Sometimes the Good Guys Win

 Sometimes the Good Guys Win

 

A transgender woman taught for eight years for the Prince George’s County school system during which time she was transitioning from male to female.   During that time she endured years of harassment abuse and retaliation at three different schools.  Appeals to the administration for protection yielded only more abuse from administrators, fellow teachers  and even students and parents.  Despite multiple reports and documentation of the events, school official did nothing and even took away some of the “plum” teaching assignments such as AP English.   Finally the teacher filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) describing the harassment and the hostile work environment.  The EEOC issued a letter finding that there was a reasonable cause to believe that the teacher had been subject to unlawful treatment based on her sex and gender identity in violation of Title VII, in effect recognizing and confirming the discriminatory treatment on the part of system and families.  The school district retaliated by taking away some of her better assignments and opened a disciplinary hearing against the teacher.   No reason for the discipline was found in the hearing.

Prince George’s Board of Education filed for judgement in their favor prior to the case coming to trial.  The District Judge denied the request citing ample evidence  that the defendants had not taken measures reasonably calculated to end the harassment.   Finally, the District decided to negotiate an out of court settlement which was finally resolved this fall.

First of all, the teacher will receive a monetary settlement for her abuse and for pain and suffering.  And more importantly to the teacher, the school district agreed to institute an agreed upon policy and training changes to protect transgender students and staff within Prince George’s County Public Schools.

The teacher issued a statement: “This settlement vindicates my pleas for help and sensitivity training on LGBTQ+ issues for students and staff. Every student and every teacher should feel safe, welcomed, and respected in a school environment. I am hopeful that with the new policy and training changes adopted by the Board of Education in response to my case, there are now strong measures to prevent and address discrimination or harassment towards transgender staff or students. “

Schools need to be safe for everyone and administrators are responsible for making that happen.  In this instance the good guys won. 

 

Sometimes Freedom is Free

 Sometimes Freedom is Free

 

A group of parents and students started a Facebook page as a “parent discussion group”.   The page grew to 180 members of students and staff.   Mostly it was derogatory of the school district.  It often also contained mis-information about the school calendar, snow days and/or illegal actions by school administrators.

District administrators argued that the public often confused this page with the official district page.   To try to combat the situation, the school district had it logo trademarked.  It then sent a strongly worded threatening letter to the FB page administrator demanding that 1) it stop using the logo of the district and 2) it shut down the page.  The letter threatened legal action if the page were not shut down.

The parents pushed back and sued the school district for retaliating against them for engaging in their right to free speech.   Gotta love America we sue over hot coffee that is hot.

The Superintendent filed for summary judgement against the suit, claiming that she had qualified immunity on the claims raised.

Not so said the judge.   No one is immune from violating the right to free speech.

Specifically the judge said the contents of the page were clearly free speech.  And no, it did not matter that the free speech contained wrong or incorrect information.  Americans are free to be wrong in their speech.

Next the judge said there was no trademark infringement because the folks managing the FB page did not use it to sell anything.

Thirdly, the court said that any reasonable fact finder would conclude the goal of the Superintendent’s action was to curtail constitutionally protected free speech on social media.  That behavior is not allowed.

Finally, the court ruled that at the time of the Superintendent’s challenged action, her behavior was clearly in retaliation for the constitutionally protected free speech.

So in the end, the parents and students were free to continue with their Facebook page without fear of retaliation.  Two primary take-aways from this story.   Mainly, don’t believe everything you read in social media or on the Internet and yes, Virginia, there is constitutionally protected free speech in our country.  

It's time to rise up

 It’s time to Rise up

 

We have issues in Maryland.   Since the virtual no-learning experience, kids' achievement scores in reading and math have plummeted.  Reading much worse than math.   Then there are the high stakes tests and the graduation rates, both going straight the opposite from up.  Things are bad.  

There are a couple of approaches to this problem to raise the scores.  One way is to increase individual instruction.  That means teaching kids according to the way they learn best and teaching them content that is meaningful to them.  So, scores on high stakes tests would go up and so would graduation rates.  Those increases would be the consequence of students learning more.

Another approach is to give less importance to the so-called high stakes tests.  They would no longer be high stakes in that students could fail them and still graduate.  We could also lower the score that is required for passing in the course itself.  Unfortunately, it is the second approach that school systems in Maryland are choosing to take.

Going forward scores on the end-of-course exams will be averaged in with other course grades so that a poor score on the “big” test won’t matter so much if the course grades would be good enough to cover the spread between the major test and the other course grades.  That might not be too bad except that the course grades themselves have also been inflated.  In many systems in Maryland, teachers may not give a student a grade below 60 (failing) if the student is “doing his/her best” and “really trying”.  What exactly those terms mean and who determines whether or not a child is doing her best or “really trying”?  That evaluation is up to the teacher to decide.   But teachers should know that if too many of their students are getting low course grades, the teacher must be the one who is doing something wrong.  Generally, that conclusion would make good sense to me, except that the students are very quick to catch on to the game and they know they can’t fail so why bother to try.  

Students have two basic ways to get better grades:  They can learn more or we can lower the standard for what is required.

Good optics and politics tell us to lower the standard; good education tells us to teach more and better.  It’s time we rise up!

Nothing is black and white

 Nothing is Black and White

 

There are lots of problems in our schools today.   There aren’t enough teachers.   Kids seem to have come back to school after the virtual non-learning experiences with increased mental health problems, respect and public opinion of teachers are at a new low,  and political office holders are using schools as platforms to get elected.

On the one hand, members of school boards are saying schools should just teach basic academics and leave the social teachings to families.  But what about the kids who don’t have a stable family?   Or kids who are part of a family that doesn’t have the knowledge base or skill set to teach kids.  And what about the original purpose of FREE public education, to prepare children to function as adults in a democracy. 

School leaders are singling out “black boys” as needing higher graduation rates.   So, the answer is to lower the bar so more “black boys”  will pass exams and thereby graduate.   Political goal achieved but the kids are probably worse off because they have a diploma that doesn’t represent any achievement.

We want to raise school academic standards and we do that by teaching students courses that only a small minority will ever need while eliminating the time for content they will all need.

Teachers are to blame too.   They sit back and let the politicians run over them instead of standing up for their profession.  Their organizations have long since been professional organizations and are flat out health and welfare unions, fighting for benefits and salary but ignoring professional control of the work teachers do.

We are barricaded at each end of the political spectrum, afraid to move toward the middle and desperately afraid of the gray areas.  Yet the gray areas are where the answers are.   The problems are incredibly complex, there are no easy answers and it isn’t likely that any answers will be found in the black and white corners.

 

Who Wants this job?

 Who wants this job?

 

Turns out not many people do want this job.  Oh, the job in question is being a teacher.  Based on research done by Brown University and the University at Albany,  who compiled and analyzed decades’ worth of national data from more than a dozen sources.   They looked at teacher morale, the perceived prestige of the profession, and entering the field itself.  They examined data from 1970 until this year, 2022.  

What they found was that the pandemic exacerbated what has been coming for a long time.  According to the research, we are at a critical tipping point in education.  

There were some depressing but key take aways.  Firstly, only 42% of educators say the stress of their job was worth the rewards.  In 1970, that number was 81%.  Oh and by the way, teachers were dramatically lower paid in those days.  So much for the present theory that we need to keep increasing teachers’ paychecks.  Interest of young people, high school seniors and college students has dropped by half.  In the past ten years the number of new people entering the profession has dropped 33%.  

The study claims the issues are lower wages, a better competitive job market, decreasing influence of teacher unions, a rise in school shootings, reform efforts by politicians, and low education funding.

Some of these identified reasons really don’t fly.  In the 70’s the starting teacher’s salary was much lower when measured against the starting salary for other new bachelor degree jobs.  In the 70’s teachers’ unions had much less influence.  In fact, in those days the unions weren’t unions at all but were called and actually were professional associations.  School shootings are very scary, but in our society so is shopping at a Walmart, praying in a house of worship or shopping in a mall.  Schools are probably a lot less dangerous than any of those places.

Maybe the real issue is that in the 70’s, teachers decided how to teach not some politician.  Parents deferred to a teacher’s judgement when it came to discipline.  Oh, and 50 years ago, teachers were not kids’ enemies who were standing in the way of learning, but rather someone who facilitated it.  Parents, society and politicians respected what teachers did and how they did it. 

Describe the job today and it’s no wonder folks don’t want it.

So, should I register?

 So, Should I register?

 

Some local police departments are allowing families to register their children as being a person with a disability.  The registration is particularly appealing to some families of children on the autism spectrum since these young adults can often easily pass as typical.  But as in all things, there is good news and not so good news.

First the good part of the idea.   The thought behind the program is that if law enforcement knows that a person they stop has a disability that person will be handled differently than they might handle a more typical person.   Officers might even call in clinically trained personnel to assist.  This kind of intervention could prevent some of the tragic issues that have occurred when officer conduct has exacerbated the disability, creating behaviors that the officer finds threatening and therefore over reacts resulting in sometimes tragic results.

On the other hand, registering your child as a person with a disability assumes much that might not be in play.   The officer needs to be trained to recognize the observable behavioral components of the disability so the he/she knows to search the data base to determine if this individual is registered.  Next, the officer needs to be knowledgeable as to what to do once it is determined that the officer is dealing with a person with special needs.  In addition to establishing the data base, what are law enforcement organizations doing in the form of identification and training responses to people with disabilities.  Without very thorough training the data base is of little value.  Finally what will become of this data base?   How much and how long will it follow the child/adult and who besides law enforcement will have access to it?

Many adults on the spectrum hold good jobs that have significant responsibility connected to them.  If a perspective employer has access to this data base will people in the data base be excluded from jobs they might otherwise be able to do save for the misunderstanding and stigma attach to the label.  In looking to protect people on the autism spectrum are we also risking setting up barriers to future endeavors.

Finally, as an individual, knowledge of my disability is mine to disclose as I see fit.  Is it fair for my parents to disclose this information to a government database without my consent, knowledge or consideration of any future risk it may bring to me.

In making the decision, parents need to give careful consideration to the adult abilities of their children and the risk to others knowing about the disability.  As with many things, there needs to be a serious risk/benefit analysis.   Ideally the child should be part of answering the question – should I register my child.

You can't do that

 You Can’t do That!

 

A majority of school districts across the country opened up this fall short staffed.  All kinds of teachers were missing from school rolls.  One of the largest shortfalls happened among special ed teachers.   School districts have been very creative about filling the void.   Unfortunately for the kids and the school district, many of those classrooms are being staffed by unqualified teachers.  Now the US Office of Education has stepped in and directly told school systems that the law requires that special education and related services staff must be “appropriately and adequately prepared and trained.”   “Public school special education teachers may not have special education certification or licensure requirements waived on an emergency, temporary, or provisional basis; and must at least hold a bachelor’s degree” according to a letter sent by the Director of the Education Department’s Office of Special Education Programs.

But that is exactly what is happening in Maryland public schools.  First of all, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) has extended the time limit for a special education teacher (and other teachers) to attain their full professional license by two years.  In many districts in Maryland, substitute teachers are only required to have a high school diploma.  Yet many of these individuals are now serving as long-term subs in special education classrooms.  

And that’s not all.   There is a shortage of speech therapists as well as teachers.  Public school systems are addressing the shortage in unique ways.  One district just flat out says, we don’t have the therapists so your child isn’t getting therapy.  At least that is honest and transparent.  BUT, they are not revising the IEP with or without the parents’ permission.  In fact, in some instances the parents don’t even know that speech is not being delivered.

Some of the solutions are VERY creative.   One child with special needs was supposed to have speech therapy per the IEP.  But no one was available and the union wouldn’t allow the speech therapists that were available to carry a heavier load.  The IEP also required that the child be in small classes.   So, the child was scheduled for a Chinese language class.  Truly, I am not making this up.  The parents complained- hard to believe I know- and soon the child was placed in an approved non-public school that had the services.  

There are lots of things school system “can’t do” and they do those things every day.  We need watch dogs to say “you can’t do that” and THEN do something about it.   Letters alone just fill up wastebaskets.

Stop Talking about that

 Stop Talking About That!

 

Teachers pretty much know how to educate and teach kids.   Politicians mainly know how to get re-elected by pandering to the lowest common denominator among us.  Now the two groups are finding an uncomfortable intersection of roles.

On the one hand, many teachers feel a strong responsibility to prepare their students to function in a society that is rapidly becoming more diverse.   Less than half of public school children currently identify as white.  As a citizen, children need to talk about race, gender and sexuality.  We are living in a time when young children are exposed to a great deal of sexuality on social media and on the internet.  There they learn about all of the “pleasures” of sex, but none of the consequences of irresponsible behavior.  Middle school children are talking about having oral sex with each other. 

Many teachers are afraid to address these topics.   For the most part these fears are not reality based; but there are enough instances to scare the faint of heart.

Critical race theory (something that is NOT a curriculum and NOT taught in public schools), educational equity, LGBTQ rights and bans on books and curriculum materials have become grist for the mill of political campaigns.

Large majorities of teachers and school administrators STRONGLY oppose state restrictions on teaching about these topics.  What is frightening is that based on an Education Week survey, roughly 25% of teachers and administrators WANTED state restrictions on teaching about the Holocaust, slavery or race.  And nearly 33% WANTED restrictions on teaching about sex education, gender and sexual orientation.   One of the other reasons teachers are upset is that they see a lack of respect for the profession. 

Of course, they are correct, teachers have lost a great deal of respect and much of that loss is due to their own doing.   When you have 25-33% of teachers ready to abdicate their responsibilities as educational leaders, why would anyone respect them.  They left their backbones at the fish market.

The reality is that only 1% of teachers has experienced any legal action with regard to the curriculum they are teaching.  But the fear goes on.  Teachers see the so-called “parents’ rights” programs as a slap in the face.  “it’s another way to police me and to make sure I’m doing my job and that’s another reason why we are having teacher shortages.  Honestly, we are not a respected profession anymore” reported one elementary school teacher in Virginia in response to the Governor’s emphasis on parental rights.

Pay gaps, censorship, threats of violence and perceptions that teachers are subservient are all keeping teachers out of classrooms.   We probably shouldn’t talk about those things either.

 

Designed for Failure

 Designed for Failure

 

Elevating All Students; Eliminating all Gaps.   Isn’t that a lovely mission for a school system? That's on the letterhead and the website. Evidently it is only words and has nothing much to do with what actually happens within the school district.

This is the mission of a Maryland school district.  One wonders if all students include those for whom English is their second language.

Let’s look at the situation.  Spanish speaking students in that district are taught in classes for children for whom English is not the first language.  English Language Learners or ELL classes are taught by teachers who do NOT speak the child’s language.  The excuse given for this seeming challenge is that the children are there to learn English and that is what the teacher speaks.  Of course, that is not the language that the children currently understand, but never mind that minor issue. Some of these children also have disabilities in addition to the language challenge.  None of the ELL teachers is trained in teaching children with disabilities regardless of their native tongue.  So now you have kids in a class who do not speak the same language as the teacher AND have learning challenges that the teacher is not trained to address.

Why don’t these kids have even some instruction in Spanish?  Well that answer is simple.  The law does not require it.  Their parents must have an interpreter present at all parent meetings so that the parents can understand the consent they are giving for their children’s education.  That is a requirement of federal and state law so it is done.

Exactly how are these kids are being elevated when their teacher does not speak their language and their learning challenges are not being addressed is not entirely clear or explained.  The school district clearly states that a language facilitator for non-English speaking students is not a service that is provided to public school children.   There are a few language facilitators within the county but they “are there to support families, not students.  Their role is to ensure that families feel welcome in the schools." 

It isn’t clear what is being done to make sure that kids feel welcome in the schools or that their needs are being addressed.

Looks like these kids aren’t being elevated, nor is anyone making an effort to eliminate their gaps.  It is a system designed for failure so we shouldn’t be surprised when these children fail.

Let's look at both sides now

 Let’s look at both sides now

 

We have a new phenomenon going on in our schools.   The idea is that when any idea is presented, it is important to look at both sides of the issue.   At first blush that looks like a good thing.    After all, one of the major objectives of education is to teach our children to consider both sides of an issue before deciding on their position.

However, there is a serious flaw in this approach.   In this approach, every opinion is treated as equally valid, including those including falsehoods masquerading as objective fact.   It also includes treating the opinions of liars and those unqualified to have an opinion as equal to those who are trained experts in the field.

The issue is NOT that everyone is entitled to an opinion the issue is that in “bothsideism” all opinions have to be treated as equally valid.  And this is not the case.

So for example, if children were studying space, views that the earth is flat and not a sphere would need to be treated equally and given equal time and attention as those of scientists.   There is a view that a woman’s menstrual cycle can be regulated with jade quartz eggs.   In districts that require “bothsideism”, these views must get equal time and attention in biology classes.  This past October, educators in Southlake, Texas were told if they had a book on the Holocaust in their classroom library, they would also have to have one that had an “opposing” perspective, i.e. the Holocaust never happened.   In Indiana, a state senator is insisting that the teaching of history needs to be impartial.  Teaching about  history needed to be taught from the perspective of all sides and not take a position as to which side might be right or wrong.  Good or bad reasons to go to war are not categorized as such, all reasons are neutral.

Absolutely, children need to be taught multiple positions on all issues so they can intelligently come to their own views as to what is right and what is wrong.  But when we give equal credence to information that is without evidence we are teaching children that it is ok to accept opinion as equal to fact.

Russia invaded Ukraine; that is a fact.  The Holocaust happened, that is a fact.  The earth is a sphere; that is a fact.  There is no equivalency sign between fact and opinion.  A vital part of education is to teach children the difference.  

And you thought the kids were safe?

 And you thought the kids were safe?

 

Well over 1,000 cases of child abuse by Head Start center staff have been reported in a new investigation of Head Start programs. These programs provide early childhood education to children from low-income families.    The report found that 1 in 4 recipients of Head Start grants has incidents of child abuse, lack of supervision or release of a child to an unauthorized person.  

There was an instance of a child being left alone on a vehicle long enough for the child to develop frostbite.  There were teachers who used demeaning nicknames including “mustache girl” and “chancho” which is “pig” in Spanish.  A teacher was reported to have hit a student with a stick.

More than 450 of the incidents were some form of child abuse including hitting children with implements, shaking children and slapping them in the face.   Verbal and emotional abuse were also found.   Prohibited disciplinary measures such as taping a child’s mouth shut, binding a child to a chair and using food or toilet training to punish or demean.

Head Start is under the authority of The Administration for Children and Families (ACF).   When the report came to light ACF said that Head Start programs are “extraordinarily safe” and that more than 99% of children are not affected by a safety incident.  As part of the corrective action, grantees improved administration procedures and staff training.  Disciplinary actions were also taken.  In 75% of the cases of abuse, staff involved were fired or resigned.  The report does not indicate what happened to the other 25% that neither resigned or were fired.

One of the outcomes of this investigation is that the ACF is going to implement more serious consequences for programs that fail to report abuse or incidents resulting from lack of supervision.

One of the most troubled programs that had the most instances of multiple violations is located in Prince George’s County in Maryland.  The program was operated by the school system and it was required to refund $6.4 million after a federal review found that teachers in the program used corporal punishment and humiliated children, and the school system had taken no steps to correct the problem.  

In one instance, a teacher forced a 3-year old to mop up his own urine in front of the class- then texted the photo to his mother with the comment, “LOL, he did the deed but he worked the mop tho!”    In another case, a 5-year-old left the center and walker home.  Staff did not notice his absence.

These kids are very young.   Who is keeping them safe?  Government officials don’t seem to be doing it.

When is a suspension, not a suspension?

 When is a suspension, not a suspension?

The call comes in around mid-morning.  Can you come to school immediately to pick up your child?   He is having some serious issues with his behavior and we really don’t want to suspend him.   You get to school and your child is not ill; he isn’t even jumping up and down or causing a problem.  He is sitting peacefully in the principal’s outer office, quietly waiting for you.  Your son has ADHD and sometimes he can think better if he uses a fidget or does something else to move his hands.   The teacher had asked the children to sit quietly while she read a story to them.  Sitting quietly did not include playing with a fidget.  Your son wouldn’t stop the fidget thing.  The teacher wasn’t giving an inch since the other kids could sit quietly. 

Schools are under great pressure to cut down on suspensions since kids don’t learn when they are home and not in school.  These “come get your child” calls are known as informal removal.   Federal and state law require that if a child with a disability exhibits a behavior that warrants suspension, a meeting must be held to determine if that behavior is a manifestation of the disability.  If it is, the school needs to fix the situation, not suspend the child.

But if a school asks you to take your child home and you do, there is no record of that, no manifestation hearing, and no changes to the school routine.  Additionally, there won’t be that pesky “10-day suspension” requirement when the appropriateness of the program needs to be examined as a contributing factor in all those suspensions.

The U.S. Office of Education is getting wise to the practice.  It is a de facto denial of education that evades the accountability of the law.  Since the pandemic the instances of these informal removals have increased dramatically.  In July the US Office of Education issued guidance on how this process has to work.  Parents are reporting being called repeatedly after only an hour or so into the school day.  These removals aren’t recorded so there is no way to account for how often they are really happening.  Students of color with disabilities appear to be more often the target.   Staff shortages are accelerating the calls particularly to parents who may not know their rights and just go along with the school’s request.  The guidance from the US Office of Education makes it clear that students who are informally removed have the same rights as kids who are suspended.   Only thing is you have to know your child’s rights to protect those rights.  Just looks a lot like suspension but the school says it isn’t.

 

 

Do Parents have the right?

 Do Parents have the right?

 

Montgomery County in Maryland has put guidelines into place that directs all staff members to respect students’ gender identities and pronouns, protect their privacy in terms of disclosing their pronouns and identities to other students and their families, and support them if the student doesn’t feel safe at home.   The guidelines also require all trans and nonbinary students to be treated on a case-by -case basis and the student’s individualized needs and safety be taken into account.

Some parents in the district felt that this policy usurped their rights as parents.  So like all good Americans they sued.  The parents’ suit contended that the district’s policy was specifically designed to circumvent parental involvement in a pivotal decision affecting their children’s care , health, education and future.  

This was the first case to come to court in the culture wars going on across the country regarding the rights of students who are trans or nonbinary.  Students who are LBGTQ are also being challenged.  In some districts the rights of these students are being taken away and in other jurisdictions those rights are being protected. 

Montgomery County Public Schools has staked a policy that strives to protect those rights.  In issuing his decision, U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm last month tossed out the lawsuit. He ruled that the policy did not violate the parents’ Constitutional rights.  His opinion validated both the guidelines and the way they are framed.  He stated, “the guidelines do not aim to exclude parents, but rather anticipate and encourage family involvement in establishing a gender-support plan”.  He further wrote that they create a support system so that the students feel safe in school. 

Parents didn’t see it that way and felt the policy allowed students to transition to a different gender identity at school without parental permission or notice.  Parents felt the policy encouraged school staff to enable such transitions.

The judge disagreed.  This was the first of this kind of lawsuit to have a hearing and a decision.  There are at least a half-dozen cases pending across the country challenging school policies on gender support or not.  Cases are challenging policy on both sides of the issue.

School districts are acting in loco parentis and the issue is who has the right to protect kids AND what does that protection look like?

A Bad Idea who's time has NOT come

 A Bad Idea whose time has not come

 

What goes around comes around and the same can be said for a really bad idea.  Several school districts in Maryland are talking about doing virtual instruction on some snow days.   That is a bad idea on so many levels.

First and foremost, in Maryland the call to close schools for snow usually comes around 5 a.m. on the day of the closing.  Weather forecasts are so unreliable that school districts cannot count on the accumulations being predicted until the snow actually begins to fall.

Doing virtual school instead of closing will require districts to make the call the night before so that teachers can prepare and families can make child care preparation.  Given the vagaries of the forecasts in these parts, that is going to mean a few days going virtual for snow that never falls.   If school systems wait until the morning of the event, there is going to be a lot of scrambling by teachers to prepare and a lot of Chromebooks to get out the door.

Districts are also complaining about the very large number of teachers who have retired or just are getting out of the profession.  So it seems pretty counter-productive to drop perks of the job when teachers are seeing fewer and fewer of them.  There are few things more delightful about teaching than waking up to a snow day closing where you can have fun with your kids or do one of those chores that have been reserved for snow days.

And then there are the kids.   We always think about them last.  We already know that during the pandemic lots of kids did not tune in to virtual teaching on a regular basis.  A snow day is an entitlement of winter.   It’s going to be very tough to get students to pay attention to a snow day lesson that you know is going to be a lesson that is kept in storage to be pulled out in an emergency and is probably boring and all review.   Sort of like what teachers leave in their desk drawers for last minute substitutes to use.

Snow days are one of the gifts of winter.  School districts should not pull the plug on them.  Once the winter holidays are over, and we move into those short bleak gray days, surely we should not be deprived of a few scattered days of happiness here and there.

Virtual days instead of snow days!!!   Scrooge needs to be visited by another ghost.

It's a body in the room

 It’s a body in the room

 

Many school districts started the school year with unfilled position.  They tried using substitutes, admin staff, even other school professionals.  Vacancies were still there.  So, they went in a very different way.

The districts entered into agreements with contract agencies to get rent-a-teachers.   These people are paid by the school system but there are “owned” by the contract agency that gets a commission from the district or a cut from the teacher’s pay.   These rent-a-teachers are paid extremely well, usually in the six figures. Some of them are not even certified.  They are not really school district employees so they do not receive benefits. The school districts argue that since these people do not receive benefits their salaries are commensurate with what school employees are getting.

Staff teachers do not see it that way.  From their perspective, they have bargained for higher salaries, been told there was no money and now these strangers are getting lots more money.

To rub even more salt into the wound, rent-a-teachers do not need to attend staff meetings, after school meetings, professional development meetings or anything else besides being a body in the room.

There is lots of downside to this emergency plan.   It further destroys staff morale who are not comfortable with strangers coming in and making lots more money.  The people who come in have little to no commitment to the students or to the school district.  They are in essence, temp workers.   School districts cannot hire them as full-time staff.

They are not familiar with the curriculum.  Since they do not need to attend any professional development, they do not know the course requirements or what came before and what is coming next.

And the kids know they are not “real teachers”.   How do the kids know?  They know because they know who belongs and who doesn’t.

All-in-all how do students benefit from this plan?   How do school employees feel about this plan?  

So, cui bono? Who benefits?  The school district gets to have a body in the room.  And that says it all.

Who's driving the bus?

 Who’s Driving the Bus?

 

The problem is fewer and fewer people are driving the bus.   There is as much a shortage of school bus drivers as there is a shortage of teachers.   So what’s a school system going to do?

Obviously, routes are going to be combined and that means longer rides for kids.   When possible, more students will be made to walk to school if they live within the limits.

And there are some instances where transportation is being cut in ways that are unlawful.   For children with disabilities who have an individual education plan or IEP, transportation is a related service that must be delivered.  The courts have long ruled that to offer a child an educational program but then not provide transportation- well, that is not a true offer.

Some systems have tried to get around that requirement by telling parents that the system will pay milage if the parents will transport.   Once again that is not a valid offer if the parents do not have the means whether because of other obligations like work or they do not have a car. 

Now there is another illegal operation that has slipped into place.  Some school districts are running busses on multiple schedules which could mean that children with special needs are routinely arriving 1-1.5 hours late for school.  This delayed arrival has multiple problems only one of which is illegal.   A child’s IEP specifically states the number of hours the child will receive special education.  If a student’s bus is going to arrive an hour or so late every day, that child is going to lose five hours a week of special education and related services.  It is a clear violation of the IEP which is a contract for service.   There is further loss to the child besides the hour or so of instruction.   Kids arriving routinely after school has started miss out on the morning organizational routine.  For kids with some disabilities that delay puts the entire rest of the day out of synch.   They never catch up so it is not just the hour or so the students are losing but that could also impact the remaining 5 hours of the day.

Families do not have to accept this loss of instruction.  The school system will say they cannot help the shortage of bus drivers.  That may well be true, but the reality is that children with disabilities have a LEGAL right to transportation while for the rest of the plain kids that transportation is a matter of convenience.   In fact, in some school districts with adequate public transportation, students are given tokens and use that public transportation.   So school busses are a privilege for plain kids but a requirement for students with disabilities.

Families do NOT need to accept the lack of appropriate transportation provided by the school district.   Transportation that is designed to be delayed and or is not provided is a violation of the contract provided by the IEP.   Families have the right and should file a complaint with both the school district and with the state department of education which is tasked with making sure local districts deliver on the requirements of federal and state law.

In the end, it is the child’s families who are driving the bus and those families need to get up and get in the drivers’ seat.

Did you know?

 Did You Know?

 

That a 2001 federal statue known as the “educational malpractice doctrine”, immunizes school boards from being sued for failing to provide a quality education for the children in its district.  Yep, school districts can do a poor job of educating kids and they are protected. Unless of course, they lose an election in a district where school board members are elected.

Up until now, it had been assumed that this doctrine also protected school boards from a lawsuit involving negligent supervision.   Not so, said the Maryland Court of Appeals in an unanimous ruling.  Parents of a child in a Dorchester County middle school alleged that the school failed to control unruly students and as a consequence their daughter suffered multiple concussions.  

A County Circuit judge said the school district was protected from such a law suit by the educational malpractice doctrine.  The Intermediate Court of Appeals agreed.

Nope, said the State’s highest court.  It said that the act prevented teachers from being held financially liable for their actions but does not protect them from being sued and found to be negligent in their duties.

The Court ruling supersedes the federal statute.

The Court of Appeals added that school boards cannot use the educational malpractice doctrine to defend themselves against negligent supervision claims.  The Court said that the family’s suit was about supervision of students and not about educational programs or academic decisions; therefore, the prohibition against educational practice did not apply in this instance.  The Court further limited the scope of the educational malpractice doctrine to curriculum  and related matters.   The Court said that judges do not serve as boards of education but do deal with matters of negligence. 

In this case, the teachers and the school board failed to protect the child from physical and verbal assault by at least six students resulting in two concussions.

In an era of limited suspensions, children’s safety and protection should not need families to go to court.

Teaching is for artists

 Teaching is for “artists”?

 

There is a great shortage of teachers.  That is not news.   School systems are looking everywhere for people who are willing to be teachers.  Some states are recruiting retired military folks. (Here’s looking at you Florida.) Will these ex-military people make good teachers?   Some very well might.  And the truth is that there are a certain number of traditionally trained individuals who do not make good teachers and in spite of the shortage should not be in a classroom.

Teaching is both an art and a science.   The science part of teaching can be taught to someone relatively easily.  There are specific ways to structure a lesson so that most of the children will achieve the objective.  There are a limited number of methodologies to teach reading and math so that learning those will be enough for most teachers.  Many of the new “research based methods” are simply variation on a theme and not really all that new.  Good teacher educators can teach the science of teaching and reasonably intelligent adults can learn that science.

That brings us to the art of teaching.  Some people might disagree but it is the art that cannot be taught.  The art of teaching is instinctive.  It’s knowing when to push a student to do more and when to stand back and know that what you are seeing is all you are going to get today.  It is knowing which parents are your allies and will join you in the highest expectations for their children and which parents will be the excuse makers and not your partners.   The artist teachers know which kids to kid with and which to be strictly serious. It’s an instinct.   It’s a way to connect with children on a very basic level- human being to human being.  It is laughing with a student who has just said something that might not be exactly appropriate for a student to say in school, but boy was that funny.  It is demonstrating your respect for the child and for his/her background that may well be different from yours.  It is respecting each other’s values even if they are not the same as yours.  It is earning a child’s respect for you rather than demanding that respect because of your position of authority.  

It is being an artist in the classroom.   You may not have all the latest and greatest methods down pat, but if you are the teacher who has the art of teaching, you are the one the kids will remember and tell their kids about.  Teaching is for artists, even if they are retired military

You can't read that

 You can’t read that

 

In a Virginia school district, parents will receive an email telling them every time their child checks out a book.  In a Florida school district, educators have been ordered to remove any books that mention racism, sexism, gender identity or oppression of any kind.   In Pennsylvania, a lay citizen panel will need to sign off on the list of books or other materials that school librarians may order.   In the past two years, six states have moved to limit what kids will be allowed to read and to remove those decisions from professional librarians or educators.  Five more states are considering such legislation this year.

Why are people so afraid and what do we have to lose besides our right to read and think?

Librarians go to school and are educated in the appropriate selection of books for different aged students.  If we do not trust them to do their jobs what will be the consequence.

Are we naïve enough to think that by forbidding kids to read about sex or gender identity they will stop thinking about these topics?  The reality is that when we forbid students from reading material that has been professionally vetted, they will simply move to other sources of information that have not been vetted and may be truly inappropriate. And those unvetted sources will have even more appeal since we all know that what is forbidden becomes immediately desired.  It wasn’t all that long ago when kids learned about sex through prurient novels.  Now they will go to prurient websites.  Is that really what we want?

Some families will tell you that they would certainly not consider book burning- after all authoritarian governments do that.  But books do not need to be burned to be destroyed.  If we go back to the era when all of the children in books had blond hair and peach skin, where does that leave the well over half of our population of kids that do not have these characteristics?  The same is true of LBGTQ kids.  They exist in our schools.  What are we saying to them if they do not exist in our reading material.   You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture, just don’t let people read about it.  Then those people and that culture ceases to be seen and to feel real.  Is this what we want for our children?  Do we really want to create more children who feel alienated from society?

Thinking and reading go hand in hand.  We need to think before we read and to think even harder after we read.

We may take the freedom to read for granted but then again, we took breathing for granted until the doc came with the ventilator.  

What would you thing?

 What would you think?

 

What would you think of a special ed teacher who repeatedly shoved a first grader on the autism spectrum into a trash can, telling him that since he “acted like trash”, he “would be treated like trash”.  She also pushed him to the floor and covered his nose and mouth.  This behavior was reported to school administration, but nothing was done.

The following year, the same teacher forced him to stand all day and poured grease on him.  This behavior was also reported to school administration and nothing was done.  This boy was not the only child this teacher abused.

This little boy was sent to a private therapist by his parents because of the trauma he suffered.  The private therapist reported the abuse to the police, there was a federal trial and the teacher pleaded guilty to assault of an individual with a disability.

The boy’s parents subsequently filed a federal lawsuit against the school administration saying that their son was still suffering psychologically from the experience and that the school administration knowing what was going on had a responsibility to intervene.

The school board on behalf of itself and its administrators argued they were not liable because they had qualified immunity.   The judge ruled in favor of the school board.  He said, “the mere allegation that such disheartening (emphasis added) things occurred at their school does not show that the school officials intended them to happen.”   The boy’s parents had argued through their attorney that malice can be inferred by the officials’ “knowledge of the abuse, failure to investigate, and reckless indifference to the abuse.”

Because of the boy’s limited communication ability, it was two years before, another school and a private therapist that the whole story became known.   Even after the teacher pleaded guilty to assault on a person with a disability, the school board continued to defend and employ her.   

“Public officials can be negligent, public officials can be recklessly indifferent” said the school board’s representative.  “This is what public immunity is for”

Perhaps Mark Twain said it best, “In the first place God made idiots.  This was for practice.  Then he made school boards.”

Ain't Got no Respect

 Ain’t Got no Respect- Flor-ida-dum

 

In the good old days, teachers were not well paid; but they did get a lot of respect.  If you were a teacher or had teachers in your family, you were proud of what you had achieved.   Of course it was also true that for a woman there were essentially three professional choices- the other two being nurse or secretary.

If a kid got in trouble in school, he sometimes didn’t tell his parents for fear he would only get in more trouble at home.

Fast forward to “modern times”.   Teachers are receiving a decent salary for the work they do.  Salaries are even on the rise.  Women are able to move up the administrative ranks to become administrators and even superintendents.  That is pretty much the good news.

Today. If a child gets into trouble the parents are as likely to call a lawyer as they are to call the school to apologize.  Kids aren’t afraid to let their families know they “done wrong” because they expect the parent will work to get them out of any consequences.

Educators are trained to do their jobs which include researching and writing appropriate curriculum.  Not so in Flor-ida-dum and other states where curriculum is written by politicians and has been weaponized to secure next year’s election.  

Families are encouraged to report teachers who stray from the party line and allow students to discuss issues of concern to the students.  The whole reporting system is reminiscent of Joe McCarthy and his House Unamerican Activities committee when Americans were encouraged to report Communists in our midst during the big RED scare.  

Pacing guides, not children’s learning, determine when a teacher should move on to the next topic in the curriculum.

Now the ultimate of disrespect for teachers, the Governor of Flor-ida-dum is recruiting retired military to come and teach in Flor-ida-dum schools.   People who have served in wartime but have NO training or education on how to teach children.  Well at least they are familiar with using a weapon, another Flor-ida-dum idea, arm teachers to prevent school violence.  

Certainly is confusing why someone would not want to teach in Flor-ida-dum?  As a teacher you will be spied upon and reported if you are suspected of not following the party line, you can’t decide the curriculum, nor how to pace what you are teaching AND your government leader thinks so little of your professional skill set that he is bringing in retired military to take your place.

Rodney Dangerfield isn’t the only one with no respect, maybe it’s time to bring back the good old days.

Where oh where have all the teachers gone

 Where oh where have all the teachers gone?

 

School systems throughout Maryland are at a loss as to why so many teachers are leaving the field.  This summer saw the greatest number of teachers leaving in recent history.  So, the big question is way?

The easy, let’s not think about it too deeply, answer is that teachers need to be paid more money.    Let’s get real.  For the amount of education, days worked in a year, and benefits received, teachers are very well compensated.  The days of teachers earning $35,000 a year are very long gone and many first year teachers earn about 35% more than that at the start of their careers.    The average teacher in Maryland earns roughly $67,000.  They work about 190 days.   If you work 5 days a week for 50 weeks that is 255 days a year a great deal more than teachers work.   In the days of lower pay, the excuse was given that teachers needed to work summers to make up for the low salaries.  Not anymore and many school systems pay year round. 

Doesn’t take much investigating to determine that salary is not the issue as much as the easy solution folks would like us to believe. 

This summer a full 40% of the people leaving teaching left voluntarily.  They just didn’t like the job enough anymore.   These were people who had contracts for the upcoming school year, contracts that included hefty raises.  Another 25% left teaching but went to other education related employment.  Only 20% left because they had retired.  And perhaps most importantly, only 6% were terminated for bad performance.

There are several more significant reasons teachers are leaving.  First and foremost are the job demands that leave little time for REAL TEACHING.   There is strong pressure to limit suspensions for bad behavior.  Kids know that.  So there are full out fights in schools, serious bullying, not to mention weapons and drug deals.  Teachers are not law enforcement.  They do not want to carry weapons and they don’t want to be part of police state.  They want administrative support in quelling the bad behavior so they can TEACH.  But administrators are scored on how few students they suspend so suspensions are only happening in the very worst situation.  Generally badly behaved kids are transferred to other schools, not dissimilar from the "dance of the lemons" for bad teachers.

The demand for high stakes testing keeps growing.   Somehow or other someone got the notion that good test scores are the reflection of good teaching.   Good test scores are primarily the result of some kids being great test takers who know how to game the test.

If the two former reasons don’t convince you, there are pacing guides.  A teacher is supposed to be a professional educator.  He/she is supposed to be able to gauge when learning is or is not occurring and to make instructional adjustments.   Pacing guides do not allow those adjustments.   Name the date and the guide tells the teacher what he/she is teaching, student progress be damned.

If we want professional teachers paying them like other professions won’t do the trick.  We need to treat them like other professionals and that includes giving the best teachers the opportunity to earn the best money.

New laws are pretty queer

 New laws are pretty queer

 

In 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution failed to receive the required number of state ratifications for inclusion into the Constitution.  One of the major concerns about it was that it would require same sex bathrooms.   It didn’t, but  any lie told often enough and loud enough will gain traction and so it did.

Now we are engaged, it seems, in a great fear of homosexuality.  The American Psychological Association agreed long ago that homosexuality is not a mental disorder but a born condition.   Never mind that.   Every year more states are working to pass laws that will leave LBGTQ kids open to bullying and torment.  It is anticipated that these laws will dramatically increase the negative experiences of these kids AND significantly create an environment that is conducive to suicide.

Twenty-one states have legislatures that have introduced statutes ranging from prohibiting gender affirming treatment, using bathrooms based on the gender decided at birth, limiting discussion of homosexuality in curriculum, allowing for exemptions or discrimination based on religious reasons.  These religious reasons are exclusive rather than exclusive.   So evidently God allows for the separation and exclusion of some of his creations who do not conform to the majority of his creations.  

It is never clear exactly what the objective is in these proposed statutes.   Do people think that homosexuality is catching and these kids are going to “give” it to other kids?  Are they afraid that the homosexual lifestyle sounds so wonderful that heterosexual kids are going to want to “convert”?  Or is this a question of people wanting to impose their religious beliefs on others. 

Probably it is none of the above.  Probably it is more politicians pandering to the lowest common denominator among their constituency.  Trolling the bottom for votes.

These kids are who they are because of anything they have done.  It is how they were born just as they were born with brown hair or blue eyes.  They have enough issues to manage without being piled on by politicians who are working in their own self-interests rather than that of their constituency which happens to include LBGTQ people.  Perhaps we need to worry less about what pronouns are being used and worry more about some of these queer laws that are being passed that risk destroying innocent kids' lives.

Collateral Damage to Virtual Learning

 Collateral damage to virtual learning

 

Kids are frightened about going to school.   Some with good reason, some with no reason.  The Maryland's public schools were among the last to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic and they are paying the price now. When kids returned to school last school year they brought with them emotional troubles that led to behavioral issues for many students.   Lots of folks will tell you that social emotional learning is a waste of time and money.   But one of the major things kids learn in school is getting along with others, particularly others who are not like you and may have different life experiences.

The media amplifies gun violence in schools and there is quite a bit of violence for it to amplify.   Some students are making posturing threats on social media.  But who can tell a posture from a foreshadow of the real thing?

In Maryland, the issues are more pronounced in Baltimore City where the availability of guns in the general community cannot help but spill over into the schools.  Afterall, the teens with guns in the community do attend school.  City schools are spending anywhere from $250,000 to up to a million dollars to add metal detectors, alarm systems and closed-circuit TV to school security.

Baltimore County is supplementing its school resource officers with school safety assistants, adding as many as 3-5 assistants in both middle and high schools.   They are trained in de-escalation strategies with the hope they can prevent more aggravated violence. 

While the increase in school security hardware seems to show the public that schools are doing something, the one variable that keeps being linked to school violence and violence in general is a feeling of alienation by the shooter or fighter.  Too many SRO’s make kids feel more like suspects than students.  Rallies to increase staff salary won’t do it.  There needs to be a clear code of behavioral expectations that will be explained and agreed to by parents and students.  Then it needs to be enforced by school administrators.  If certain behaviors are unacceptable in school then the precursors of those behaviors need to be unacceptable as well.  We know the gateway behaviors and we need to stop them before they become the unacceptable violence.  Teachers and clinical staff need to get involved with kids.  Make sure every student is “seen” and known by at least one staff member.  We can spend a million dollars on security hardware, but not on staff to connect with kids. In fact, staff are even discouraged from developing relationships with kids.  There is collateral damage to only connecting via technology and that issue has come to school to fight.

Back to the future

 Back to the Future

 

About a hundred years ago, John Scopes, a young high school science teacher was accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.  Scopes was defended by the star attorney of the day, Clarence Darrow.  The law made it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine to “teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man descended from a lower order of animals”.  Williams Jennings Bryan, a fundamentalist hero volunteered to assist in the prosecution.   Within days the courtroom was surrounded by spectators and reporters.  The judge worked to destroy the defense by insisting that Scopes was on trial not the theory he was teaching.  In the end, Scopes pleaded guilty and the case was appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court that overturned the verdict.   In 1968, the U.S Supreme Court overturned  a similar Arkansas law on the grounds that it violated the free speech requirement of the First Amendment.

Fast forward about 100 years.   Now we are engaged in another fight over the right to teach and free speech.   Tennessee and Arkansas are at it again.  They are among the currently nine states that have forbidden the teaching of critical race theory (CRT).   Of course, CRT is neither a curriculum nor an identifiable set of topics or facts.   But it is being banned none-the-less.  CRT asks us to teach American history in a 360 mode.  The good news, the bad news and the in between news.  It asks that we do not deny the ugly; it does not ask that we ignore the good.  

Let’s suppose good old Jack Social Studies is teaching in Tennessee. Might not be the best idea since Tennessee seems to have a habit of restricting what is taught in schools.   In the course of teaching US history, he teaches about the terrible legacies of slavery, Jim Crow laws, immigration restrictions, and real estate red lining.  Under current Tennessee law, Good Old Jack could lose his job.  The laws in some states forbid teachers from teaching about historical instances that would make students feel bad.  Does that mean we don’t teach about WWII because students of German ethnicity might feel bad?  What will happen if Jack Social Studies gets punished for teaching what informants think is CRT?   Will these state laws be overturned as a violation of Mr. Social Studies First Amendment rights?   Or will the Supreme Court, which seems to be suffering from memory loss, also forget its 1968 decision.  Everything old is new again. 

 

When is an IEP NOT a contract for service?

 When is an IEP not a contract for service?

 

And IEP is a legal contract for service according to both state and federal law.  But what exactly does that contract mean in real time terms. Sometimes not much.

The law stipulates that a member of the IEP team must include someone with the authority to commit the resources of the school system.  Much of the time that person is not in attendance at the meeting.  Consequently, commitments are made on the IEP but there is no commitment of resources to deliver.    

Speech therapy services are routinely not delivered as specified on the IEP.  Lack of staff is generally given as the reason.

Transportation is a related service on an IEP.  Many families do not know this fact so they just assume that transportation will be delivered.   Transportation was made a related service since it was determined early on that offering a program but without a system to get the child to the program was an empty promise.   This situation is particularly true because it is not unusual for the special education services to be offered in a school other that the child’s home school.  Transportation, as other related services, must be added to the IEP as a related service.  Otherwise, the child falls into the general transportation pool.

Since the pandemic school systems have struggled mightily to maintain a sufficient number of bus drivers.  When they can’t, the system cancels transportation and/or offers families reimbursement of a mileage fee if they transport.

Here’s the rub, many families do not have the vehicle or the people to pick up and deliver children to school particularly if those schools are a good distance from the child’s home.

The situation is different for plain kids.  First and foremost, plain kids do not have a legal right to transportation.    It is a service provided by the school district.  Secondly, almost all plain kids go to a neighborhood school.  Children with disabilities are supposed to have a binding contract for that service if the parents were smart enough to include it in the IEP.  So what happens when the school district unilaterally decides there will be no transportation on any given day.   Unfortunately, usually not much.   Sure, parents jump and shout and complain.   But they seldom file a formal complaint with the State Department of Education and the local school system for a violation of the child’s IEP.   Families struggle to try to get their kids to school some kind of way.   But the children lose out.   And the legal contract for a service as written in the IEP is a contract written in disappearing ink.