Friday, April 21, 1995
Today was a "dragging Friday." The end of a term-opening week, a week coming off a break, and a week filled with administrative bs. The big news today was exactly that, excerpts from the papers concerning Wednesday night’s Parent Meeting.
The local paper (which according to Rose, now has a vendetta against us, since GumpDumb asked a reporter to leave campus when he was questioning a student when the student had stated he wanted to go to class after lunch; the questioning was in pursuit of a story about a rumored teacher on campus leaking names of suspected illegal immigrant students to the INS), the Star, printed an article entitled "Six periods, no thanks" which told of the "decision to add two classes per day (being) opposed by some students." The piece was lamely noncommittal, with a kind of tempest-in-a-teapot, condescending tone.
On the other hand, the Times article, "Possible Schedule Change at Chumash High Protested," was one that actually showed our campus in a positive light. It stated we had "charted a new course" in education with the block schedule, with other high schools following our lead, then went on to say that students, parents, and teachers were protesting the fact that Board "trustees are turning the ship around." The reason given for the decision is that "Academic achievement has been flat...It hasn’t gone up and it hasn’t gone down," according to Kurtzmann. This doesn’t exactly make him sound like he’s doing something righteous or rational. On the other side of the argument were anecdotal endorsements of the block schedule.
The first mention of Grey in the article is her statement that counselors will work with students to overcome scheduling difficulties. The next mention reads:
What concerns Kurtzmann and Grey is the continuity of instruction. Under the program, 18 weeks of classes are compressed into nine weeks. Often, students take two quarters of English or algebra in the fall and then do not take math or English classes again until the following year.
Kurtzmann said the board and Grey have been examining the program since the beginning of the school year.
There are many concerns about academic time," Grey said. "The students who take an additional fourth class benefit a great deal. But the students who only take three subjects, and there are many of them, are out of school at 12:30. With a six-period schedule, everyone will have the same amount of classes."
Grey said she would consider a flexible schedule, where students attend 90-minute courses during certain portions of the week...but in the meantime, Grey is planning for a new six-class semester system.
(emphases mine)
If this doesn’t make others on campus see Grey’s duplicity, I don’t know what will. Her statement about students taking three courses versus students taking four courses is pure bullshit; if a student takes three courses, s/he has the same benefits as a student at any of the other high schools in the district (six classes a year), and has the ability to take afternoon classes at the local college, work at a job, or (mon dieu!) do her/his homework. Her statement runs completely counter to the expressed ideals of our schedule. No one has made mention of this today. I guess no one (except maybe me, Aimee [who is out having her carpets cleaned], and Bob [on a field trip]) see the real conspiracy. Of course, what does it matter? We have no smoking gun (Kevin has still yet to see the memo again, and I still need to see if the Parent Meeting flyer is the memo in question).
And we may have a fire brewing on campus. Today, one of the local Spanish-language television stations (I’m not sure if it’s the L.A. station or a local cable public-access channel) was on campus, interviewing students about the schedule and possible student-parent protests. Things could become heated, in a racially tense and overly orchestrated manner. This would blur the issue. And it would get ugly. We’ll have to wait and see.
But not tonight. I’m dragging. And I want to go to bed.
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