Everyone who saw the extra thirty minutes without pay as a done deal (and there were quite a few of you), you must be feeling pretty prescient right about now. alexandrianews.org has an extensive piece, making the point that Sherman will be exacting revenge for those of us who thought we lived in a democracy and expressed outrage that an extra half hour of crappy initiatives would be mandated for the coming year.
Now Sherman has admitted as much. As Doc Martin once said, "The unctuous platitiudinizing eunuch" has spoken. There is a poll on the alexandrianews.org website. Not sure what good that'll do.
Better to plan on attending Thursday's School Board meeting (more on that tomorrow), think about working to the rule, and continuing to contact every news media outlet and elected official you can!
Voltaire
"I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?'
That is a hard question,' said Candide."
— Voltaire
This e-mail was forwarded from a colleague at Minnie Howard.
ReplyDelete"Staff: The grading window for 2nd QUARTER GRADES has been reopened until NOON, on Tuesday, February 8. This will give those of you that need to reflect/change grades specifically from F's to I's to do so.
Please make ALL changes by NOON as the grading window will close at this time.
For all that you do.....Thank you!"
The e-mail was written by the school principal. Someone went into all of Minnie Howard's teachers' gradebooks and changed all Fs into incompletes BEFORE the e-mail was sent to teachers WITHOUT PRIOR DISCUSSION OR EXPLANATION. Does this tune sound familiar?
Ask any MH teacher for their thoughts.
Forward that MH email to Jay Mathews at the Washington Post. mathewsj@washpost.com The word got out when they did this in Fairfax and it really hit the fan.
ReplyDeleteAmazing that he's painting the 30 minutes as "giving credit" I don't think that taking away the flexibility to decide what I need to do to prep for my students is giving me credit, especially since we know he's telling principals a different story.
ReplyDeleteAlso my condolences to my colleagues at MH.
He's started telling parents that they should be careful how involved they get. Sounded like a veiled threat to the parents.
ReplyDeleteI believe the next meeting of the School Board is on Thursday (not Wednesday). Wouldn't want everyone showing up on the wrong day.
ReplyDeleteThere are only a handful of votes so far--there will have to be many, many more votes if the poll at Alexandrianews.org is to have credibility. Urge everyone you know to go to the website and vote.
ReplyDeleteBut he is only willing to give credit(an increase) if the 30 minute increase goes through. Always a catch, always a another spin.
ReplyDeleteI can't get over MH's principal going ahead and having all F's changed to I's without even consulting teachers. What a devilishly clever way to make the school data look better than it actually is. She can pat herself on the back and say, "What a good principal am I. No one fails in my school." I'm sure Mort would approve.
ReplyDeleteIf you check your school e-mail, Mary Jane Solomon's usual report contains a link to the survey Mort put out about whether we want the extended day or not. It can't hurt to let the admin know how strongly we feel, so I'd urge you all to fill it out and put in your frank comments.
ReplyDeleteThe situation at MH is not any different than the scores of middle school students who are "conditionally promoted" if they attend summer school, or the ones who are promoted and don't even pass summer school let alone the school year.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in ACPS it was shocking how many students were moved up grade levels when they had been on the failure list at the end of the previous school year, and had not attended summer school.
Thanks, Mom!
ReplyDelete-Mort
The two surveys are one and the same. i.e. the link that was sent through the daily digest email, and the survey linked in alexandrianews go to the same survey.
ReplyDeleteThough the questions don't give wonderful options, there are comment sections for each question.
As there are four of us with access to this blog site, I cannot answer for anyone's actions but my own. I will be meeting with the other bloggers tonight. I know that we all pledged to keep this an open forum. As with any group, there will be different standards and disparate thoughts as to how best communicate. The focus now is on asking the tough questions at Thursday's Board meeting and exposing the wrongs that have been wrought and ensuring that future misdeeds don't occur.
ReplyDelete