By Washington Post | Published Today | Daily EdNews , K-12 | Unrated
Students Chafe as Schools' Web of Restrictions GrowsRead the whole article here.
At Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, students can't just randomly stroll out to their cars to fetch a textbook or some other forgotten item. They need a pass because authorities worry about what might be stashed in the parking lot.
If you don't have the time or the inclination, here are a couple of passages that I found particularly interesting.
At Forest Park Senior High School in Prince William County, students sought to rejuvenate Spirit Week with funky themes. They were over Twin Day, so they proposed Bling Day, which gave school officials visions of property -- i.e., pricey necklaces -- getting snatched at school. So that idea was a bust. Then students dreamed up Salad Dressing Day -- cowboy garb for ranch, togas for Caesar, Hawaiian shirts for Thousand Island.And while the first impulse is always to blame what seems to be the nearest source, it's not always their fault.
Yes, even Salad Dressing Day was cut, for reasons that remain mysterious to some students.
If students feel that the climate is suffocating, so do principals. Gerald N. Tirozzi, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, based in Reston, [his last job was as the Connecticut State Education Commissioner] said school systems are frequently hard-pressed to find candidates for principal openings because those who take on the job are more accountable than ever for test scores, campus safety and much more.
"A lot of principals are on pins and needles. We have one or two school shootings, and suddenly everyone wants zero tolerance. Principals are overly sensitive to the students who are in their charge," Tirozzi said. "You've got one group of parents who want you to be more liberal and another group of parents who want you to be ultra-conservative."
4 comments:
What people don't seem to understand is that it's the kids who are in charge. No matter how many metal detectors, and school safety officers you have installed, someone can find a way to sneak in a whole cache of weaponry and go postal on their classmates. So the problem doesn't revovle around preventing these students from doing such things, it's more an issue of making them not want to commit such attrocities. People talk about taking away violent videogames, and rap music, and Bruce Willis movies, but that's not going to solve it. You have to teach these kids the difference between the way things are done in the media, and how things are handled in real life (not that it helps when we have people blowing each other to pieces all over the world I suppose). And, perhaps more importantly, we need to get other kids to stop bullying them, and coaxing them into taking such drastic measures. I mean those kids are what's really behind these problems. What's so hard about not pushing a kid on the floor in the lunch room and calling him a faggot day after day? I think if we can get those kids straightened out we'll solve most of our problems, nipping it in the bud so to speak. So in short, parents need to stop belly-aching over the administration, and start worrying more abour raising their own damn kids. Good luck world. Peace.
Will
Either that or give each kid a 9mm gloc, that way nobody will mess with anyone else. We can enstate MAD (mutually assured destruction) right here in our highschools, hell, it's working for the world super-powers.
Will
Will-good point in the first one, and the second one-um, interesting but frightening and no.
the point will made - sounds about right. If there's a will, there's a way, and sometimes if the kid is really messed up, the increased security might actually provoke them. They might actually find enjoyment in getting past the school's security
Yes, getting kids help and stopping bullying is definitly a better option.
btw-Lets have an Honors English Salad Day!!!!!!
Arg! this was familiar. I remember the Halloween dress up day and the parade---It was Amazing!!!
I think we should do English dress up days every third monday of the month or something...We could have a beowolf day!!! (I would totally wear viking horns!!!)
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