Parents and schools
By sapphiresage
@sapphiresage (431)
United States
April 13, 2007 11:14am CST
Around here, the student population is growing far faster than they can build schools to meet the demand. Parents are being very difficult and fighting the schools' efforts to fit all the students in. A neighboring county planned to go to a year-round schedule for some of the schools, because you can accommodate about 25% more kids in a building that way (it's because a fourth of the kids are on vacation at any given time). This was after the parents had already put a stop to the school board looking into alternative locations - they were going to lease a building to use as a school, and parent went berserk over it. So the school board backed off and started study alternative ways to accommodate the kids.
Well, the parents have thrown an absolute fit about the year-round schedule proposal, whining about vacations and mixed schedules. They went so far as to file a lawsuit to stop the school board from implementing this new schedule. So now the school board has said that if the schedule is blocked, they will have to start a split schedule in some schools - meaning that kids will attend school in shifts, with the evening shift being dismissed at about 7:30pm. Naturally, the parents are in an uproar about this.
I'm trying to figure out what the parents expect the school board to do. The words 'not enough space in the schools' seem pretty clear to me, so why don't they understand that the choices are not going to be easy? They seem more concerned about their vacations and being inconvenienced than they do about their kids getting an education. They're backing the school board into a corner, and time is running out to come up with any more solutions.
I guess what I want to know from myLotters is this: If you lived in this county and were faced with this mess, what would you do? Would you back the school board's efforts to find space for all the kids? Would you file a lawsuit to stop them because the new schedule was inconvenient? What is your opinion on all this?
Thanks in advance for responses!
1 person likes this
3 responses
@seamonkey (1976)
• Ireland
13 Apr 07
I live in a country where this is happening left, right and center. In order for our schools to get a new teacher, they have to manage for a school year with the number of pupils that warrant a new teacher, apply for funding to pay a new teacher's salary during that school year, and then hire one over the summer. We have been through all of that as well as having too many children to fit into the physical building. We now have a portable building, but one class of the kids were using the church hall for the first five weeks of the school year until the new portable was ready. We weren't happy, but we have tried to make the best of a bad situaton.
@mememama (3076)
• United States
13 Apr 07
I'd be behind the school board. It seems like a nice school where they want to educate their students. That's way better than a lot of other schools where they don't give a darn what happens to them. I think if anything, I'd be helping them find more locations! If the school expands, they can accomodate the children. It's just a fact of life and with the increasing population, we need more schools!
1 person likes this
@oldboy46 (2129)
• Australia
16 Apr 07
Probably have to go along with the school board on this one ... not easy particularly if parents had children at different levels and so attending school at different times. That would be almost impossible of course ... but there are alternatives. It is up to the government to provide the schools for the children to attend ... so start lobbying the local member and if he does nothing, then perhaps he needs to be kicked out of office. Vacations are important for both the parents and the children ... they do need some family time together away from the daily routine that comes from school and work.
An alternative is to home school the children ... and that can be done by most people if they are willing to follow a curriculum and apply some discipline to themselves and the children of course ... not easy but it can be done. Parents could band together and help each other out here ... if they were willing to make some compromises but maybe they aren't. How about private schools? That is another alternative but it might be a bit too expensive for some.
So lobby the local government people ... if they don't do something about providing additional schools then the answer is to give them a good swift kick up the butt at the next election ... and make their life plain hell in the meantime.
