2004 Entries
2003 Entries
2002 Entries

2004-02-26 - 4:02 p.m.

Addendum to “Enabling or Educating”

In the previous entry I mentioned a young man who has decided attending his required core educational requirements isn’t a necessity for his graduation. Instead, he and his mother and some nimble-witted staff members at the high school designed a program where a block of time spent in construction technology for the reminder of the school year would fulfill credits in physical science, American history and communication arts. I have not yet figured out how that was supposed to work. It’s just the facts, ma’am!

Since the previous entry, the kid learned he would be required to follow our attendance policies and competency-based evaluations if he came into one of our career-path programs. Well, no, he didn’t want to do that either. He did, however, “want and deserve” a high school diploma.

It was back to the drawing board—again--for the nimble-witted school folks.

Jumpin Jehosaphat! A solution was found.

The kid will stay home mornings, arriving at school at noon each day and continue in the three hours of class he likes. The district will hire a private teacher for those core academic classes he no longer wants to attend. She will to go to his home twice weekly, once to drop off home work, once to pick it up. And he will line up to graduate with a host of other kids who have busted their humps for four years to get there.

God grant me patience and the intestinal fortitude not to go out and get hammered!

Previous -- Next