The A+ Activist

A new report released by a group of policymakers and education researchers have determined that without giving disadvantaged children access to health care, preschool and other programs will do little to improve their overall success in school.

No really? You’re kidding right? Wow. Whooda thunk that kids need more than education programs and big idea achievement plans to help them succeed in school?

Haven’t there already been studies that show a healthy child learns better? Haven’t we already been told that children who can attend preschool programs, after school program, and extra-curricular activities perform better in school?

If you’d like to read something you already knew but doesn’t actually offer concrete solutions and ideas, click here .

Frankly, I will wait for the cliffnotes on this one. A “Bold Approach” does nothing for me without an actual plan to back it up. Our kids will still be at a disadvantage while everyone sits around and cuts through the red tape and adds new tape just to get the policies in place.

You’ve made it this far.

You’re upset with the way certain policies are handed down in your child’s school and you are frustrated but beyond that you don’t know where to begin. I’m about to share the biggest and easiest way to become an activist for parents your child’s school. What can you do to make next year different? Better?

At the beginning of every school year, your son or daughter brings home a stack of paperwork 6 inches thick. You read through and sign what you must and toss the rest right?

Don’t. Look through the paperwork to see if there are newsletters from the principal, district or even your child’s teacher. They will be looking for help. Volunteers to come into the classrooms, into the school and do anything from working with a reading group or in the library to making copies and sorting and stapling.

I know it sounds like boring, mundane tasks but getting your foot inside the school door is exactly what you need to do.

If you don’t see papers like this or you get the chance to meet with your son or daughter’s teacher for the next year, introduce yourself, offer your cell phone or home phone number now and ask what help they typically need most. Teachers know what they will need and they are more than willing to get the parents into the classroom to help - even if it’s just to help staple and sort.

It’s a start.

Something I realized today as I went through my feeds and message boards.

I see a lot of parents taking issue with the way their school is run; they don’t like the teachers, the kids, the administration, and the rules.  The number of things we have problems with seems to grow and grow but in many of the threads I read, there is little to offer in the line of help or solutions.

I’m always pleased when someone offers some great ideas on how to help a parent. My feelings of elation soon dissipate when the parent says they can’t do it because of work.

Here are my thoughts on this and someone tell me if I am wrong but… if you want change, you are going to have to go out and get it. The school is not going to change for you based on your blogging, messages or complaining to your friends.

It’s the same message we try to send our kids, if you don’t like something, you have to do something about it in order for things to get better.

But how? I can hear you asking me already –

That’s what we will work on this week. How we make the changes. How we become the activists in our schools. We must become a presence inside the halls of our children’s schools in order for administrators and teachers to take us seriously.

We have all summer and we can create a better school year for our children.

It seems as though that is what Georgia county school district is shooting for. Greene County is separating the boys from the girls because as it stands, keeping them together doesn’t seem to work as far as school success is concerned.

Even though they’ve been advised by a leading expert in single-sex schools the district is going to forge ahead.

OK, seriously, I suppose you could look at it with a “What more do we have to lose?” attitude but when you do that, then you are pretty much admitting that your school district can’t perform as it should.

That might be true, but it is really a reason we need to separate the boys from the girls? You can read the full article here but I would like to point out one thing that irritated me:

McCollough pointed to research showing that boys and girls learn differently, and said separating them will allow teachers to tailor their lessons. Also, boys won’t misbehave as much because they will no longer be trying to impress the girls, and the girls will be more likely to speak up in class because they won’t be afraid to look smart in front of the boys, he said.

Does anyone see something wrong with that statement? No? Alright perhaps it’s just me then…

I agree that boys and girls do learn differently but then again my boys don’t learn the same as each other. And impressing the girls aside, and girls being afraid to speak up? I think those are pretty flimsy excuses for segregating children. How are boys and girls supposed to learn to socialize with each other if they aren’t permitted to be in the same class together? I don’t understand the logic behind that and maybe someone can explain it to me.

Even though the sub-headline states that it’s a measure to also prevent teen pregnancies, I didn’t see anything in the article about those concerns. (And I’m sorry but if teens want to have unprotected sex, they don’t need to be in the same school together).

I just wonder how successful this will be. They’ve made this decision district-wide and under Federal law, the district is making this move to include every school in the district. A move which some question as being illegal because it leaves the parents with no option for coed education and that… well doesn’t that teach children much about upholding the law now does it?

I’m not sure if I should be appalled, sick, disgusted or down right lit up like a raging fire… either way when I read this story out of CBS about the little boy who was voted out of Kindergarten because he was “different”, well it didn’t take long for my mommy radar to go off the charts!

I’m torn, one side of me wants to be diplomatic and say, “Well the teacher obviously didn’t have the resources to handle a child with special needs.” You’ve heard me go on and on about budget cuts and the lack of funding for schools and teachers. If a teacher wants to learn more about how to properly educate and work with special needs children, they often have to pay for it themselves because the money from the schools to fund it simply isn’t there and That. IS. SAD.

Another rational side wants to say, ” The school should have worked with the family, teacher and the child to come to an agreement or alternative learning environment for this child.” There are certain avenues that have to be taken in order to have a child removed from a classroom. Plus, I can certainly understand the need to be able to properly teach the other students BUT… Unfortunately for the teacher… the MOM and ACTIVIST in me says…

This teacher used the poorest judgment imaginable. She behaved no better than the five and six year old students she was teaching. Not only did Wendy Portillo (the teacher in question), humiliate, bully, and send the message that if you’re different from everyone else, then we can get rid of you… But what’s worse is that she just taught a room full of young impressionable children that it’s certainly OK to discriminate. Ms. Portillo knew the boy was being evaluated, was even working with the school and the parent to get him properly diagnosed, but clearly that wasn’t enough for her.
Want to hear the really fun part? The state attorney’s office says this isn’t emotional abuse.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

The whole situation is unprofessional on so many levels. Ms. Portillo is the adult in this situation and conducting a poll of children in which it’s not only OK for you to say you don’t want a kid in your class but it’s also OK to tell why you don’t like the kid in the first place.

The little boy is being evaluated for Asperger’s which is a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Now for those of you not familiar with Autism you can learn more about it here and here . I, myself will admit to not knowing much about the illness but I can tell you that it has varrying degrees of severity and also manifests itself in different ways. Some children are fully functional in a classroom, some are partially, with the help of an aide and others cannot function at all. Either way, the teacher involved does not get to be judge and jury alone about whether or not a child being evaluated for Asperger’s or Autism should or should not be in her classroom. There are rules, protocols and other people in the decision making process, not her and 16 or so five and six year olds.

I also have to question what else Wendy Portillo has taught these youngsters with her crash course in democracy. In an age where we are trying desperately to get rid of discrimination in all forms, she just opened the door for any child to “poll” out every kid they have a problem with, doesn’t like or even smells funny… and because she did it, they will expect to do it and have it be OK too.

Ms. Portillo is the adult in this situation and her behavior was anything BUT adult-like and that is what saddens me.

She is an educator. She is expected to educate the children and teach them right from wrong, to be tolerant of those different from us and have acceptance for people. Unfortunately, for the children in her classroom at Morningside Elementary in Port St. Lucie, Fla., Wendy Portillo was absent the day they went over that in College.

I don’t want anyone to misunderstand; I firmly believe that the other children have a right to a positive learning environment but how positive is your environment when the teacher allows you talk down and negatively to another student? What do you think the children learned that day? It sure wasn’t shapes, colors, sentence structure, or the life cycle of a butterfly, that’s for sure.

Luckily, she’s been moved out of the classroom while this is being investigated (here’s hoping she’s moved out of a teaching license as well). But if you would like to read more about Portillo’s rendition of Survivor - Kindergarten style and also her allegations of what finally led her to create the worst moment in teaching history (among other things), then check out Thinking in Metaphors , the author has some excellent information and advocacy for Autism as well as comments from the boy’s mom and updates.

It’s a shame Ms. Portillo didn’t remember that SHE is the adult, not one of the children and is expected to behave as such.

How would she feel if the tables were turned? Feel free to cast a “vote”!