WHat's WRONG WITH THE WORLD?

[Micro]

too much southpark ;D

Thanks, that made me laugh.   ;D

[jrhennecke]

Micro with all due respect I can not disagree more. I could not in good contious expect a teacher who I do not know personally teach my son morals. That is my job. This teacher does not know me or what values I want my son to learn. She sees him for 7.5 hrs a day for nine months. As far as the rules you discuss I agree with you they seem pretty ridiculous. I do not know how the school board members in your area are selected but here they are elected. I am sure you already do because honestly you sound like a very involved parent, but more in your area need to attend school board meetings and make your voices heard. My child is not behaviorly challeneged. I can appreciate your frustration with the system and getting your son some help. In my day a child in need of special help got it. Now the child has to be mainstreamed as to not alienate him. It's all about money. I do have experience in public education. My mother has been with the school district for 32 years and my mother in law has been a kindergarten teacher for the last 24. I am glad that the parents you know are involved but tell me how involved are parents when my mother in law sets parent teacher conferences and less than half the parents bother to show. Or how my son had no open house last year because of lack of participation.

Micro let me add that as far as the school system being broken. I agree with you 100%.  Something has to be done and I think for anything like that to happen good people like yourself and others need to be heard and possibly run for school board positions or even parent advisory councils.

[GitRDoneIke23]

Jrhennecke says it all PERFECTLY. EVREYTHING he said is RIGHT ON!!

Morals, and manners shoul be taught AT HOME!

School is for book knowledge, ie. History, Math Spelling, etc. NOTHING ELSE!

Well said JR!!!

Tight Lines 8-)

[Guest muddy]

This 16 year old Einstein is getting under my skin

[jrhennecke]

Hey Muddy. Check your messages.

[slomoe]

Bebe's kids ;D ;D

For real though, I went through some of the same things in high school that your son did Micro. I was eventually expelled because some guys I knew were having an altercation with another student, after school. I never touched him or threatened him. I was there, and that was enough to expel me. Even though I returned the money that the student threw to get the guys to leave him alone. I apologized for their actions an promised it wouldn't happen again. I should have just kept walking home.

[Micro]

You and I are not going to agree. I do agree it's the parents jobs to teach morals. But to say a school has no responsibility to teach courtesy, compassion, fairness, and tolerance is (and I say this respectfully) absurd to me. But even if I were to agree that schools have no duty to teach those things, I swear I can't understand why anyone would think it's OK for a school to be destructive to those ends. And that's where is stands.

Take Zero-Tolerance Policies. It's nothing more than a position taken by schools that takes common sense out of the approach to behavioral problems and replaces it with a one-size-fits-all policy that treats kids harshly and unfairly. As the American Bar Association says, Zero tolerance is theoretically directed at students who misbehave intentionally, yet it also applies to those who misbehave as a result of emotional problems, or other disabilities, or who merely forget what is in their pocket after legitimate non-school activities. It treats alike first graders and twelfth graders. Zero tolerance results in punishment, expulsion or suspension irrespective of any legitimate explanation.

There is a difference between being treated FAIRLY and EQUITABLY. And kids are smart enough to know it. A kid today faces expulsion for forgetting a metal nail file in her purse, just the same as a kid that brings a switchblade to class to cut a classmate. That punishment is equitable, but it isn't fair. A kid today faces being label a "Sexual Offender" in his permanent school record if he hugs a fellow classmate, just as he would if he groped a classmate's butt. It's equitable, but it isn't fair.

We are holding kids to standards deemed UNCONSTITUTIONAL for adults. There isn't an adult justice system anywhere that takes the cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach with adult offenders that schools take towards our kids. I can see why some kids rebel in the face of this unfair system.

No, I don't condone misbehavior. But some acts are excusable. There is no reason for "lowering the boom" on a kid who forgets about discretion and says something inappropriate. There is no reason to expell a kid who forgets he has a scout pocket knife in his pocket.

With all due respect, the current system only works if our kids are dumb as rocks and exactly the same. They aren't. Our kids have brains and they are smarter than the average ape - even it would know its being treated unfairly.

A sense of fairness is a MORAL VALUE. And as it stands, not only do our schools not teach it, they are destructive to it through their own examples. You can teach it all you want, but the schools tear it down.

IMO, you cannot build children, you cannot make them ready for society, unless you develope their morals and character. They simply cannot work together in society unless they have a basic set of morals that are consistent with each others. Schools MUST reinforce that and right now they don't.

I think our differences are relatively small. Our main agreement is we have to do something, our kids are too important.

[HesterIsGod]

A girl I know told me this and I didn't believe her. Guess she was right

[Micro]

BTW, jrhennecke, if it sounds like I'm mad at you, I'm not.  I get so frustrated over the whole thing.  You wouldn't believe how much time I've spent on this and my son.

[key chain bass guy]

Micro,

As a elementary school Assistant Principal in charge of special education, I understand your frustration, I do however disagree with some of your points.  It sounds to me that you are having a bad experience with your child's school, and its policies.  A lot of your issues with the discipline and enforcement of rules are made at the school or district level.  The absurdities that you hear about on the news when it comes to Principals suspending children are not the norm.(in my experience)  

The bureaucracy in Special Education is ridiculous, though your frustration should be with IDEA 2004(Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act) not the local district.  The process does take an incredible amount of time.  One of the ways to a SPED evaluation is for the parents to make a request in writing.  The district has ten school days to respond.  We respond by sending out consent to evaluate forms to be signed,  45 school days after consent is received, a Team meeting, consisting of a regular education teacher, special education teacher, parent, and a Local Education Authority(someone with the authority to commit resources) is held to determine eligibility.  If eligibility is determined, an IEP(Individualized Education Program) is written within five school days.  Services legally begin after the parent has consented to the IEP.

Sorry for what seems to be a long explanation for everybody unfamiliar with the process, but the funny thing is, this is the abridged version.  The amount of paperwork generated by my office is ridiculous!

My other advice to everybody is to speak with your Representatives in Washington.  Unfortunately, most educational policy is dictated by people that have never actually been in a public school before.

[key chain bass guy]

Sorry, that last part was political, I just got on a roll.

[Micro]

Sorry, that last part was political, I just got on a roll.

Well, it's spot on.  I don't want to get on a political rant, but IMO schools ran more smoothly and produced higher quality students  BEFORE "No Child Left behind."  And educators, who are trained to educate, had some latitude with respect to teaching.

And thanks.  Unfortunately, I'm all too familiar with getting the IEP in place.  It was a lengthy nightmare.  In the meantime, a child with known disabilities or emotional problems is in the mainstream class setting subject to the zero-tolerance policies of the school disctrict.   The case study on my son was huge - looking like a book when all parts from all observers and evaluators were compiled together.   It concluded exactly what my son's therapist concluded in his report months before.  

[key chain bass guy]

The last thing I would suggest, is to move to Chelsea, MA.  We discipline case by case, not by the "book".

[jrhennecke]

Micro

I think you and I agree on more than what you give us credit for. I had a little time to think on this on the way home so let me give this another try. Fisrt off my comment on behaviorly challenged children in my early post was not meant for children with legitimate medical reasons. Our differences on the teaching of morals I believe is in the wording. I believe that it is our jobs as parents to teach morals to our children. I believe that the school has a responsibility to reinforce our teachings only as far as basic "common courtesy". I want my son to be expected to say please and thank you. I also want him to be expected to show others common courtesy. We also agree that Zero-Tolerance Policies are wrong and each situation needs to be judged on its own merrits and dicipline should be handed out evenly. The difference between fair and equitable will be debated long after you and I are gone I am afraid. Just let me say that the examples you have given disturb me and do not in anyway support them. Like I said before the system is broken on so many levels. I would really like to discuss this in further detail but to do so and not get political is not possible. I at no time felt that you were mad at me and I hope you understand that I was not angy either. I believe we are just coming at this from different angles.

key chain bass guy,

This problem is bigger than the policies of our Federal Government.  Everyone from the top on down needs to bear some responsibility.  State, local leaders as well as the teachers and their unions.  Parents also need to get involved.  What Micro is talking about as far as his son is concerned is to me not only a breakdown in the system but negligence.

[Tin]

At that age most could really care less about morals or values, or right and wrong. As long as it gets them the attention of others or makes them fit in. Most of the kids involved with this probably had no intention of even doing anything but who knows. There were probably one or two ring-leaders and the rest followed. One kid said "Hey I got an idea", another chimed in, and the rest followed. And as being 3rd graders, they probably had no idea how serious of a matter this is today, and how much coverage it would get.

As for morals being taught at school or by parents. They are going to get some of their own thoughts and opinions from school through their friends and peer groups, and some from their parents. They are not getting it all from one and not the other. No matter what, schools will have a role in what values your child has not because of what the teacher is teaching, but because the influence and ideas of his or her peers. Don't like it? Home-school them

Discipline in schools needs to be reconsidered too. It just isn't harsh enough imo. Say I do something stupid, I get suspended. Do you know what that means in the mind of a teenager? VACATION WEEK. The only lesson they will learn from this is through their parents reaction to their suspension. It is not a double-edged sword like it should be.

[wareagle83]

I'm only 24, and I heard this the other day.  To tell you the truth even at my age.  Nothing surprises me anymore.  There are so many bad things going on everyday in this world and it is getting worse.  I just try to stay out of the way of the rat race and the world.  In the woods, and on the water is where I prefer to be.

[Wesley]

Schools are getting out of hand, a guy I work withs son is being expelled for 7 days because he played with a Air soft gun that another kid had near the school bus stop before getting on the bus.  

The kid is not a trouble maker, he is an honor roll student, he did not bring the gun, no one was threatened, air soft guns are classified in america as "Toys".  a 7 day suspension in this case is BS.

[Micro]

I don't see a major difference between today's kids and yesteryear's kids.  I do see a major difference in the way they are handled and in the amount of media attention certain offenses get.  Kids thought of harming their teacher?  That isn't the first time its happened.  It just didn't get trumpeted across every headline.  Today's media would have you think it happens every day.  But it doesn't.  The reason it gets media attention is because its extraordinary.  It hardly ever happens.    

In my day, kids could bring knives to school.  A lock blade was perfectly acceptable as long as it was kept in a sheath on your belt.   Kids in my high school had a smoking area.  Bringing a shotgun in your car to dove-hunt with after school was OK.  I remember kids doing school work with a dip-cup on their desks.   I remember breaking the stock on my air rifle and my shop teacher said he would help me fix it if I brought it to school.  

The school culture has evolved dramatically in the last 20 years, but kids haven't evolved that quickly.  

[key chain bass guy]

This problem is bigger than the policies of our Federal Government. Everyone from the top on down needs to bear some responsibility. State, local leaders as well as the teachers and their unions. Parents also need to get involved. What Micro is talking about as far as his son is concerned is to me not only a breakdown in the system but negligence.

[key chain bass guy]

Micro,

Check your PM's.