A Homeland Security teacher's take on my story
I just received this letter from a teacher at Homeland Security Academy in response to my article today:
As a teacher at Homeland Security Academy, I am writing to correct the sense of the article by Sara Neufeld in this morning’s Sun, “Alonso urges students to transfer….” While many of the discrete facts recited in the article are true, the arrangement leaves the completely inaccurate impression that the school’s administration and faculty sat on our collective hands, allowing the situation to “…spiral further out of control…” until the saving grace of North Avenue appeared to end the madness. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Arnetta Rudisill is and was during her tenure at this school a driven, powerful woman with a firm sense of mission for this school, its students and faculty. Despite being limited in mobility from a serious ankle injury, she was a constant and consistent force in the building. She encouraged faculty and students both to pursue excellence and, at the same time, strove to control and to eliminate gang activity, vandalism, truancy and violence. Many of us on the faculty worked with her to the degree of our own skills, balancing teaching planning and preparation with police work.
Homeland Security was a repository for students from around the city who had shown their inability or unwillingness to conform to the requirements of other schools. Students routinely walk out of class, walk out of the building and back in, disregard legitimate directions from teachers. They do so in the sure and certain knowledge that there are no meaningful sanctions awaiting their misbehavior.
North Avenue has directed that all suspensions of any students must be cleared and authorized through its offices. Many of our students, otherwise inclined to work and study, see their fellows tossed from a class for grossly disrespectful or other disruptive behavior and immediately returned to the class without any meaningful sanction whatsoever. They quickly learn the underlying lesson; there is no rule which they must obey.
Numerous factual errors persist in the article. Homeland Security has a wide array and large number of afterschool activities, including two that actually pay students to participate. Many of my students have told me that they would like to participate but that they fear for their safety. That fear is not within the building but waiting for the bus on the meanest of gang-ridden streets. The ‘crime scene tape’ reported was to deter student from using the main building entrance while the outer steps were being demolished and rebuilt. The only crime involved was that the deterioration of the stairs had gotten as far as it did, a North Avenue issue, not within Ms Rudisill’s control.
Homeland’s administration, specifically Ms Rudisill, requested additional resources from North Avenue to assist with hallway control, gang prevention and other issues of atmosphere and tone. Many members of the faculty, this writer included, wonder whether the situation would have deteriorated to its present level had those requests been honored in September, rather than being withheld until the crisis crested.
The article observes that five principals have gone through this school in four years. What more evidence of a critical problem did North Avenue need? Why did the city’s schools administration not account for the fact that with so many troublesome apples in one basket the basket required enormous if expensive oversight?
In the opinion of this writer, far too much blame for the faculty and building administration has issued from North Avenue and far too little support. Are we all perfect? Far from it; and we know it and work diligently to improve our skills. Have we received, as a school, the support needed to correct serious problems? No. In whose hands was the control of that support? Clearly, not ours.
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Comments
Bravo! Dr. Alonso claims that he has given the power to run schools to the principals. The only thing he has given them is a budget to balance. Dr. Alonso has NOT given principals the power to discipline kids. In fact, he has taken that away. Dr. Alonso has single-handedly allowed the kids to run the schools. That is why violence is up and the murder at Lemmel Middle School took place. Suspensions are down but incidents are up. They are just not being reported or dealt with appropriately. BCPSS, excuse me, City Schools, are headed down a violent path of no return.
Posted by: Baltimore Teacher | January 24, 2009 9:46 AM
I am a teacher at a neighborhood high school, and we are often in the same situation. We receive students who have failed and have few options if they fail with us.
We've had so many problems this year, we even hemorrhage at times, but my administration and colleagues work hard to keep our school moving forward. We often fail, but we keep trying to think innovatively and practically. Maybe the leaders at Homeland just didn't understand how to play their cards, and I'm sure it wasn't for lack of trying.
I think it's perfectly acceptable to place blame on the administration and even some of the faculty. Other schools are dealing with the same challenges and are making it work, even if just barely.
I'm not defending North Ave, but the school failing its students has to do with a lot more than simply pointing fingers. People failed to do their jobs.
Posted by: An unpopular opinion | January 24, 2009 11:48 AM
As a teacher at one of the receiving schools I can tell you there is a BIG DIFFERENCE in our school and a neighborhood school. I taught in a neighborhood school for a decade and it is night and day. We have already accepted 2 students from Homeland since Rudisill left. The reason for the transfers, according to those parents, were that they did not feel safe with their children in the school now that Rudisill is gone! What does that tell you? I think she was just a victim of a bad system who was handed a failing school and asked to perform a miracle! How come North Avenue didnt provide help until after she left? The bottom line is that if we continue to allow students to do as they please with no consequences, every school will fail. Moving the students around does not matter if they dont understand what they are to do. Lets hold ALL students as accountable as we hold adults! Often, as in this case, adults are help fully accountable for the actions of the students, with no accountability on the part of students.
Posted by: concerned teacher | January 24, 2009 7:24 PM