I will never forget them. I know my story isn't the story of every student out there, but I do know that, even if they can't admit it, every student has at least one teacher who they love, who encourages them all the time. I know quite a few students who go to school just to see those teachers, who attend classes to make them proud.
Now, the school district thinks they can fix everything by ripping apart the only rock many students have to cling to? They don't care about students. All they see are numbers, and they want those numbers to change. Oh, the number will change alright, but not in the way they want them to. This is a decision they will end up regretting.
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