Some Sad School Stories

There are forty students enrolled in my third hour class.  Thirty showed up today: one had been suspended, nine others were truant. 

For the previous two classes, their homework—as explained at the beginning and end of each class and posted on the board—was to get a copy of a novel from a list I’d given them, and merely to bring it in to class today.  The list included authors such as Mark Twain and Ray Bradbury (and, for that matter, J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer) among two dozen others, the only other requirement being that the book they choose be at least 250 pages long.  I told them that our school librarian had a copy of the list and could help them find a book.  Obviously, they had a few hundred books to choose from.

Out of the thirty students in class today, only ten had a book.  A few others probably had a book but left it at home.  However, the vast majority of the unprepared twenty clearly hadn’t put forth any effort at all, hadn’t bothered to write down or remember the assignment, and had lost or thrown away my handout list.  They didn’t even care enough to try to do it.  Keep in mind that the assignment was merely to have a copy of the book with them.  That was it. 

And only one-fourth of the kids in that class will get credit for it. 

Is this a remedial class?  Far from it. 

UNLV Sponsors Youth Sexuality Activism Conference For CCSD Educators

A disturbing email went out to my school’s electronic bulletin board today.  Presumably it went out to every school in the district.  The message included two attachments giving details about an alternative sexuality conference on the UNLV campus on November 14 which will feature a series of workshops.  Are these workshops meant to help educators with their personal lives?  No, nothing like that.  Is it to assist them in avoiding the creation of a classroom environment where teasing and bullying of homosexual students might occur?  Partly. 

But the most unnerving thing about this conference is the inclusion of sessions meant to instruct teachers in training students “to get involved with the LGTBQ community in order to effect positive change. We will look at already established youth LGBTQ community groups, recent movements and types of youth activism.”  Is this serious?  Is UNLV actually promoting, and CCSD tacitly allowing, public teachers preparing to indoctrinate young people in alternative sexual lifestyles, to the point where these children will be encouraged to go out into the community and advocate for them? 

This is beyond political. 

How the NCAA Helped Ruin American High Schools

The NCAA has a rule that remedial high school courses don’t count towards eligibility for college athletics.  I don’t know how other parts of the country have dealt with this, but CCSD’s answer has partly been to reduce / eliminate remedial classes. 

That’s great, right?  All those future college hoops stars are being put into more rigorous classes, just like the NCAA wanted, right? 

No, of course not.  Their rule didn’t suddenly make everyone smarter.  What schools do is simply change the names of classes, removing the “remedial” stigma from the title, while keeping them stocked with the same kids who would have been in remedial classes anyway (thus cheating the rule by “technically” complying with it), or–even worse–those poor kids who need more help get lumped into the regular classes where they push up class sizes, fall behind, cause trouble, irritate and bore the students who are at that level, and still certainly don’t get the experience that the NCAA’s rosy-eyed rule must assume they magically will.

This isn’t to say that all athletes are slow–actually, my experience is quite the opposite–but those who do need slower classes are poorly served by this rule, and the rest of their campus suffers for it, too.  Schools can’t just target the schedules of potential future athletes, so everyone–sports players and not–are equally affected by the policy.  The NCAA could do everyone a huge favor by revising this ineffective, counterproductive rule.

Blame The Teachers?!

An article in last Friday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal was called, “School district fails to meet ‘No Child’ goal.”  Apparently, the culprit behind our city’s epidemic academic failures is obvious to the media: blame the teachers!

Gee, why didn’t they call it “Local students fail to meet ‘No Child’ goal,” since they’re the ones who actually failed the tests?  Or how about, “Local parents fail to meet ‘No Child’ goal,” since they’re the ones who have failed to raise more studious children? 

Where are the headlines that say, “Doctors fail to meet heart disease goal” or “Clergy fails to meet Sabbath keeping goal?”  Aren’t those professions also responsible for the private choices of their constituencies, or is it only teachers who magically control what other people do with the tools and information they offer?

This Just In: Washing Hands Is Good!

Yesterday, the Clark County School District sent out a second letter to parents about the swine flu.  The letter reassures Mom and Dad that the school cares about little Junior’s health (this, in response to the controversial revelation that a local student had been infected for a week but the CCSD chose not to release this information to the public). 

The letter then offers four items of advice:

• Wash your hands often with soap and water…
• Sneeze or cough into a tissue.  Throw the tissue in the trash after use.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth…
• If you are sick, stay home.

Such inane cover-your-butt nannying reminds me of a great seventh season Simpsons episode, “Home Sweet Home-Diddly-Dum-Doodly,” in which a misunderstanding gets the kids taken away by the government and Marge and Homer have to attend a basic parenting class:

Goodman: There are a lot of little tricks to it, things you should have
         learned a long time ago.  Such as, if you leave milk out, it
         can go sour.  Put it in the refrigerator, or, failing that, a
         cool wet sack.
          [much later]
         And put your garbage in a garbage can, people.  I can’t stress
         that enough.  Don’t just throw it out the window.
  Marge: This is so humiliating.
  Homer: [writing furiously] “Garbage in garbage can”…hmm, makes
         sense.

 

If anyone isn’t washing their hands or covering their mouth when they cough, what in the world makes the health office think that a letter will suddenly wake them up?  “Say, honeybunch, you know how we’re a couple of gross slobs?  Well, this here letter says that we should use a tissue and then throw it away.  Sounds strange but, heck, let’s give it a shot!”

On the plus side for the swine flu letter, though, the reverse side was printed in Spanish, so I got to learn how to say “swine flu” should I ever end up in Mexico: “influenza porcina.”

Progress At West Prep

My first year teaching, during the 2000-2001 school year, was at West Middle School, which was arguably the worst school in Las Vegas.  Located in one of the oldest, poorest parts of the city, I remember one staff meeting we had that January, so the police department could brief us on the gang war going on in that neighborhood, which had taken the lives of several people within a mile of the school within the last few months, and which had plenty of ties to kids on campus. 

Not surprisingly, West had over a 90% teacher turnover rate each year, and I admit I was one of those who left as soon as I could, bound for greener pastures where I hoped my skills could be more appreciated, and more than a little out of fear and intimidation at what overwhelmed me as a profoundly hopeless situation.  I’ve always had mixed feelings about my cynicism, and have secretly hoped for something to prove me wrong. 

Now, a glimmer of hope comes.  A story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal this week chronicles the improvements made at West, especially a dramatic increase in passing the state’s proficiency test for this year’s juniors (West is expanding to become a K-12 school). 

Things that the article suggests contributed to the improvements are:

• extra per-pupil spending from the school district and federal sources

Teaching Tip

This is not an April Fool’s joke.  As Dave Barry would say, I swear I am not making this up. 

Yesterday, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that John Mannion,  a weight training teacher at a local high school, is suspected of stealing $20, 000 from the athletic department.  Mannion’s defense is that he didn’t take it, it was only stolen from his cabinet where he’d left it for weeks because the school banker wasn’t readily available, and, besides, he says it was only more like $5000 or $6000.

But the best part is this:

He said he was not trained by the school on how to properly manage student-generated funds.

 

Now, I haven’t handled money for a school organization for years, and was never responsible for that much money, but I still think I’m qualified to offer this guy just a wee bit of simple yet useful advice.  Ready?  Here it is: if you collect several thousand dollars from students and parents for your school fundraiser, try not hiding it in a drawer for over a month.  Instead, you might make sure that it gets to someone in authority.  Quickly.

And if you do get in trouble, you probably shouldn’t tell the newspaper that it was your boss’s fault for not training you right.  This teacher had better enjoy his Spring Break next week, ’cause the rest of the year ain’t gonna be pretty…

Your Tax Dollars At Work!

In preparation for next week’s proficiency exams, the school district is distributing this pamphlet to high school students in the valley.

It’s one thing to remind students to get a good night’s rest, but…an exhaustive, illustrated guide to doing squats and lunges?  A specific list of preferred healthy snacks, including Nature Valley “Chewy” Granola Bars (Oatmeal Raisin flavored, especially), and Nutri-Grain Banana Muffin Bars?  Is the school district getting a kick back from this promotion or something?

I can just imagine some kid sixty years from now saying, “Grandma, what’s your secret to the great life you’ve had?”, and her answering, “Well, back when I was a sophomore in high school, they gave us these pamphlets about being healthy, and it changed my life.  That piece of paper made me alter my entire lifestyle.  Suddenly, I was a different person, and I cared for my life with the kind of independent maturity that can only come from a single handout one day at school.” 

Kids might be lazy and ignorant, but they’re not stupid.  How in the world can we expect them to take us–and our curricula–seriously when we give them stuff like this?

“This Program Is An Official Program”

This popped up in the ol’ inbox at work today:

As of the start of the second semester (January 20, 2009), please ensure that the following statement is included on all printed programs and materials accompanying school assemblies and programs (i.e. plays, musical performances, etc.):

 

            This production (or program) is presented in accordance with CCSD Policy

            and Regulation 6130, Assemblies and Public Programs.

 

Apparently, this course of action was necessary to clear up all of the confusion in our community caused by the recent rash of unauthorized school assemblies.  Mass rioting in the streets was inevitable, so this heroic measure probably saved our fair town from being reduced to smoldering ashes just in time. 

No doubt that when people attending school events see this new bit of fine print, they’ll breathe a long sigh of relief and rest easy knowing that this activity is in compliance with all official standards.  No more sloppy, underground productions for us! 

On the plus side, surreal drivel like this is what makes me happy to work for the government.  You just can’t expect this kind of entertainment in the private sector. 

I’m reminded of a sign I once saw that read, “This certificate of certification certifiably certifies the certifiee of certifiable certitude.”  Wow, what an honor! 

Perhaps the regulation mentioned in the notice should be called 27b-stroke-6.

A Footnote About The Killers

A couple of weeks ago I saw this fun essay about how the local roots of Las Vegas-based rock band The Killers are reflected in their music.  It reminded me of something I hadn’t thought about for a while: I went to high school with their drummer.

I didn’t actually know Ronnie Vannucci; he was two years older than me.  However, like everybody at Western High School, I knew his dad.  His dad was famous.

Mr. V. was a substitute teacher, and he was the sub that everybody wanted.  When you came into class and saw that the teacher was gone, you were happy.  When you saw Mr. V. sitting at the desk instead, you were elated.  First of all, Mr. V. cussed like a sailor…a drunk sailor.  With Tourette’s.  Not surprisingly, we teenagers loved it; the novelty never wore off. 

Not to say that he was a bad sub, he was just very…relaxed.  He certainly never followed any lesson plan, assuming one had been left for him.  He usually just let the class have a free day.  Teachers would return the next day, ask how we liked the sub, and everybody would give a glowing review.  The teacher would then smile and nod, satisfied that education had proceeded unimpeded in her absence.  And we all snickered into our flannel jackets.

In fact, I remember going back to Western for some student teaching observations when I was in college, but he was subbing for the class I was supposed to take notes on; he asked for the sports page from the newspaper I had with me, I gave it to him and left.  Remember the traffic cop who gives Bruce Willis a ticket at the beginning of Die Hard?  Mr. V. looked exactly like that guy. 

That’s about all I can add to public knowledge about The Killers, other than this, Vannucci’s picture from his senior yearbook in 1994 (he’s in the middle of the bottom row):

Email About A Truant Student

The following is an email I just sent to a parent of a student.  The young man in question was caught leaving school with some friends by another teacher on his prep period.  Sadly, this kind of communication is not especially rare in my work experience: I send emails like this one at least a few times per semester, and could send several times as many more, if more parents even bothered to request “make up work.” 

(This parent must have “appealed” [read: demanded, begged, threatened to sue] the school, so his blatant string of skipped classes have all been “excused.”  This was the second time this week a [nominal] student of mine had such an array of ditched days excused, though the parents of the other boy didn’t have the effrontery to ask for “make up work” for two months of voluntary truancy.)

Mrs. _______, A request for make up work for your son _____ has come to my attention. Since starting to come back to class recently, _____ has shown little engagement in class work, much less motivation to discuss making up what he missed during his absences (on one vocabulary assignment that he did do–writing example sentences to illustrate the meanings of words–the majority of his sentences simply said, “________ is a big word”).

With 14 absences at this point in the semester [in my class alone], and the majority of those within the last few weeks, he has a staggering load of “make up” work to do. Add to that the fact that practically none of that work is just a simple worksheet that can be handed out; most work involves examples, class discussions, and extensive reading. Such work can be made up, but it is difficult and requires a commitment of time in here outside of school hours. Further, he has missed a few quizzes on material that he was not here to review; making those up with any kind of quality will obviously be very difficult.

That being said, he’s welcome to try, and I’m certainly here to help him do so. What he would absolutely need to do is come in with at least ten or fifteen minutes set aside, before or after school, to get started on some of this “make up” work, but that’s just a start. Hopefully he can get some of this work turned in for some credit when we return from Christmas Break.

_____ got a 50.9% first quarter, and currently stands at a 20.4%. A productive thing to do at this point is to start planning for how he will make up the credits he will probably lose this semester, especially since the long block schedule, with its two extra classes per semester, may not be available next year.

_____ has potential and doesn’t seem to have any academic problem in his way, so certainly next semester could be very successful. I wish you both good luck and look forward to seeing him in class regularly, where I’m sure he can do very well.

Clearly, I’m trying to introduce a dose of reality to this situation, without being quite confrontational enough to warrant any ire directed at me.  I don’t need any more grief this close to Christmas.

I think I’ll keep this email as a form letter for future use.  Please tell me that other states aren’t like this.

Bad Parent Stories

After my most popular letter to the editor appeared last year, a letter venting frustration about the lack of rigorous, involved parenting in Southern Nevada and the subsequent failure of students to achieve, I wanted to compile a book of bad parent stories for teachers to enjoy.  I planned to collect anecdotes about the clueless, the neglectful, and the flat out moronic.  As we tend to say around here, the apple doesn’t fall far from the idiot tree. 

I put queries and invitations on several places online, but never got a string response.  I’m still interested in doing the book, though.  In fact, if anyone sees this and wants to share a “bad parent” story, please let me know. 

Here are six of my favorites:

1. A couple of years ago, a high school counselor I knew had
an irate father come into his office at the beginning of a
school day. The father announced that his daughter had
come to school with inappropriate thong underwear on, and
demanded to know what the counselor was going to do about
it. The counselor was momentarily stunned, but replied
that there was really nothing that the school could do.
Fuming, the father left. He never explained how he knew
what kind of underwear his daughter was wearing, and we
never asked.

2. My first time teaching summer school, I sent a girl to
the office for a clear dress code violation: her shirt had
strings for shoulder straps and a neckline that plunged
halfway to her waist. As soon as the school day ended, the
girl came striding into my room with a smug smirk on her
face, and her mother storming in beside her. The mother
demanded to know why I was looking at her daughter’s
chest. I stammered, then told her that she had to discuss
this with an administrator first. Since then, I’ve had
trouble enforcing dress codes.

3. In one parent conference, a mother was presented with
evidence that her son had skipped every one of his classes
for two weeks.

“Could these records be wrong?” she asked.

After a pause, during which the teachers gave each other
confused looks, I asked, “You mean, did all six of us
mistakenly mark your son absent? Every day? For two
weeks?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “It could happen.”

More On (Moron?) Staff Development Days

An excerpt from an email I sent to some school district administrators earlier today:

 

Perhaps the best idea I have for tightening the belt around here is to drastically streamline our staff development days. 

 

In a ninth season episode of The Simpsons entitled, “Lost Our Lisa,” the children feel sorry for their teachers, because the kids get to have fun on a day off while the teachers have to be “cooped up at school” on a staff development day.  The scene then cuts to a close-up of the principal mumbling to a bored-looking teacher, “Well, here we go again,” after which the camera pulls back to reveal the staff of the school on a roller coaster at an amusement park.  The joke is on the writers, though: their irony turns out to be quite realistic.

 

From the presentation by a company selling “edutainment” software that we neither need nor could afford, to the breakout sessions with no leader or coherent goal, to the condescending silliness at the start and end of the day, Tuesday’s staff development was a laughingstock failure.  I don’t say this to indict any certain individuals responsible for its planning, but when we face budget shortfalls and a lack of student achievement, it’s almost criminal to continue having these inservice days with the philosophy that they’re for “entertainment” and “team building.” 

 

In the interest of the quality of the education that we provide, I need to suggest that we radically alter staff development days in the district.  Shouldn’t staff development days be devoted to reviewing effective teaching strategies and curricula, and letting departments communicate with each other about immediate concerns specific to their campus and department?  Not to mention, letting teachers have some extra planning time?  What else could a staff development day legitimately be for? 

 

Budget cuts have to be made, and isn’t it reasonable to start with the catered lunches, silly technology-heavy presentations, pointless professional guest speakers, and trophies that cluttered up this most recent staff day? 

 

 

 

It’s Not The Money, Stupid…

The Clark County School District is facing a budget crisis; after having cut $130 million from its budget for this year, we now find ourselves having to cut even more for next year.  Some details are here. 

Schools are having emergency meetings with parents in the community to discuss ideas for cuts, and my school had such a meeting among its staff last week, as I’m sure many other schools have.  Everybody’s worried about salaries, perks, and even job security itself.

Let’s set a few things straight:

First, there is plenty of money out there for what we need.  There always has been and always will be.  It’s not a matter of needing more money, it’s a matter of better investing what we have.  It does not cost hundreds of millions of dollars to provide textbooks and necessary supplies.  Besides (the curmudgeon hastened to add), there is absolutely no relationship between education spending and academic achievement. 

But what about technology?  Doesn’t that cost a lot?  Yes, but that might as well be where we make some cuts, too, since…wait for it…students with greater access to computers statistically do worse academically than others. 

All this brouhaha reminds me of a letter that I had in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on July 11, 2007:

 

Here’s a shocking thought from a teacher: Raising our salaries won’t improve anything.

School Budget Priorities And A Satirical Analogy

So my school’s budget for this year was cut by six figures.  Other schools had even more cut than we did.  This trickles down to my English department, among other ways, in the form of getting far less paper for copies than we have had in the past, which was pretty meager to begin with.

Meanwhile, one of the several videos that every school district employee was forced to watch this week featured a custom built, three foot tall remote control bus with multiple moving accessories.  It helped to teach us, seriously, how not to get hit by a bus.  They can afford to waste our time with this kind of thing, but we can’t afford paper?! 

I responded to this outrageous farce on our school’s email bulletin board in my typical idiom: satire. 

 

In this election year, I know we’re all worried about our constant need to fill up on that supply that we need to function, especially since it’s getting much harder finacially to do so. Therefore, I want to offer this plan for our future…my Paper Plan.

 

 

First, we need to unlock our leaders’ stockpile. It’s time to dip into the Strategic Paper Reserve.

 

 

Second, we have no choice but to engage in offshore drilling. Studies have shown that areas off the coast of Florida are rich in crude paper, and we need to get to it before China does. We also need to start getting paper from our federal lands in Alaska. The caribou will just have to adapt; the Alaskan Paper Pipeline will be able to alleviate our shrinking paper supply as soon as 2025.

 

 

Third, we need to wean ourselves from our dependence on foreign paper. The terrorists in PPEC have had us on a leash long enough. Besides, they’re all in bed with the corporate fat cats in Big Paper who are getting rich off our desperation to have fuel for our copy machines to run smoothly.

 

 

Fourth, we need to find a new resource to replace paper completely. Research into alternatives like solar paper and wind turbine paper are promising, but we have to admit that hydroelectric paper just won’t work. It ends up either getting too soggy to use, or catches on fire.

 

 

Fifth, copy machines need to become more fuel efficient. Japanese engineers have perfected a smaller, hybrid model that combines a sheet of paper with creamed corn to get more material printed on each page. It’s the wave of the future. Sorry, but those cool Sport Utility Copy Machines are no longer in style.

 

Don’t forget to make sure the wheels on your copy machines are inflated properly. That alone could save us thousands of sheets of paper a year.

 

Regarding those several mandatory videos that each employee is subjected to (what a great use of our time as we try to prepare for teaching new students–and haven’t we been told by countless administrators that showing people videos is not an effective method of teaching?  Why use it to teach us something then?), the subjects covered included the following:

 

Anything that you say that any student chooses to feel offended by is an “aversive intervention” and will get you sued and fired (after endless paperwork), try not to spread disease by coming into contact with, quote, “blood and semen” (I swear I am not making this up), and, apparently, according to our intensive trainings this week, you’re actually not supposed to sleep with students.  Huh.  Well, glad they cleared that up.  No doubt that some pedophile saw that and cheerfully changed his mind.

 

Your tax dollars at work.