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Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The Dog and Pony show: The school board visits Ribault High School

The school board paid a surprise visit to Ribault High School, accompanied by the Florida Times-Union and Action News. (I say 'surprise visit' not because Ribault didn’t know they were coming, but because many people probably weren’t aware that the school board did anything but follow lockstep behind the superintendent). There the school board met with 30 hand-picked students to discuss the issues facing Ribault High School. In case you were wondering, Dog and Pony Magazine rated this visit a five out of five.

Does the school board expect the public to think they care, because of this visit (their third visit to a school in the last ten months)? Talk about an easy schedule and part-time work... There they said they met with children who represented the student body - those from the A.P. classes, student council and ROTC classes. Ummm...I am sorry, but if they wanted to get a true representation of the student body, they should have met with children in the intensive reading and math classes, the kids with no electives on their schedules.

I hope nobody thinks I am being critical of Ribault. I have a friend who works there and she believes they are truly turning it around after years of mismanagement, and that they finally have a team that is headed in the right direction. I wish her luck. Unfortunately she, the rest of the staff, the students, and- heck- the community of Jacksonville itself will need it, as long as we allow this current school board to oversee the management of the county’s public schools.

The school board somehow got mixed up with what it is supposed to do. That’s what will happen when casual observers (filled to overflowing with hubris) want to get involved and politicians use the school board as a stepping stone. Both groups think more of the position as a line on the resume than as a sacred public trust. What they have either forgotten or don’t realize is that they don’t just represent Ed Pratt-Dannals and his high-priced team at 1701 Prudential Drive, they represent the teachers, the stakeholders and the parents of the city as well - or, they should, anyway. They can’t sit back and listen to the reports that come out of the downtown high-rise because they are all glowing reports; even the drop in the F-CAT was somebody else's fault. I'll bet Martha Barret (District 1) and Nancy Bronner asked him what score they should give him (out of 5) and he said, 'oh I don’t know; 4.7...5... something around there'.

They can’t be effective if they just hear his voice. Pratt-Dannals has 270,000 reasons (his salary) to put a positive spin on everything. Instead, they need to get out and talk to the people and three visits in ten months is unacceptable. What are we paying them for anyway? If you guessed 'to rubber stamp what Ed Pratt-Dannals wants', you are probably correct, because that’s all they have done - well, that and give him a $100,000 raise in the last three years.

Not only should the school board be willing to meet with three people standing on a street corner (if they asked), but they should also be in different schools every single day. If they were in my school, they would have found 120 kids and 6 substitute teachers in the auditorium doing nothing. If they were at another, they would have found that the teachers there were told parking on campus was a privilege. I could go on and on, because there are not just a million stories in the naked city - not in Jacksonville anyway - but because there are an equal amount on its school campuses as well. (Though, going to a school is just half the battle, because when they get there, they have to look, too).

Last year when the school board visited my school, they didn’t go anywhere near the trainable mentally handicapped classrooms where kids were packed in like sardines and where learning couldn’t occur. It’s because they didn’t want to see it. I don’t think they wanted to know, to look at the evidence - three school visits in ten months; hand-picked students and zero teacher forums.

When the school board visits schools, they can’t just meet with the hand-picked students either; as much as I think they wish it would, it doesn’t give the most accurate snapshot of what’s actually going on. Willie C. Barron, a two-sport athlete who is also enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program, was profiled in the Florida Times-Union piece; but, for some reason, I think if he was the typical student Ribault has, the school would not be experiencing many of its problems. According to the same article, W.C. Gentry wondered where the other kids were, saying, "if all the kids were like that, you have won the war". I will tell you where they are, Mr. Gentry; they are in their intensive math and reading classes having their joy of learning sucked out of them. Now, a few might be in electives, but not many, because draconian state cuts and policies have eliminated many of the electives.

If the school board is serious (something I doubt) about improving things and getting a real picture of what is going on, it also has to visit the classrooms and see what is happening there. Furthermore, they can’t give notice (months of notice) in the case for the school visits. They have to show up unannounced, and not even the principals should know. Then, they should also meet with teachers - though they will have to meet with most of them off the record and in secrecy, as many are afraid there will be repercussions if they tell about what is actually happening. I overheard a veteran teacher the other day consoling a new teacher who was at the end of her rope because of a not-so-pleasant conversation she had with an administrator. She was told that kids could not put their heads down after the umpteenth benchmark test - instead, she should have had "enrichment work" (i.e., "busywork") for them to do. Her veteran colleague told her to just keep her head down and avoid eye contact. The school board doesn’t want to know what teachers think, and I should know, because I have given them an opportunity to hear from them. I have organized a couple of teacher forums and invited W.C. Gentry and Brenda Priestly-Jackson to the next one. Sadly, they were too busy planning their one trip to a school in the last six months to respond.

Friends, we have serious problems - and we need serious people to solve them. Not people who look at the position of school board member as a line on a resume or as a stepping stone to something else. We shouldn’t look at the "Dog and Pony Show" as an example of how well the school board is doing their job. Instead, we should look at it like it is another blaring example of how they aren’t.

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