When I read that there were no stall doors in the bathrooms at Roseway Hts (Gregory Hts) my heart sunk. This goes beyond neglect and signals an attitude that is disrespectful to all students.

If I were a parent from that school I would be at the school board meetings, standing outside the DOSA’s (or whatever they call the middle administrators now) door, taking photos of bathrooms at schools that do have bathroom stall doors, taking photos at the BESC where they undoubtedly have stall doors, waving those photos in board members faces, checking the legality of those conditions, etc. etc.

I have seen hellish conditions in Detroit and believe me it is going to get worse here before it gets better.
This discussion is good, but it will take consistent, strong action to turn this around. The responsibility starts in the White House, but trickles down to every principal. The people who speak out, volunteer at their schools, volunteer at others schools, do research to expose the inequities are heroes. Steve Rawley’s careful analysis of the segregationist policies of PPS is a good example for us all. If we don’t care about the our children’s futures, who will? Personally I am not waiting for any administrators to take the lead.

One more note: the serial rapist in Detroit was caught, only because of the community taking it into their own hands. If it had been left up to the principals and the upper administrators he would still be free.

As evidence of how well the consolidation of RCP with Greg Hts. is going, I submit to you all the case of a 6th-grader who is my son’s martial arts classmate (unrelated to school). Another child called him a name, threw a book at him, and grabbed him by both wrists. My son’s friend used his martial arts skills in self-defense—not enough to hurt the other boy, just enough to get free. Once free, he lost his balance and fell down. The other kid punched him WHILE HE LAY ON THE GROUND and gave him a huge shiner that was still very prominent three days later, when we saw him.

Thanks to our school district’s “Zero-Tolerance” policy, BOTH boys got suspended. It will go on our friend’s permanent record, but not the other boy’s, even though it is not the other boy’s first time fighting. Why is that? Because our friend is a 6th-grader and the other kid is a 5th-grader.

And now for the punchline: the school would not allow our friend readmittance to school unless his mother signed a paper saying he would “never fight again,” not even to defend himself. What a choice! Get suspended from school or land in the hospital? Which would you want your child to choose? Why should ANY child have to make such a choice?

Now things are changing, but come on – PPS should have waited one year allowing the student body to move on to HS. This would have resulted in a totally fresh start or an organically grown K – 8 model. If you are a parent with a child just starting school, how would this look to you?

Staying at RCP would have also embraced a centrally located neighborhood model. Now we have an approximate 40 block gap between schools.

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For immediate release
Contact Susanne B. Smith, (503) 947-5737

October 24, 2007

State Places Thirteen Oregon Schools on Safety “Watch List,” Names One Salem School “Persistently Dangerous”

SALEM – State Schools Superintendent Susan Castillo announced today that thirteen Oregon public schools have been placed on a “watch list,” under the school safety provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Because these schools exceeded the minimum rate of expulsions due to violence, they have been identified as needing school safety improvement plans and must file a corrective action plan with the state.

Third year:
Salem-Keizer SD 24J – McKay High School
Second Year: Salem-Keizer SD 24J – North Salem High School
Portland SD 1J – Renaissance Arts Academy
First Year: Beaverton SD 48J – Five Oaks Middle School
Bend-LaPine Administrative SD 1 – Pilot Butte Middle School
Portland SD 1J – Alliance High School
Portland SD 1J – BizTech High School
Portland SD 1J – Gregory Heights Middle School
Salem-Keizer SD 24J – Houck Middle School
Salem-Keizer SD 24J – Judson Middle School
Salem-Keizer SD 24J – Leslie Middle School
Salem-Keizer SD 24J – Structured Learning Center
Three Rivers/Josephine County SD – Hidden Valley High School

“Nothing is more important than the safety of our children,” said Castillo. “The schools on the ‘watch list’ know this and have taken steps to create a safer school environment. Over the next year we will assist them as they develop their working plans for making their schools consistently safer.”

In Oregon, a public elementary or secondary school is defined as “persistently dangerous” if one or more of the following conditions exist (at the rates noted below) for three-consecutive school years:
1. Expulsions for weapons (ORS 339.250(6)) and/or
2. Expulsions for violent behavior and/or
3. Expulsions for students arrested for any of the following violent criminal offenses on school grounds, on school sponsored transportation and/or school sponsored activities:
• Assault (ORS 163.160, ORS 163.165, ORS 163.175, ORS 163.185)
• Manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance (ORS 475.992 (1-3)
• Sexual crimes using force, threatened use of force or against incapacitated person (ORS 163.375, ORS 163.395, ORS 163.411, ORS 163.427)
• Arson (ORS 164.315, ORS 164.325)
• Robbery (ORS 164.395, ORS 164.405, ORS 164.415)
• Hate/Bias Crime (ORS 166.155, ORS 166.165)
• Coercion (ORS 163.275)
• Kidnapping (ORS 163.225, ORS 163.235).

The total number of expulsions for these combined categories must meet or exceed one of the following rates per year: (school with fewer than 500 students) 5 expulsions; (larger school) one expulsion for every 100 enrolled students or fraction thereof.

Thirteen schools were on last year’s list but removed from the list for 2006-07:

Eagle Point SD 9 – Eagle Point High School
Jefferson County SD 509J – Jefferson County Middle School
Klamath County SD – Brixner Junior High School and Chiloquin High School
Medford SD 549C – Medford Opportunity High School
Ontario SD 8C – Ontario High School
Portland SD 1J – Tubman Middle School
Salem-Keizer SD 24J – Parrish Middle School, South Salem High School and McNary High School
St Helens SD 502 – Columbia County Education Campus
Three Rivers/Josephine County SD – North Valley High School and Illinois Valley High School

Are any westside schools getting treated the same? Why would this ever seem acceptable? A small example why people will leave the system or tranfer out.

This is a fair statement. Whether I agree that board is doing absolutely nothing is another question, I do think that they are trying. But here Steve B. I do agree with you. It is sad how some schools have been experimented on. I think we should have citizen committees formed. However, my daughter (who will be embarrassed when she reads this) always worries that the parents are making these decisions and forming all these opinions without asking their children what they think. It’s interesting how she feels that (at only 12) Jefferson is the guinea pig school and she wishes that people didn’t criminalize the students there. Not only that, but she really wants to go to Jeff. She’s worried that people bring too much “bad karma” to the school. Maybe we should listen to how our children feel, their opinions are more sophisticated than we think.

After the WH parent group shot down VP’s harebrained idea of moving the school 6 miles to the Clark building, the School Board made them get together with designated district administrators and a hired facilitator to hash out a “growth plan.” Even though their building is already filled over capacity, VP was hellbent on expanding the program, and you know that the Board could never say no to her.

The recommendation to be presented at this meeting is for a double-wide portable to be installed at the current WH location and for ALL classes (which already are at 30 in the upper grades, and 26-28 in primary) at the school to add students, so that the total increase will be around 75 children. Most of the WH community doesn’t want this, but they were told that if they fought growth, their PE teacher and counselor would be taken away. (They already don’t have art, music or library teachers either.) Classic VP strong-arm tactics.

This expansions at WH and CSS are only the tip of the iceberg. As I have stated many times on this blog, the School Board has approved expansion of enrollment at magnets and charters over the next 5 years in the thousands. Unfortunately, no member of the Fourth Estate has been willing to write about this, even after seeing the hard data.

Obviously if the district culture is test-centric, it’s nigh on impossible to empower teachers to develop programs and approaches that would genuinely improve student learning. The key to reform is putting people in school leadership positions, including teachers, who really care about learning, not just test scores.

It can be done, though. Four classroom teachers –me included– started the reform movement at Evergreen Junior High (now Evergreen Middle School) in Hillsboro. We were fortunate to work with principals receptive to our efforts and our ideas.

First, I want to verify Terry’s comment about the origin of the transfer policy. It was, ironically enough, initiated as a desegregation program. We all know how THAT worked out.

Shelby, your assumption that “not all teachers can teach” an AP class is incorrect, although I wish it weren’t. State certification is based on subject matter and grade level, nothing more. So if a school wishes to start an AP class, it can use the math teachers that are already there without spending a dime on new training. Same thing with PPS’ excuse for TAG instruction: one of the numerous parent complaints about it is that the teachers doing it have not been trained for it. But the state doesn’t require any such training. It would be nice if the teachers of Title I programs had special training, too! Oh yeah, they aren’t required to have any.

“I think school board members should be embarrassed for using the “middle class” justification for a policy that clearly and directly harms a large number of lower income PPS families.”

I couldn’t help laughing at that, Nicole—not because what you wrote is funny, because it isn’t—but because it triggered a memory. Last winter, Messrs. Morgan and Wynde were scolding Winterhaven parents in the press for not attracting enough low-income families to the school (as if that were the parents’ job—it isn’t, it the district’s job). Yet it was these same clowns who voted to CUT the number of scholarship admissions to the tuition-based kindergarten there. Why is it tuition-based? Because neither the state nor the District fully funds all-day kindergarten. This is why focus options have acquired a reputation for catering to the well-off: by charging kindergarten tuition and reducing or eliminating scholarships, the School Board is actively preventing low-income families from gaining access to these programs. Disingenuous is just too polite a word. Disgusting is more accurate.

Everything is built around testing — this seems to be the mantra particularly for young teachers and new principals who used to inculcate schools with energy and fresh ideas. The new teachers seem to be trained in the testing culture and worse yet, many seem to have bought into it. How can we count on them to bring effective school reform? I don’t see it. Maybe I am missing something.