Exactly who are we protecting?

 Exactly who are we protecting?

 

A student was attending Vashon High School in Missouri.  During a school year, a school suspension monitor groomed the student for sexual abuse.  The monitor asked for photos of the student’s genitals, offered him money for sex, and tried to turn him into a prostitute with the monitor acting as the pimp.   The boy finally told his father about what was happening to him.  The father called the police.  The monitor was charged with sexual trafficking of a child and child pornography.

The monitor did NOT lose his job at the school.

In fact he kept his job until the story hit the news media.  The student was not allowed to return to the school because the school did not want the student and the monitor in the same building.  The school district offered the student virtual enrollment or the opportunity to transfer to another high school on the other side of town.   Ultimately the student opted for an online program.

The student sued the school district and two individual school administrators asserting due process violations, Title IX violations and negligence in the form of seven separate claims against each defendant.

The defendants claimed qualified immunity which therefore barred the due process claims against them.

The judge rejected much of their arguments.  He said the defendants did not prove entitlement to immunity because if taken as true, the student’s allegations showed they had actual knowledge of West’s persistent pattern of unconstitutional conduct and were deliberately indifferent to it.  He agreed that the response of the defendants was unreasonable and deprived the student of access to educational opportunity.

The Title IX claims were denied since it only applies to federal grant recipients.  And the individual administrators did not receive any federal grants.

The court denied the district’s defense in full.  It rejected the immunity from due process for the same reasons it rejected the defense for the individual defendants.   Title IX claims against the district held because the district is a grant recipient.  

The student also made negligence claims against the district.  The district argued it was immune from such claims because it is a government agency.  However, the student responded that the district had insurance against such claims and the insurance company had no such immunity against claims of negligence.  The Court ruled that if the district did have insurance, then negligence claims could be made and paid.

This entire case played out in the St. Louis, Missouri school district, not some 3^rd world country.  What earthly reason could the district have had for sustaining the monitor's employment???   And- can’t help but wonder if the two school defendants were terminated.   Truly shocking case.

 

Watch Yourself Because Big Brother Is

 Watch Yourself Because Big Brother is

 

There is a lot to read about teachers leaving the profession and why are they doing that?  The answer is simple.  They are not respected as professionals.   Whether it is the pacing guides that tell teachers how fast to move, the counting of the number of minutes they need to be on the job or having educational decisions being made by non-educators.  Now comes a new invasion.

The new governor of Virginia wants to protect the commonwealth’s children from “divisive comments” by teachers.

To that end he has established an email tip line for those who want to snitch on educators who, in the view of the tipster, are involved in divisive practices.  Just in case you are not aware of what equals a divisive practice, the Governor illuminated his view on a conservative talk show.  Discussing issues such as white privilege and critical race theory are divisive and should not be allowed.

The Governor said, “We embrace teaching all history, the good and the bad.  But practices like teaching that one group is inherently privileged and another is a victim, or that in fact people today should be held responsible for sins of the past, these are the kinds of teaching practices that exist in our schools, and we are going to get them out.”

The Governor believes the tip line will improve the state’s educational system.  Reports will be cataloged and “used to gain insight”.  The Governor did not mention who would be monitoring the tip line.   No mention was made of what the consequences would be to any educator who ran afoul of the guidance.  

A spokesman for the Governor said that they were trying to protect parents’ rights and to “reestablish excellence in Virginia education”.

On his first day in office, the Governor issued an Executive Order banning the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) from being taught in schools.

OK, some reality testing here.   First of all, CRT is NOT a curriculum of any sort so it is kind of difficult to actually teach something that is not a curriculum.  Second, not sure about Virginia, but in Maryland it is the job of the State Board of Education and the assorted local boards of education to decide on what curricula are taught in schools.  And finally, it is highly likely that the public school teachers of Virginia are protected by some fairly strong union contracts.

So, what is the real point of the Governor’s order and his tip line.  Is he appealing to the base level of his constituency?   Trying to recruit more folks to teach in a state with a huge shortage of teachers by telling they are being watched and reported on?  Maybe he just read a biography of Joe McCarthy and he is working on his fear monger skills.

Surely he is not being divisive, because we all know that is a very bad thing and someone might report him to the tip line for that.

Just another way to pick a kid's pocket

 Just Another Way to Pick a Kid’s Pocket

 

The pandemic has not been kind to students.  Virtual instruction is probably the second best oxymoron right after common sense.  It is bad enough that achievement test scores have crashed during online instruction, mental health issues have mushroomed, and teachers are done with the aggression they are having to deal with in schools.  Now school districts have come up with the newest idea of how to cheat kids out of an education.

Most school districts in Maryland have allowed four days in the calendar for inclement weather.  It seems that number of days has already been used by many districts.  Typically, when that happens, days are added to the end of the school year so that students still get the required 180 days of instruction.

But hey, that would mean the needs of students and their education comes first in making decisions.  We all know that ain’t so.

Now the public schools in Maryland have come up with a plan to save the extension of the school year.   With the approval of the State Board of Education, districts can “stay open” on bad weather days by offering online instruction.  The State Board is requiring that it approve each district’s plan AND there must be at least four hours (not the usual 6.5) of synchronous instruction.  The teachers’ union pretty much loves it, less work for them, and no school year extension.  The administrators think it is a smooth way to appease everyone.

So, what’s wrong with the idea?  

A LOT.  First of all, snow days are pretty much a last-minute decision, sometimes just an hour or so before the school day begins.  So how are teachers going to pivot from the planned instruction to something that is taught online within the hour?   The only plan would be to have a pocket lesson that is sort of related to what the teacher was going to do that could be plugged in at the last minute.  For the remaining 2.5 hours of the school day the kids can just do worksheets online.

But the next question is:  will they?  Making kids look at a screen when they should be outside playing in the snow or sleeping in is just plain mean.  Particularly when what we want them to do is second-rate instruction at best.  

What about the kids who are not connected with good internet service?  Oh, they will have places to go to learn together-really, how will they get there.

What about teachers who may also have kids of their own?  Who gets the device, the teacher or the kids?  What about families with multiple children at different age levels?  Will parents be able to monitor all the different Chromebooks at once?  

One of the joys of winter is the surprise snow day. Anticipated snow days fill the before time with excitement of what you will do with the unexpected time at home. There are special projects to be done on snow days, games to play, snow cones to make, books to read. Maryland winter days are regularly filled with grey.  Snow days are the sunshine.   The pandemic has done its best to suck the joy from life.  We don’t need this new virtual snow day to pick our pockets again.

Who's in charge of what kids learn?

Who’s in charge of what kids learn?

 

The governor’s race in Virginia pretty much turned on the answer to this question.  The Democratic candidate and incumbent responded to a question that essentially implied parents needed to stay out of the curriculum business.  And he phrased it so poorly.  The Republican candidate was on the comment like a hip pocket and rode it to a victory in the election.  Now that he is in office, he keeps riding that pony.

So, the question is, who is in charge of what students are taught in school?   On one side of the question, the answer is that children belong to their parents so parents get to decide what they need to learn.  But do children really belong to their parents in the same way a house or a car might?  Well not exactly, parents are required by law to provide adequate food, shelter, clothing, medical care and to refrain from physical or emotional abuse or society can and will take the children away.  Your car, on the other hand, can be abused any way you would like.

On the other side of the question is the idea that since the community is footing the bill for public education, the public should have some say in where those funds go.  Most of the funding for public schools comes from people who do not have a fox in the hunt.   They have no children; their children are grown or the children they do have attend private schools.  So, what is the reason for them to invest in public schools?  The basic reason for the investment in public schools is to ensure an educated electorate in a democracy.  That reason has been expanded to include making sure there are educated workers with adequate skills to build the economy.  As our society becomes more and more diverse, those skills include being able to respect and work with diverse groups.

What parents or any other group want their public schools to teach is not a monolith.  One set of parents might want to cleanse the media center of all controversial materials; while another set might want to bring everything in and let kids know and evaluate.   This is the reason trained librarians make those decisions.

Educators have professional education in much the same way a lawyer or a pharmacist has a professional education.  Decisions on appropriate curriculum should be left to trained professionals who are charged within professional responsibility to the funders-taxpayers, most of whom have no kids in public schools. 

Bottom line, parents should provide input to the process but the system belongs to the community who are paying the bills.  Don’t like that system, fine, send your children to private school where you pay the freight and can pick a school that aligns perfectly with your vision of what schools should teach.  Until then, parents get to consult but they should not be the ones driving the train.