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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Betty Burney has been very bad for Raines High School

Arguably the signature high school in district 5 is Raines high school. Some might say Paxon but that’s a magnet school that brings in kids from all over the city. No it is definitely Raines high school.

When Mrs. Burney became the district 5 representative something like 1700 kids attended the historic high school. This year there was less than a thousand.

0708 FTE count 1215.44
0809 FTE count 1019.14
0910 FTE count 979.15
1011 FTE count 975.28

Raines high school is dying under her watch and this year she allowed it to be taken over by Educational Directions an education management organization because she had no answers for the problems there.

There are both short and long term solutions to the problems there, Raines high school doesn’t have to die, it can thrive again.

First switch the day to a six period one where classes are just one hour long and they meet every day. Next, make sure every kid has at least one elective that they choose on their schedule. We can’t overload kids and make school drudgery and then wonder why they are failing.

Then we put a mental health counselor and social worker into the school cause so often why kids act up and make no effort in school has nothing to do with school. We then make sure the classes are rigorous, the halls are disciplined and summer school and after school opportunities exist for the kids who need help.

Finally in the short term we have all the content area teachers trained in CAR-PD a wonderful reading program then we take some things off their plates. Stressed out, miserable, overworked teachers don’t do as well as happy teachers. We need to support the teachers instead of just dumping on the teachers.

Then over the long term the district stops social promotions and offers longer school years to the kids that need it and we look into placing vocational programs at Raines. If kids have more options they will undoubtedly do better.

Raines high school deserves a better fate than a slow death managed by outsiders.

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