School Changes

[pepelect]

Who cares about the exceptions I am talking about the regular old kid who would do better something pushed them over the achievement hump.   We have bright kids and dumb kids.  If you don't challenge the bright kids they burn out, if you don't reach the dumb kid then the bring a gun to school and kill 27 people?    I don't follow your psychotic logic.    So why do we publish the losers score of a football game.  Why are there world records?  Why do some people make more money than others?   You can't say anything negative and stress the positive then where in society is this pampered brat going to find gainful employment. We are not communist or socialists are we?   The collective has to prosper to keep the brightest beat down and the dimmest pumped up.


Explain it to me as if I really was listening.

[greatguns]

I see in the paper today that the  Bluestem football team did make the news when they done good same as when they were not good at all.  YEA!  they won after 69 losses.   Go Lions!

[srkruzich]

I have fired many people that probably cheated on a test.  They show up to work late, always on the phone, and don't give a crap expept for when the paychecks will be written.


It takes all kinds.


They were looking for a job when they found this one.

I was taking my final exam for graduation in electronics school.  Friend of mine and I were sitting next to each other and
we both observed this guy from poland flipping his notebook open and then closing it and answering the test.   I got infuriated
with it.  When I got up to turn my test in, i told the instructor that he was cheating on the test and i wasn't going to tolerate it
when i worked my arse off to maintain my 4.0 GPA in that school.

Instructor watched him for about 10 min, walked over grabbed his test his notebook and told him to exit the room and don't
come back.

[Lookatmeknow!!]

Ok, what Julia said about the environment has alot to do with how well children do in school.  There are really smart out there who don't try and don't get good grades and there are kids out there who try hard and can't get the grades.  But I still feel that putting out a list that says who flunked a test is very wrong.  The kids that are trying hard and still flunk the test will probably just shut down completely.  What are you accomplishing then???  You are just making that already frustrated student more frustrated.  I feel, as a former teacher, you should teach to the highest student in the class.  This will help to bring up the lower students and in turn help the higher students also.  You can also do peer teaching, that is a great thing to help the lower students bring their grades up.  I also feel that you can't just teach the same way to all students.  Teachers need to modify their teaching to touch every student.  Many of the teachers here do do that.  I do know that some classes as a whole have less high achievers than others.  I know in Parker class, they are very competative.  They strive to beat other students on test scores, reading, and also all other academic areas.  This is a good thing!!  They won't settle for being average.  They want to go for it all.  But you have other classes that just don't have much academic abilities. 

Pep, I see where you are coming from.  But to tell you the truth, just because a person flunks a test it doesn't mean that they won't be successful in their life.  I feel that many students feel that just because they didn't get all A's or B's that they aren't college material.  That is so very untrue.  College is such a different ball game than high school.  They do have the requirements that they must take, but when they are done with those, they then can take the classes that go towards their degree.  I think that parents need to stress this to students.

Ok, I got off and forgot to touch base with what Julie said.  I don't think that people in this community realize the number of students that come from really bad homes.  They struggle every moment at home and school is the only place that they can get away from the pain and torment that is happening to them at their home.  This is such a task for teachers today.  You have students that are passes around from place to place, people to people, and they just don't know where they belong.  Schools are becoming more of a place to feel safe and secure than a place for learning.  That makes it tough on the teachers, because the teachers know what they are going through at home, but they know that they must learn at school, too.  Do you know that teachers, these days, are teaching students much more than they had to know when I was a kid.  Teachers have to be the role models, mothers, fathers, caregivers, friends, and also teach their students.  Not that teachers didn't do this when I was a kid, but the world is so much different then it used to be. 

Enough of my going on and on, but you can tell that I am very passionate about learning and education. 

[Dale Smith]

I think that when you get down to the nuts and bolts of this, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) would prevent this from happening anyway.

[srkruzich]

I don't know how the schools are setup here, but being one of those who flunked tests all the time, it was not because
i was dumb as a rock, it was because i couldn't do the test the way the establishment wanted it.  For example,
in math, the teacher used to write an equation on the board, algebra, trig, geometry and i could answer it by the
time she finished writing. But when i was asked to show the work, i couldn't do it, it just totally confused me.

That ment i got all the answers right on tests but failed the tests.

I took 2 semesters in college and flunked out on business law, accounting, and a couple other classes but when i went
to electronics school i graduated with a 4.0 gpa. 

What my question is, is do the schools here have curriculum for students geared towards their natural abilities.
For example, i have 6 kids.  1 was a natural electronics wiz, 1 a photobug, 1 of my sons anything he wanted but joined marines,
another one of my sons is mechanically inclined and a wiz at anything mechanical.  He joined marines and recieved a medical discharge. My 5th son excelled in agriculture class, and my last son joined the army.   

Not everyone is college material, not everyone can pass tests or do work but know the information and can get the answers.  The key is to educate towards the aptitude of each individual and then if they wish to go elsewhere obtain it in higher education instead of popping them into a one size fits all mold.

[Teresa]

Perfectly said! 

[pepelect]

ya, ya, ya, and I was bullied at school.....not.   
Public school should not have to be set up like a magnet.   If you want to learn ballet go to a ballet school.  If you want to get in touch with your inter child go to KU or some other waste of good granite.

Good job Bluestem football you are out of the gutter.  WE held that distinction in the past.   WE has a better athletic program now but I  haven't seen a Rhode Scholar yet.

But I think that WE should and does cater to the regular old stupid kid.   We have a special education budget that is  60% of the entire school.   Still we have made improvement and NCLB benchmarks.   But what happens next year.  If you have good students, good scores, and good teachers, then what do you do to improve?  It is call Annual Yearly Progress.  If you are not meeting AYP you can lose your funding.  Less stupid than last year gets funding.  Good but not better gets the shaft. 

The system is not set up to reward teaching the most inovative or out side the box type of structure.  If you could get more funding more programs would be created.  But this is the real world, I am constantly reminded on other channels, if you send 1/4 of you students out of district than 1/4 of your funding goes with them. 

Why are we not stealing students from other districts?   What is so wrong with our system that is driving away our Patriots?
Couldn't we grab a couple of cubs before they become Lions?   
If we took a couple of small devils they would not become so sad.   

[Lookatmeknow!!]

I don't know why we can't get more kids from other districts.  One reason that I can think of is that we don't have an open door policy like other schools around.  We did get the Young family into the district.  They are pretty good kids, too.  But in the same sense we have students that leave our schools and go to others, too.  Do you know I addressed this issue to the school board before about loosing students to Longton, do you know they didn't even know it was happening.  How could they not?  They have to O.K. in district students attending out of district schools and vice versa. 

[pepelect]

We can't get kids from other districts because we don't market our selves very well.   I am the biggest portrayer of negativity that ever graduated from the WEHS but I still have never seen a positive image sent out across district lines.    What are we providing that you can't get at Longton, Burden, Eureka, Cedar Vale, Dexter, or Fredonia?  Why wouldn't you want to be in a smaller classroom?  Who cares if the teachers are exceptional?   We offer every sport imaginable aside from tennis.  The swim team needs more funding.  Golf could use a local venue.   

There are some great assets  that never make the paper. 

Why do we only hear about the windows being broken out, stores being vandalized, mail boxes smashed, and score of the ballgames?   

How many students go to college from WE?  How many stay?  How prepared to go to the next level of the real world do students feel after five years, ten years, longer?   What kind and how many dollars worth of scholarships are available every year to the graduates?

Is the vocational program doing enough to prepare those who choose not to pursue post-secondary education?  Can we balance a check book?   Do we realize that credit has to be paid back?    Is the industial arts giving enough creativity not structure to ensure the artistic vision of the youth is used thoughout their lives?   Can we read a tape measure?

Is a color pallet a pallet with cans of paint stacked on it?