It has been a while since I have last posted. Sorry to my fan. LOL. Had a pretty awesome weekend partying it up with my good friends Bethany, Arlene, Joyce and Gretta. March has now been officially dubbed the "Party Month".
As for the kids:
Char: We met with the Army recruiter and she is very interested in the Army. We did not see this coming and is a total 180 on the path Char was going down. We think that this will be the best thing for Char and we are supporting her 100%. She was a little upset this week when she told people about her choice, she was met with negative remarks. It hurt her that people that she thought had her back did not. Now we all made funny remarks and she is not upset with that, in fact she is laughing with us. She was upset that people were telling her that the Army would break her and she was not cut out for it. If she has an iota of my personality at all, that alone will make her sign up and prove them wrong. You go girl!
We met with Dr. DeMarle on the 21st. Char is in the 97% for her verbal learning. I looked at Char and said "I told you, you were smart. I am going to do the 'I told you so' dance now." Her math on the other hand is very lacking (which we knew). The bad news is that she has to probably work a million times harder, but I know she will get through it. The good news is I can stick to Gates Chili because they should have been aware of this (it does help that I kept on saying to them that she needed help in math). DUH!! Our next meeting with Dr. Demarle is on May 4 (insert Star Wars joke here) and the meeting with the school is on May 5th (Happy Cinco de Mayo!).
Toria: We are still waiting to see a doctor about her being tested for Asbergers. Good news is that we are getting closer. Bad news is we still don't have a doctor.
Jaimison: Well, it is baseball season right around the corner. He is signed up for T-ball again this year and is very excited about it. Jaime is going to be an Assistant Coach, so Jaimison is doubly excited. We are meeting with the school on the 28th for him as all his testing is done. All the teachers loved working with him. What a little charmer.
Now I am going to attempt to tackle the Gates Chili Code of Conduct. Now Gates had this brilliant idea of having a Code of Conduct. I do agree with them, but I am wondering if they follow their own rules. They also call this the Spartan Way and from the day you start at the district you are slapped silly with that phrase. Let's delve deeper into this subject:
Teachers, parents, kids, health, mental health personnel, school counselors, building administrators, superintendent, Board of Education, and sport/non-instructional staff/volunteers have to follow this Code of Conduct. Now not to brag, but I know Jaime and I follow it. Now Char, that is another issue, but that is totally understandable, not excusable, but understandable.
I am not saying this about all the teachers, but this go towards most of them.
Teachers are to "Maintain a climate of mutual respect and dignity, which will strengthen students’ self-concept, promote confidence to learn and collaboration of all parties that serve the child."
I would like to know when Char was treated with mutual respect and dignity to strengthen her self-concpect, etc. If they followed this rule then Char would not be where she is. Yes, this is not all on the teachers and the school, but they never helped her either.
They are to "Be prepared to teach and fulfill all professional responsibilities."
I will give them that one.
They are to "Demonstrate interest in teaching and concern for student achievement."
ROFL! Concern for student achievement!! How can you be concerned for student achievement when you ignore late/not handed in assignments? When are you concerned for their achievement when you REFUSE to fail them even though you know that is the right thing to do?
They are to "Know school policies and rules, and enforce them in a fair and consistent manner."
HA HA HA. Consistent manner - well they consistently ignore their polices and rules, so that is consistent and seems to be the norm for Gates. If you are consistently wrong/bad, then you are at least consistent.
They are to "Communicate to students and parents: Course objectives and requirements.
Marking/grading procedures. Assignment deadlines. Expectations for parents and students. Classroom disciplinary procedures."
Communication is not a strength of the teachers at Gates. As for the course objective and requirements not a real big concern. Marking/grading procedures, there is no consistent procedure for this. It all depends on the student and what they need to do to have them graduate. Assignment deadlines. How can you enforce deadlines when they are just suggestions? Expectations for the parents and students? Really? Go ahead and tell me what you expect of me, I will then tell you where to shove it. Classroom disciplinary procedures, what disciplinary procedures? Jaime and I have to tell them how to disclipine Char.
They are to "Communicate regularly with students, parents and other teachers concerning growth and achievement."
Again, I have to laugh. I don't think most of the teachers at Gates know how to use a phone or a computer in order to communicate. That would mean that they would have to do their job.
This one almost made me pee my pants. Teachers are to "Build good relationships with students and parents."
What the what? They actually had to put that down as a rule. Maybe the teachers need to brush up on the Spartan Way. Good relationship my ass!
Not to totally bore you, I am going to glance over the other people that are dealt with in this Code of Conduct. It is pretty much the same thing with some tweeking here and there. For the most part Gates does not follow their own rules. How can this school district expect the kids in this school to follow rules when they consistently (they love that word) refuse to follow or change the rules to suit their agenda?
I received an email from Char’s English teacher stating that she is in danger of failing English and not graduating (we have known this since about January). I emailed the teacher back as I noted that both Ms. Kern (the 12th grade principal) and Mr. Clasgens (the building principal) have been copied in all the emails between us. I asked the teacher what Mr. Clasgens and Ms. Kern have done regarding the prediciment we are in. (Both the teacher and I have been on Char’s case about this).
Then out of the blue I get a call from Ms. Kern. I wonder why that happened? To cover your butt? She wanted to have a conference call with the English teacher (which I did not know why as the English teacher has been doing her job). Well Ms. Kern could not even figure out how to put me on speakerphone (this is so adding to my frustration with this school district).
Ms. Kern proceeds to say that she is not sure what I want her to do about this. Really? (Yes, that word is going to come up a lot because I still cannot believe this is happening). Do I get your salary for telling you what to do? Anyway, I proceed to let her have it. I told her that she has done nothing to help Char at all. She has been a barrier to her. She then proceeds to say something about coming in and talking to her. I then said “Why? What are you going to do?” She said that she wants to talk to us about how to get Char to graduation. Isn’t it a little too late for that? I told her that it has been made crystal clear to me and Jaime that Char was going to graduate barring her actually doing no work at all. Ms. Kern wanted to know who said that to us. I said I did not have the name in front of me because I was at work (I knew that this blog was going to come in handy). I also asked why she needed to know and she said that she would like to talk to that person. I again said “what are you going to do?” She never did answer those questions.
I then proceeded to really let loose. I said how the school pretty much sucks and that the administration does nothing unless forced to do so. I said that Jaime and I are not going through her as she is ineffective as a principal and that we are going above and beyond her. I told her that I do not need her help as it is obvious she cannot follow through on things. She asked what she has not followed through on. I brought up the fact of the progress reports that Char was supposed to be getting since the first day of school. She said and this is a direct quote “I can’t make her do it”. WHAT?!?!?!?! What do you mean you cannot make her do it? Are you not the principal? I told her what about detention for not listening. Isn’t that insubordination?
At this point I was fed up with all the crap that was coming my way. I told Ms. Kern politely that this conversation was over and hung up. I did have work to do you know.
I am so tempted to send this blog to her. I can’t believe that people are actually that stupid when talking to people. Can you think before you speak?
Jaime and I talked about this and have decided that if Dr. Demarle is not present at meetings we are going to be recording it. If they will not let us, then we are not having a meeting. Also, we are no longer going to communicate with teachers unless it is through email. I want proof that they are not doing their job.
If you cannot tell, my opinion of Ms. Kern is really low. The only time she rears her head is when she has to cover her ass. I am so ticked that Toria will be having her as a principal for the next four years. The good news is that Jaimison will not have her unless she gets moved to another grade level as he is seven years behind Toria. Hopefully by that time she will either leave, get fired or retire. I don’t care how it happens, but she needs to go. Actually a lot of the staff at Gates needs to go. What is this school teaching our kids? That all you need to do is act like you know what you are doing? This whole district is a joke. I have no idea how the kids have not taken over as no one there likes to discipline any of them. You literally have to get into a fight in order to get in trouble. ARGH!
Here is a shout out to Rich, was this all you were expecting? Be careful of what you wish for.
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