I'm finally going to air my grievances and I find myself a little hesitant because my grievances are with my school. I said from the beginning I really like my school because so many good people work here and so many great things happen. However, when I started writing this blog I committed myself to telling both the good and the bad that happens in the classroom. Well, I've certainly done that but never have I criticized the school or my colleagues until today.
Grievance #1
The scholars that Gnu and I work with do not have leprosy, the black plague, or some contagious disease so why are they treated differently? Gnu dropped off the scholars in the gym which is our bus pick up point and when they left the building to get on the bus she returned to the classroom. What Gnu did not know was that the busses were running late so two of our scholars had to reenter the gym. When in the gym, our two scholars picked up a basketball and started dribbling it. That is against the rules given that there can be up to fifty scholars in the gym waiting on busses. It's a simple fix, just tell them to put the basketballs down and sit quietly until their bus arrives. Unfortunately one of the responsible colleagues must have sense that these two scholars were contagious and just went to the front office and filed a complaint with the Big B. The next morning Gnu received an email message regarding this incident from the Big B. I'm sorry but common courtesy dictates that you address the matter with the scholars teacher first and not the principal. On Friday Gnu and I both walked the scholars to the bus. Interestingly the busses were running late and several scholars were in the gym. Our scholars were sitting quietly but others were running wildly yelling and screaming and dribbling basketballs. Not once did a responsible colleague do anything to stop this out of control activity. Why? Apparently these out of control scholars were not from THAT classroom.
Grievance #2
Our scholars, like all of the scholars in the school, are required to take state mandated tests. In this particular incident I had to sit with EM as he took a language arts acuity test. When he finished the test my colleagues involved in the testing process told him he did a good job. NO HE DID NOT. HE CAN'T READ. Did you not watch him? He just clicked on the answers. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, he click forty times and managed to get seven right. Even with seven correct out of forty that is not good. That is failure. I've asked the question ,"why do we even bother to testing him?" "Why don't we just give him a zero and move on?" "Because this is a mandatory test that he has to take" is the response I get. "But we are wasting our time if we don't get him the help he needs" I say. "Yes, something needs to be done about him." Well then do something. Nothing happens.
EM arrived at our school last year. I've brought up his lack of reading ability a few times to the people that can do something about it and nothing happened. I'm now working with Gnu and once again EM's inability to advance academically has been minimal. Another attempt to get EM the help he needs will be made. This time Gnu is taking the initiative to get a case conference schedule but we'll see how that goes. If you recall, the last time Gnu tried to get a case conference scheduled it was blow'd up before it even got started.
Grievance #3
Mandatory statewide ISTEP testing starts on Monday, March 2nd. Four of our scholars are required to take the test: The Collector, Yo!, Wide, and EM. Just before leaving school for the day Gnu said to me, "my stomach is in knots over the ISTEP tests." My response was, "it's going to be a tough process and we have to do our best to get everyone settled down and on task on test days". After some further discussion we set a goal of having one scholar pass at least one part of the test. Who is that one scholar, Wide. He has the knowledge, it's just a matter of keeping him calm so he doesn't go into some type of anxiety attack or hyper overload.
With all of that said he is where my grievance comes in. There are four classrooms on the second floor that are occupied by teachers who's responsibility is to help scholars that are struggling academically. I walk past these classrooms everyday and look inside and see either a small group of students or an individual student getting additional help. In doing so I keep thinking why don't they help our scholars? Every one of those teachers knows our scholars and knows they are behind academically so why don't they help them? That's the big unknown and what makes it even worse is that one of them is designated to specifically help our scholars. We are almost through the third grading period and as of yet this person has failed to make an appearance in our classroom. It makes me wonder why this is happening and I certainly hope it's not because our scholars are in THAT room.
There you have it, my grievances. There are just three of them but as I think about them I come to one conclusion and that is that my scholars seem to be treated differently. That really bothers me because none of my scholars chose to be the way they are. They are what they are because of one of three things. They are products of P.P.P. Their parental unit did stupid things with drugs and/or alcohol when they were pregnant. This is simply God's plan for them. The reality is I can't do a thing about any of those three reasons. The other reality is if I can prove that someone is treating them differently because they are in THAT classroom then I going to have a very serious and animated conversation with that person and if someone doesn't like it, so be it.
I'm out. It's the weekend. Thanks again for sticking around and reading my posts.
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