Quick Update

Wednesday, May 10, 1995

Period two: the return of Eric and Elaine (two referred students... Eric yesterday, Elaine Monday). Of course, both had to return to the office for a moment to pick up their signed referrals, their tickets to ride this train. Eric had been assigned a Saturday Work; Elaine's referral was even less helpful (on the 5-8 referral I had written: "Elaine still fails to bring all her daily materials, refuses to work in class, disrupts the class in its work, makes worse an already poor class dynamic, and sets a lousy precedent for behavior in this class. She has only turned in one piece of work [and that only because her mother came in and signed her progress report]. Owes academic detention on 5-10. Attached are copies of earlier referrals./' Those earlier referrals [5-1 and 5-2] had been for insolence and lack of materials: the first was dealt with by her counselor, our idiot head counselor ["Student will get a novel and serve your detention." oh, really.] and the second by Grey, pinch-hitting for GumpDumb ["indicated a willingness to work with teacher to get passing grade" uh, yeah, riqht...see the referral from a week later]. After all this, the response from GumpDumb on the 5-8 referral? "Parent conference held on 5-9. Elaine's lack of progress was discussed. She has been placed on a daily attendance sign-in sheet." oh, yeah, that’ll solve the problem. yep. yessirree.). Both owe me Academic Detention in thirty minutes, and Eric owed me a tardy detention an hour ago at lunch. He failed to serve it; the referral is already on its way to the office.

Academic Detention should be crowded with second period attendees, but probably won't. That's okay. I'm over it. Way over it.

Not much else to report today, save the new ballot for the teacher members of the School Site Council for Special Programs. In the past, this hand-picked crew was a biannually-meeting rubber stamp for the administration's decisions concerning budgetary matters. This was a vocal focal point during the WASC self-study. So this year it's being elected. The only problem was that three weeks ago, when the original ballot was disseminated to the staff, the nominees had already been selected. Hand-picked, again. After some brouhaha (is that the way to spell it? really.), the front office had to put a new ballot out, this one for nominations. After a week of weak balloting (this according to Mary, whose office housed the ballot box), this new ballot appears. Irony of ironies... most of the names are the same. Fancy that.

Tomorrow is a rally schedule day (end of year awards will be presented at two since so few [parents/students/teachers] attend evening awards). Friday is a site-based in-service day. And Lisa and I will be gone for both. Springs and the Computer Using Educators conference. Can't wait. So don't expect a journal entry until Monday (unless of course something wonderful or cataclysmic [or wonderfully cataclysmic] happens).

Hasta.