Dr. Bolgen Vargas was in the D&C yesterday reaching out to chronically truant students. The article states, “The goal then is to find a program — such as night school or a general educational development (GED) program — that might better fit their situation.”
What would better fit their situation is a “Community School” which encompasses a daycare through graduation program that could easily be housed at the Franklin Campus. In fact, each Zone should have such a program. World of Inquiry School #58 and Monroe High School would serve the “Community School” concept well.
Students would bring their children to the school’s daycare, have breakfast with them, take morning classes in parenting, then attend their regular classes. They could eat lunch with their children, and return to complete their schedule. At the end of the day, students return to the daycare for the third part of their parenting course, being engaged in the progress their child has made at daycare. Each section would take only fifteen minutes, equaling a regular forty-five minute Health class.
In a portfolio of schools, each Zone should also have a School Without Walls, a School of the Arts, a K-8, and so on. No child should have their dreams dashed because they didn’t win the lottery.
Given all of these changes it is important to recognize that educational failure does not occur at the end of a student’s career. The seed of failure is planted in elementary school; in overcrowded classrooms, in robotized test prep, in “pass ‘em anyway” attitudes, and maladaptive learning environments that stress the curriculum not the child.
The district is unrelenting in their attitude that class size doesn’t matter when research shows that it does. Elementary classrooms this school year will approach 30 students per teacher and this is the “plan”. First let’s show children that they don’t matter and when they drop out let’s try to convince them that they do.
Join the Movement to Save Our Children!
*As per request, the addresses of the candidate forums are as follows:
The Frederick Douglass Resource Center is located at 36 King St., off W. Main.
The Stardust Ballroom is located at 41 Backus St., off Bloss St near Edgerton Park.
James P. Duffy School #12 is located at 999 South Ave., across from Highland Hospital
