While much of the public’s attention has been riveted on this school district’s leadership and dysfunctional communications, the district has been, among other things, focusing on the lingering problem of student suspensions. As in how to curb them, especially when it comes to black students, who are disciplined far out of proportion to their numbers.
Some have labeled the racial pattern as tantamount to a “school-to-prison” pipeline, as if it were determinative. A task force has been formed and a series of community “chats” on school discipline is now under way.
Task force members have called for more guidance counselors and intervention for the chronically tardy. They are working on a student bill of rights, looking into the quality of instruction among the various schools, re-thinking the list of zero-tolerance offenses and encouraging schools to go with shorter out-of-school suspensions.
Well, here’s one former teacher’s take-away. If parents aren’t on board, nothing changes. Nothing. That’s especially concerning in an increasingly information-based society, where service-sector alternatives can be class relegating like never before.
If there’s no reinforcement of what’s being taught academically and what’s being imparted behaviorally, nothing improves. Nothing. Doing well in school, needless to say, cannot be equated to “acting white.” That perverse ethic, inexplicably insulting, is still out there.
All students enter education’s portals with values and expectations that can’t be at odds with a learning culture. The onus is on administrators, teachers and parents to see that their students are prepared for the reality of the classroom–and the world that awaits them outside of it.
It was hardly encouraging that parent attendance at the first “chat” at Tampa Bay Tech was sparse.