http://www.thehawkeye.com/story/BHS-052312
I wasn't surprised though that there would be opposition from Evans and Tom Messinger, as well as the School Board President. I'm not also surprised that each of these faculty are covering their tracks in order to hide any slip-ups they make.
Ordering school officials to look for students who placed the notes:
First, Evans orders school officials to look through the security tapes to see who had placed the notes on the cars. Its as though she was looking at these individuals as dangerous criminals. Newsflash, Ms. Evans. These are not bomb threats or anything related to that! Its a freedom of expression given to those to expose the ignorance BHS has been showing for years. Violating their right of free speech violates their right to the 1st amendment to the constitution.
If the notes are left on cars as part of a way to show the graduate's feelings about the school, as well as the faculty, then leave them the hell alone. They have graduated from the school and these students have left their feelings to everyone on how they feel the corrupt school system really is.
Evans needs to move on and let go of the revenge cycle she has out of her. She terminated one teacher and then attempts to terminate another teacher She seems to want to terminate these teachers due to 'personal issues' that she doesn't want to talk about. Even after the recommendation she made of terminating the second teacher was turned down, she still holds a grudge to that teacher. She still doesn't admit the full reason why she wanted her terminated. She seems more like a bully than a savior.
"Its unfair to make blanket accusations without giving a specific situation"
This statement was made by Darven Kendell, the School Board President.
There have been plenty of specific situations being given of accusations in the past, like for example the counselor who neglected to take care of the situation Chris Taylor had to deal with in regards of suicide. That wasn't handled properly and as a result, a suit was filed and won by the father.
I have heard parents and students talk about the nastiest things school counselors at BHS would say to their failing students. Things like drop out of school, attend Job Core and/or Alternative High School, and statements like "you're not going to get the career you want and you should just give up." When some of the incidents were confronted, there is only a brief discussion behind close doors, leaving the parents and students out of the direct line of communication. The cycle continues and creates more problems for both the failing students and parents to have to deal with. Counselors and teachers don't do enough to help struggling students in achieving their goal to graduation and to have a success outcome in a career that a student likes.
What Kendell probably wants from the students who made the notes is specific pieces of information of incidences that can lead to finding out who was involved with who and why, followed by covering up the specific situation(s). After all, these "bullying programs" BHS had done, and probably now planning to do again, never really bring up about the string of suicides in 1993 caused by the lack of moderation and responsibility from the faculty to deal with these "specific situation(s)".
The specific situations that I have brought up many times at BHS were never addressed properly and that these "specific situations" became more frequent over time. Writing complaint forms, organizing meetings with the principal, etc. have never worked out in dealing with my "specific situations" that was being dealt with by some faculty and students.
Responsible Thinking Classroom:
This sounds very cliche. While I have never been in such a classroom, the note that was left detailing the problem with the room, followed by the original idea of what the room is suppose to be used for, reminds me of something similar back in Oak Street.
When I did some temporary work at Oak Street as a Teacher Assistant as part of a high school class, I noticed some strange things going on whenever I pass this particular room. There was a room that was designed for Behavior Disordered or BD students to attend to, followed by a couple of general education classes, like gym, home ect, music, art, computers, etc.
Before volunteering to work at the school, I knew very little about the system of what punishments are given to students who misbehave in a BD classroom. What I first noticed when I started working there was how the misbehaved BD students were punished. The students whom had caught some certain act of trouble would be locked into a room next to the BD room, followed by a teacher aid guarding the outside door. Screams and yelling could he heard from down the hall. It wasn't clear how long the misbehaved BD student had to stay in there for, but it sure seemed to be too much for them to handle. The odd thing about the room is that the only students that I witnessed being put in the room came from the BD room, which the BD room was always occupied by BD students.
The original room BD room was located where the room where the student was locked up at. What was more interesting is that there was no Health class during the time that I worked there, which seemed to be unusual. Normally there was a requirement to have Health class, which would not only help teach students about the basics of health, but also sex education.
Responsible Thinking Classroom sounds like a toned-down version of the BD room since any student can be put in there. The question is whether or not the student is locked in there for a period of time. Not only Oak Street's original BD room was used to lock up misbehaved BD students, North Hill had a similar thing going on as well. There were a couple articles in the newspaper about children being put into a padded room, but weren't locked up behind a door.
Pediatric psychologist considers time-outs effective
March 25, 2007
Taking Time
March 25, 2007
"It places a large emphasis on getting student input and what we can do to improve BHS."
This is a quote from Messinger near the end of the article.
This was a technique that was suppose to be used during the bullying program in classrooms back in 2005-2006 era, but had eventually quit on it within a few months. It only occurred once a month, in closed classrooms, during early outs in 4th period. The idea was to have teachers ask the students about whether or not the school is improving their ways to stop bullying and if there are any improvements needed to increase student potential and safety. The class I attended during these sessions was a fairly large biology lab. We don't spend the entire period talking about the subject, but instead spend about 10-15 minutes on it right after we are finished being lectured. Not much input was put forth from the students, thus failed to try accomplish bullying and student potential troubles.
The idea wasn't really new nor was it successful enough to curve the students bullying and failing grades. On top of that, the entire school is locked down and students are being watched by whomever keeps an eye on the cameras, which being the faculty and the school's resource officer. It's more like a prison than it is a school.
Messinger and the other faculty giving opposition in the article can keep talking out of their butts, but its obvious that they're pulling a big stunt in order to prevent anymore students from leaving the district, as well as their precious governmental funding.
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