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By: Sally Bowman Alden
Mother, and V.P. Legal.compage 1
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This week, another one of our charter school’s many forms came home for parents to sign. In fact, our 8 year old daughter was furious with me this morning because she said that if we didn’t sign it, she couldn’t go to our school anymore. I was shocked by the form and wanted to do a little research first before we made any decision about signing it. I was also distressed with the way this was presented to our daughter. The form gives us notice and requires us to sign in four different places (along with our child) that if our child does not behave according to the school’s expectations in “speciality” classes of art, physical education and Spanish, the consequence will be “a loss of the privilege of attending that specialty for a period of time.” Since two of these subjects (visual arts and physical education) are mandated by the California Education Code (51210) and the total number of required instructional hours are also governed by this Code, I have to wonder what our school is doing. It appears that our school is trying to contract away our child’s rights to some of their education. No such form has been sent home regarding reading, math or the like. Why for the “speciality” subjects? First of all, the law has explicit rules governing disciplinary actions. A school cannot unilaterally decide that a child doesn’t have access to any part of their education for extended periods of time without providing alternative methods of teaching the child. Regardless of the Code, folks, let’s use some common sense. Does removing a child from a class for even a week do anything to solve the problem? Particularly in a class like Spanish, if they suspend a child for a week, they will have a child who was having trouble already who will now be a week behind their classmates. If they want to see real problems, make sure the child is now clueless of what is going on in the classroom! On the surface, it appears our speciality teachers may need help in classroom management strategies and effective positive behavior management techniques. Is our school attempting to shift their responsibility for developing and managing their specialty teachers to our children or us as parents? If a child has behavioral issues, including special needs children with IEPs and 504 plans, is the school now going to deprive them of part of their education without doing their job of teaching their teachers first? Even more concerning, is our school trying to “get rid of” children who have issues that may require special education services or 504 accommodations, rather than determining what these children’s issues are and how to meet their needs? |
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