RE: [A]bstract [R]uritanian said...
[A]bstract [R]uritanian said...
I was placed into Special Services for expressing myself, not violently or in any way vulgar or offensive, but expressing myself through poems and drawings... Imagine a 5th grader showing off a drawing he made of a rabbit and a motorcycle. Then getting sent to a counselor, then a psychiatrist, then sitting in front of the board of Education and being sent to a school for the mentally ill.
I assume and hope that your scenario is rare. By the way, you didn't attend Stokes County Schools, did you?
As for the children/teens in Foster care, why does the state send them to a school with alleged delinquents?
Is that the case in NC? If so, good question.
While I'm generally against the idea of alternative schools, I support the idea of hiring instructors to train students 'bound' for alternative schools to take the GED within their own high schools. GED training is another way to help those saddled with the consequences of misfortunate life scenarios and/or life choices. If someone wants a high school diploma and not much else, then great. If not, then they should be able — and encouraged — to leave the public school system.
In establishing such a daytime, high-school GED course — run within each high-school for as many that are discipline problems — the responsibility of keeping kids in check is returned to the traditional school and the additional bureaucracy created by the existence of alternative schools is eliminated. Instead, education dollars are better spent on the system that is public education, not redirected to creating a school where all expectations are lower from day one.
I was placed into Special Services for expressing myself, not violently or in any way vulgar or offensive, but expressing myself through poems and drawings... Imagine a 5th grader showing off a drawing he made of a rabbit and a motorcycle. Then getting sent to a counselor, then a psychiatrist, then sitting in front of the board of Education and being sent to a school for the mentally ill.
I assume and hope that your scenario is rare. By the way, you didn't attend Stokes County Schools, did you?
As for the children/teens in Foster care, why does the state send them to a school with alleged delinquents?
Is that the case in NC? If so, good question.
While I'm generally against the idea of alternative schools, I support the idea of hiring instructors to train students 'bound' for alternative schools to take the GED within their own high schools. GED training is another way to help those saddled with the consequences of misfortunate life scenarios and/or life choices. If someone wants a high school diploma and not much else, then great. If not, then they should be able — and encouraged — to leave the public school system.
In establishing such a daytime, high-school GED course — run within each high-school for as many that are discipline problems — the responsibility of keeping kids in check is returned to the traditional school and the additional bureaucracy created by the existence of alternative schools is eliminated. Instead, education dollars are better spent on the system that is public education, not redirected to creating a school where all expectations are lower from day one.
posted by Strother | 2:18 PM
1 Comments:
As a former foster child and current child advocate...
I have to say that putting foster children and juvenile delinquents in the same category worries me also.
My worst placement as a foster child was in an emergency shelter. Most of the other teenagers there were coming from the juvenile detention center. I was just an unwanted fifteen-year-old.
My first night there, eight girls jumped me and beat me up. Why? Well, according to them, they thought that I thought I was pretty.
They did a thorough job. I looked anything but pretty when they were finished pummeling me.
Foster children are not necessarily juvenile delinquents.
While attending the FCAA Summit (Foster Care Alumni of America) recently, I spoke with a young man who was homeless, but who never tried drugs or crime until he was placed with juvenile delinquents.
In my personal experience, I did not have the 'street sense' to handle the attack. For him, he never thought of drugs or crime until older peers introduced it to him.
Too often, people expect the worst from foster children. When my friend Gayle invited a college organization to work with foster alumni, they told her, "Those kind of people don't want to go to college."
That was news to me, since I started college when I was 16 years old. I have a graduate degree now.
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