Turtleboy: Either You’re With Boone or You’re With North High

Monday, March 02, 2015

Turtleboy

Unless you’ve been living in a cave then you know by now that North High School is the talk of the town. So far this year students have assaulted all four assistant principals. Ya got that? All of them!! This is not a problem; it is a crisis. Unfortunately the Worcester Public Schools are run by inept administrators who are more concerned with policing the Facebook pages of their teachers than they are with creating and maintaining a save learning environment for children.

Anyone with a brain can see that a police officer inside North High School is necessary. It works on so many levels. A police officer is trained in restraints in case of a fight. Principals and teachers are not. A police officer has the ability to arrest. Principals and teachers do not. Most importantly though, a police officer gives students, who might ordinarily have a natural distrust of the police, an opportunity to build positive relationships with the police, and vice versa. It’s a win-win for all parties.

But in light of recent events on the national stage Melinda Boone has clearly bought into the anti-police hysteria. Her refusal to take into consideration the appeals of the students and teachers under her watch is incompetence at its finest.

And what exactly is her plan?

1) “Focus groups” with North High alumni.

2) Assemblies on nonviolence and personal accountability.

3) Meetings with “Black Legacy” and the “Latino Education Institute” to focus on “their” concerns.

4) A 12-week training session on parenting for exactly 20 parents, which will include bus passes, dinner, child care, and interpreters.

5) Emotional/social groups with You, Inc. for a selected 40 students.

6) Have an impromptu meeting with no advanced notification for parents and lock out the media.

7) Refuse to answer questions from concerned parents and teachers. 8) Order lots of pizza.

That’s it. I swear to God. This is not a joke. That’s an actual plan for a school that has had four bomb threats, four vice principals assaulted, and multiple teachers assaulted by students. This is how Melinda Boone believes crisis’s should be solved. Pow wows and meetings with groups that divide us amongst racial lines.

The teachers at North have reached a breaking point and I don’t blame them. Several of the students involved in these incidences are over the age of 18. Several of them have committed offenses that would justify expulsion. But she keeps sending them back. Why? Probably because she continues to use the fact that the North High graduation rate has jumped from 55 to 71% under her “leadership” in a vain attempt to convince morons that he plan will work. But generally graduation rates improve when you refuse to remove kids from school and force teachers to pass kids along.

The North High faculty will be at Thursday’s School Committee meeting in full force. Five of the seven recently voted to not only renew her contract but to give her a raise teachers could never dream of. Let it be known that any of those five who continues to be steadfast in their support of Boone has clearly aligned themselves against the teachers and against the safety of their students. One of them is Mayor Joe Petty. Rookie Councilor Mike Gaffney, who will be challenging Petty in November, will be there to speak out in favor of the teachers. It’s time for the School Committee to pick aside. Boone and her charts, or students and teachers and their safety.

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