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Are there some sort of district-wide guidelines about the type of infractions that warrant suspension?
12 comments:
Anonymous
said...
The bottom line is that students have always "run the halls" at Allderdice. Hall sweeps and suspensions are nothing new. Detention doesn't work. Students skip detention and end up getting suspended anyway. Unfortunately, the "good" students end up getting punished like the "bad" "students". (quotes are intentional). But the punishment must be applied uniformly or you will have people screaming discrimination. Most of these suspensions don't go on students' records anyway.
I'll look it up later, but I don't believe that's how Mark Roosevelt was quoted after the riot. I believe he said those 20 students were definitely out, and maybe more.
To me that's the more interesting story here -- I don't think the district is keeping their population stats up to date anymore though, last I checked April's Allderdice # was the same as March's which if it were the new number would mean no one was suspended.
No, numbers are not being kept up. PURE made a call to the parent hotline in early March after the usual first of the month updates were not made, and was told that the school websites were "in the process of being updated." Another call was put in after no April updates were made. It has now been two and a half months since the last enrollment updates. The district will always be working on school websites, but it would seem that information should be updated in the meantime.
Even if a suspension for some reason isn't put on a student's record, many college applications require any suspensions to be disclosed. And an admissions officer could very well believe that schools have a lot of discretion with something like a hallway issue and must have a reason to choose to suspend. Contrast this with other schools and systems that are trying to make their students look good to colleges!
1) Which colleges see or ask for suspension data on a student? From my experience, they see the transcript which only includes grades and scores. No attendance is even reported on a transcript.
2) If hall sweeps are nothing new at Allderdice, what does the "new" principal have to do with it?
I've seen many comments on principal experience. What is our definition of a good experience? I can think of many who have held jobs for decades that should never become a leader of anything let alone a school.
Some Allderdice parents seem to be suggesting that the recent hall sweeps are in fact something new/different than has usually been the case in the past.
Yes, the common application asks and the schools that didn't take the common application also asked about suspensions. I suppose that you could contact the school to find out if a college would ever find out if you LIED on an application, but that isn't a life lesson I'd like to pass on to a kid.
I have no problem with a suspension for a certain number of tardies or late in the hallways, but it really does seem like something for which a first offense might need a lighter sentence.
My impression is that Allderdice has always had this policy, they just didn't actually do hall sweeps very often.
As to the #2 point -- principal bonuses are based in part on suspension numbers. That is, principals needed to take suspension rates down to get the maximum bonus. My guess is that the Allderdice principal has been told this no longer applies to him and that he needs to get a better grip on his school.
I do wonder if it's caused any soul-searching about the bonus/suspension policy in the first place, but I'm guessing not. In-school suspension and detention cost money to run, while out of school suspensions are free to the district.
12 comments:
The bottom line is that students have always "run the halls" at Allderdice. Hall sweeps and suspensions are nothing new. Detention doesn't work. Students skip detention and end up getting suspended anyway. Unfortunately, the "good" students end up getting punished like the "bad" "students".
(quotes are intentional). But the punishment must be applied uniformly or you will have people screaming discrimination. Most of these suspensions don't go on students' records anyway.
I'll look it up later, but I don't believe that's how Mark Roosevelt was quoted after the riot. I believe he said those 20 students were definitely out, and maybe more.
To me that's the more interesting story here -- I don't think the district is keeping their population stats up to date anymore though, last I checked April's Allderdice # was the same as March's which if it were the new number would mean no one was suspended.
No, numbers are not being kept up. PURE made a call to the parent hotline in early March after the usual first of the month updates were not made, and was told that the school websites were "in the process of being updated." Another call was put in after no April updates were made. It has now been two and a half months since the last enrollment updates. The district will always be working on school websites, but it would seem that information should be updated in the meantime.
Maybe we are starting to see the effects of having inexperienced principals in charge of schools.
Even if a suspension for some reason isn't put on a student's record, many college applications require any suspensions to be disclosed. And an admissions officer could very well believe that schools have a lot of discretion with something like a hallway issue and must have a reason to choose to suspend. Contrast this with other schools and systems that are trying to make their students look good to colleges!
Definitely the district's suspension AND other figures are manipulated.
Get out. PPS is sooooo "data driven."
Two questions to the posts:
1) Which colleges see or ask for suspension data on a student? From my experience, they see the transcript which only includes grades and scores. No attendance is even reported on a transcript.
2) If hall sweeps are nothing new at Allderdice, what does the "new" principal have to do with it?
I've seen many comments on principal experience. What is our definition of a good experience? I can think of many who have held jobs for decades that should never become a leader of anything let alone a school.
See the Common Application, page 5 "Disciplinary History."
https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/CommonApp2008.pdf
Some Allderdice parents seem to be suggesting that the recent hall sweeps are in fact something new/different than has usually been the case in the past.
Yes, the common application asks and the schools that didn't take the common application also asked about suspensions. I suppose that you could contact the school to find out if a college would ever find out if you LIED on an application, but that isn't a life lesson I'd like to pass on to a kid.
I have no problem with a suspension for a certain number of tardies or late in the hallways, but it really does seem like something for which a first offense might need a lighter sentence.
My impression is that Allderdice has always had this policy, they just didn't actually do hall sweeps very often.
As to the #2 point -- principal bonuses are based in part on suspension numbers. That is, principals needed to take suspension rates down to get the maximum bonus. My guess is that the Allderdice principal has been told this no longer applies to him and that he needs to get a better grip on his school.
I do wonder if it's caused any soul-searching about the bonus/suspension policy in the first place, but I'm guessing not. In-school suspension and detention cost money to run, while out of school suspensions are free to the district.
Look for more of the same thing at Peabody, apparently there was a real problem w/ fighting last week.
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