First week of school? Let's protest some A-rabs.

[Ms. Spam]

http://www.chron.com/news/education/article/Protesters-at-Houston-s-Arabic-Immersion-Magnet-6461817.php

 

A small group of people in Houston decided to protest the opening of an Arabic Immersion school. I dunno why they would chose to terrify a small group of kindergartners and pre-k kids as their parents drop them off but you should read some of the signs they made.

 

Protests marred the first day of class for about 132 kindergarten and pre-K students at the Houston Independent School District's new Arabic Immersion Magnet School.

 

Shortly before 8 am, almost 30 adults spread along the fenced perimeter of the Heights-area school, waving American and Israeli flags while touting protest signs.

What I wanna know is how ignorant you have to be to do this. Houston makes its money on oil products and has had a big Arabic population. This has been the talk of the lunch room because this sense of lines and boundries is really getting blurred where people feel comfortable enough to exhibit not only their own stupidity but to do it blatantly to children and their parents. Regardless of how you feel about anchor babies and people coming from other countries this feels wrong.

[Cerina]

So much fail in HISD this week. Dozens of incoming freshmen were forced back into jr. high because the school gave them the wrong STAAR test last year. Many new students were turned away because the schools ran out of room for them.

 

We don't live in HISD, but regardless I'm soo happy to be homeschooling again this year.

[Ms. Spam]

You should be happy you live in Houston. Dallas scares the living shit out of me as a teacher because their district has some fantastic fails. I l teach in an inner city school district and can't even imagine not having room - there are schools in South America where it is just the basics but they learn. But the school is a reflection of the people who have students going and if they don't care how does anyone learn?

[The Kurgan]

Ha ha ha - back to school. Am I EVER having a good time of it this year. I suppose I might as well spill the beans on why I've been around so much less the last few months.

 

My children attend a semi private school for autistic and other special needs kids. It is government funded but privately run as a non profit. Last year,the executive director hired a childhood friend to be an HR manager (who has ZERO H.R experience or credentials) who has since fired several other staff members in order to make room for more friends and family.

 

Due to this, several costly wrongful dismissal settlements later, the staff unionized. Negotiations have been a total disaster. It's like something out of "Norma Rae", "Final Offer" or something like that. The union will send parents letters outlining why the managers are a bunch of asshats, and management returns the favor. What is in dispute is that the union wants the existing managers gone and managenent wants the union out. I have a small mountain of these ****ing things now. A strike vote just the other day got 67% approval. The union released its list of demands, including steep salary and benefit increases, mere days before this vote and little more than a week before school was set to resume.

 

Management has plans to scab out the teachers with a bunch of babysitters and parent volunteers. To provide, at the school's risk of liability, services for disabled children. What could POSSIBLY go wrong? But given how much they've been shelling out on legal fees for these dismissals and vain attempts to bust the union, which are just making them madder and more eager than ever to strike, what difference would a negligence suit or two for damages make at this point?

 

Yesterday night, the provincial government established something called a dispute inquiry board. This boils down to being a kind of forced mediation - a temporary ban is imposed on work stoppage while this board mediates the dispute.

 

I'm counting the days until the next membership meeting for the organization that runs the school. If I can get on the Board of Directors - following the no-confidence vote I plan on calling for on the existing board - and heads will roll. And a lot of my fellow parent members feel the same way.

[Ms. Spam]

The Edgewood ISD near my school district has struggled with this forever, Kurgan. Money for kids have lined a lot of upper management pockets as well as nepotism.

 

My school district's biggest problem is that we're very poor. I actually make 10K less than a teacher in the Northside ISD or NEISD. Part of it is our tax base is very poor. Can you imagine a 300$ a year property tax bill? Most of the kids in our district live with seniors who are locked into this. I think the lowest tax rate I heard was a 2 bedroom house that was locked in a 119$ year. Because they are working poor too they're too busy to participate in any type of school activity. Our football games have about 30 people in the stands and NO ONE goes to the out of town games for the high school unless they have kids playing - In the band. It's really funny too because it is about the music programs more than sports. But we're cutting those too. This year a good friend who teaches a middle school band had to ask our church for any old instruments to donate to students who want to play but the parents can't afford to buy the instruments. Oh and this year a couple of schools in my district started renting lockers as a money maker. RENTING a locker for your child or he can just carry ALL his books.

 

Mediation is the worst. Because it affects the school too. Kids sense discord. The thing to remember is that kids want to learn. You see kids sitting on a dirt floor with a teacher in a giant shed and think "Man, kids in the states have it good."

[Cerina]

Good lord!!!

 

And people still want to believe that schools are there for the kids! I'm convinced that the children are the absolute last consideration in any school's decision making.