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