The chaos of the beginning of this year's school year at Southwest High School is a great example of why you don't make significant administrative changes three weeks before the school year starts.
You already know about the kids who showed up Day One with a half a schedule, or were double booked for classes in the same hour. (Hermione's time-turner, which allowed her to attend multiple classes at the same time at Hogwarts School of Wizardry, is a piece of fiction, by the way.)
Did you hear about the classes so packed that not only were there not enough chairs for students to sit, but there wasn't enough room in the classroom to put those chairs, even if they could be found?
Or students who believed that their schedules were set, only to show up on Day Two or Three and be told that they were being pulled out of one class and put into one they hadn't signed up for, to make room for students who need their spot in order to graduate?
What you probably don't know is the impact this has had on those whose schedules were set and never changed, like my daughter, an incoming freshman. People who try to dissect what's going on in our public school system talk a lot about the numbers. I want to demonstrate the impact on a single student, my daughter Lindsey.
My daughter has a 504 plan for severe anxiety disorder. Her anxiety about attending high school has been heightening ever since she entered 8th grade and realized that it was her last year of middle school. Yes, that's a full year before high school began for her.
Her care is being managed by an incredible team of medical professionals, working on nutrition, psychiatric care and therapy to help her anxiety get under control. Many days it takes all of her strength and courage just to leave the house.
She called upon that strength to attend two days of freshman orientation, and to attend the first official day of school on Wednesday with upperclassmen.
In the meantime, I had been reaching out to various people at the school to try to address the needs outlined in her 504 plan. We were not able to pull together a meeting before school started, which makes sense now, considering that the administrators who were key to this process were missing. During this time, multiple things happened at school that intensified her anxiety.
On the first day of school one of her teachers strictly told the students that once class begins she would be locking the doors and no one would be admitted without a pass. This is the day after freshman orientation, when students were told that teachers would be lenient with kids who are late to class while they figure out how to get around the school. Being locked out of a classroom is my daughter's nightmare; because she's still learning the school and didn't want to be late to any classes she didn't use a bathroom between classes for the rest of the day.
One part of her 504 plan allows her to leave a classroom if the content being discussed is triggering for her, yet none of her teachers know this, so her overall anxiety just being in the classrooms was heightened.
She thrives on structure and was excited to get started on lessons. Yet the chaos of students being moved from classroom to classroom meant that teachers were not yet starting lessons until they knew their classrooms were set. Two days of name games for everyone to learn everyone else's names? I told her to bring a book to read, but again, her teachers don't know about her 504 plan or her anxiety, so she did not feel comfortable doing so. I asked if I could email teachers directly to let them know, but she doesn't want to be "special" so she absolutely refused to let me.
A friend was suddenly re-assigned removed from a health class she had signed up for to performance theater, because the spot was needed for a graduating senior who needed the class. The uncertainty of knowing if Lindsey would have the same schedule one day to the next only made her anxiety worse.
The freshman dance, which was insensitively scheduled on Eid ul Adha, was canceled because someone finally realized it should've never been scheduled for that day in the first place. For Lindsey, that was the carrot that had been getting her through the week, and it was suddenly taken away.
Finally, Friday morning, her courage was depleted. Every day she called upon a well of strength that no one outside of her understands, and every day events happened that made her anxiety worse. I could not assure her that lessons would finally start, and I could not physically move her into attending. And so she stayed home.
She missed nearly two months of 8th grade due to her anxiety; this is now only the 3rd day of high school and she was out of courage.
I finally got a hold of a social worker at SWHS in person on Friday, and the poor woman got the wrath of fury that she absolutely did not deserve. The staff are doing everything they possibly can on the "important AND timely" box of priorities. Because of that, my daughter's "important but NOT timely" needs did not get met.
She is now under doctor's orders to NOT attend school until we can make the environment less triggering for her. I need the school's immediate help to put her 504 plan in place ASAP so she can attend for at least part of the day.
I am a huge proponent of public schools. I believe in them, I believe that every student deserves a quality education, that our society is made better by the education of future generations. Yet my faith in MPS' ability to provide this education has been shaken, and it is not the fault of the staff at the school, who are furiously working to fill the void of these sudden absences at the top of the school.
Why would three top administrators at one of the district's largest and most successful high schools be removed three weeks before the start of the school year? How is it that the district under-estimated the attendance of the school by nearly 200 students, so that it is not properly staffed at the beginning of the year? Why can't class schedules be accurately assigned before the start of the school year?
Our family has the resources to go elsewhere, and it appears that finally, after 9 years of a public school education, we will be leaving for private schools. This makes me sad for the public schools, because those with the resources to make them better leave, and those without have no choice but to stay. And we wonder why public schools are in decline.
No comment. Thank you for sharing. It's been a mess. What were they thinking? Not about the students. I'm convinced of that. Not about EVERY student. So sad. So bad.
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