SCHOOL STARTS TODAY IN INGLEWOOD, CA.

Well, August 31st was the first day of school in Inglewood, Ca. This is the first time school has started in August in Inglewood in many years. I've been here since '67 and I don't ever remember school starting before Labor Day.
I started my day at Hillcrest Continuation High School. Note: The principal, unofficially, changed the name to Hillcrest Academy a few years ago. Academy has a more educational ring to it than Continuation High School don't you think? The students and parent's start to arrive about five after eight. I am assigning log-in names and passwords so that the incoming students can go online and take the diagnostic test. We set the incoming diagnostic test at the sixth grade level this year. Last year it was set at grade 5. The students are tested in math and English language arts. I've tested approximately 75 incoming and returning students this year and the average score is about 55% in ELA and 45% in math. I've had a couple of 100%s in ELA and one or two 90%s in math. On the other end I've had a few 16%s. One young lady took the test and scored a 16% and a 23%; math and ELA respectively. I asked her if she felt bad scoring so low on a sixth grade test and she just smiled and said "I'm not getting any "credits" for it so I don't care." Credits reign supreme at continuation schools.
Later in the day, I queried two young men, 12 and 13 year-olds, about their first day of school. I have been working with these two since they were babies. I actually toilet trained them. I really potty-trained them but toilet trained sounds better. Both gave the usual "good" as their answer. I asked each to tell me about their classes and their teachers. The seventh grader, new to the school, gave a "by the class" report with no special comments on his teachers. Eight grader did the same except, when he got to his algebra teacher he sort of paused and pondered his answer for a moment. He said "well, my algebra teacher is named Ms. Lu and her English is not so good. She is an engineer and I think she knows algebra good, but she has a difficult time controlling the class". I thought to myself, here is a situation where the teacher is probably super in her knowledge of the subject matter but will not be able to pass much of the knowledge on because she will spend a great percentage of her time trying to keep order. SAD..
The school is on block-scheduling this year so I will be able go over to the school, which is nearby, and sit in on the class a couple of days a week. I know how to keep order by just being present...
More on Continuation schools later

THE OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM?

Educators have a special flair for coining names for special programs. When my son was a sixth grader I use to go over to his school during my lunch hour to help out on the playground. On several occasions I saw this kid riding his bike around outside of the school grounds. I had seen him around the community and couldn't quite figure out why he was out of school and seemingly very comfortable riding around near the school. Being the do-gooder that I was, I inquired about the reason for this student boldly riding around the school during school time. I was informed that the particular student was in the "OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM". Wow!, the Opportunity program, I thought. I inquired from the powers that be , "what exactly is the Opportunity Program? I was told that it was a program that was created for students that were so far behind their grade level and so disruptive in their regular class, that they only spent a half day at school. That half day was spent in some other teacher's classroom, where that were placed off in a corner away from the other students and given some kind of worksheet to work on. Oh! I didn't mention that this student was a 6th grader. I requested and was granted permission to sit in on the student's morning class. The student was there sitting off from the other students with this worksheet on the desk. The worksheet consisted of a column of alphabets and a column of pictures. The student was suppose to draw a line from the alphabet to the picture that began with that alphabet. Example: a line from the alphabet"H" to the picture of a hat. I looked at his worksheet; had he had gotten the first one wrong. He had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. He was just given the worksheet and instructed to sit and be quiet. Question: Opportunity for what?
Note: The last I head, this student was serving 35 years to life. (Sad...)

EDUCATING OUR YOUNG... A NATIONAL CHALLENGE

I have been reading my daughter's blog or blogs, I don't know which is correct, and have decided to put some of my many thoughts in type. I have always enjoyed teaching and as I made my way through my engineering career, always knew that I wanted to teach. Early on in my career I had the opportunity to teach math at UCLA. It was part of an industry supported program to help young Blacks and Hispanics prepare themselves to enter the UCLA School of Engineering. That experience really got me even more hooked on teaching. It lasted for about three years and I enjoyed every minute of it. Along the way while guiding my four children through their early education, I always took the opportunity to tutor some of the neighborhood children and eventually allowed some friends to convince me to try to get elected to the local school board of trustees. I learned a lot during my tenure as a board trustee but the bright spot of the entire 4+ years was the fact the my name was printed on my son's high school diploma because I happened to be the president of the school board at the time. I think that my name may have been on my middle daughter's eight grade certificate. You see the way it works on a five person board of trustees is, if you really are interested in what's best for the students, you are likely to be in a voting minority. That was the case for me at least two of the four years that I served. Schools board tend to be driven more by politics and getting re-elected than anything else. Enough about that.
Just is case you are wondering where I am going with this, I will clue you in... My BLOG will share some of my experiences as a teacher and consultant at a local CONTINUATION HIGH SCHOOL. more to come