threeplusfire | (no subject)

My former high school has gone to hell. It's now the worst campus in the Round Rock school district. Police refuse assignments there. My mother is pulling my sister, a sophomore, out and sending her to the community college to get her GED. Her math teacher is failing her no matter how hard she tries, and repeatedly tells my sister to give up and drop out, cause we don't need your kind in the schools. How can you say that to a kid? Last week my sister was violently assaulted by another kid in the classroom, while a teacher watched. No one tried to stop it, no one called the police, they didn't even bother to call my mother. When my sister got home, she of course told my mother who turned around and called the school. Their reply to the incident was "Well, we're understaffed." What the fuck? They can't even keep my sister safe on a good day, and the schools tried to cover up the bomb threats on the Columbine anniversary. If a local station hadn't blown open the story, they wouldn't have told any of the parents.

It scares me, it scares me. This is the same school that told me it was all my fault they hired a child abuser, that it was my fault the man was harassing me and other students, my fault that he was abusing us. My fault, cause I was obviously a fucked up kid. And now they are trying to destroy my sister's life too. God.

My mother is devastated. Because she always told us school was important, to have respect for it, to get that diploma and go to college. Now she is in a position where it is safer and better for my sister to drop out and go to ACC for a GED.

Fuck you George W. Bush. This is your legacy, the Texas public education system. Fuck you Round Rock Independent School District. Fuck you for not caring about us. My children will never go to public schools here. It's worse than I ever imagined it could be.

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living in dallas independent school district, my parents believe the schools are so bad that i have gone to private school for my entire education. and now i'm miserable even with the good education and the safety, etc. so i'm looking at boarding schools. i spend this past weekend in michigan at interlochen arts academy. it was wonderful.
this is what i need. not pretentious kids from overly rich families who claim (and i quote) "i could never imagine marry a man who's not as rich as my daddy." i have friends in the richardson district who love their schools though. maybe it's not all bad. maybe there's hope somewhere.

For our future, I hope it's better somewhere... Otherwise we're in trouble. Good luck with the boarding school. Sounds nice.

I think I might have gone to school with some of those rich kids at my second high school. ;) They complained when Daddy only bought them a Mercedes and not a Porsche.

wow, i can't believe that about your school. it's seriously fucked up, and in ways different than most schools are fucked up & oppressive. good for your mom for doing something about it, though.

You know, I never imagined my middle class, well funded, mostly white, suburban high school would go bad so fast. It's just strange.

I think my mom is doing the best she can in a bad situation. This has been hard on her, because she used to believe in the school system.

Don't know you'd say Bush was either smart enough or powerful enough to do all that damage to the schools in the time he was governor. Especially while raising Texas's national rankings and pushing for genuine reform, like ending social promotion. I think it's more one of those "We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world." things. It is bigger than individuals, and is fundamental fault in our system.

I tend to think the schools are like the prisons, or like canaries in a mine shaft. They are on the front of the curve, but just show the problems in the system as a whole...

OTOH, LISD wasn't so bad when I was there. But it, too, has developed more problems lately, and had ones I didn't know while I was there.

I know he isn't the root cause, but blocking money for teacher raises and health insurance certainly didn't help.

And I wanted to scream. I'm still so angry about it. I think about walking into that office and tellign them I'm going to every news station in town, hiring a lawyer and exposing every terrible thing they've doen to every kid in that building. It makes me sick.

But you know why, and you know how much it hurts.

Eek.. Houston public schools (minus like HISD) are great. :S I'm very sorry you had do deal with all that.

My friend Karen is from Houston and I was telling her all of this today. She said, "I'm so glad I went to school in Houston after hearing you talk about this." I've heard the schools there are somewhat better.

I went to elementary school in Houston for a short time and it was the only school i ever went to with swings. :)

Which one did you go to? McNeil? I went to Westwood but when we moved across 183 they tried to make me go to McNeil, even though it was really far away. That was the stupidest zoning range for who goes to what school. Anyway, I had to go there for a couple days anyway while my mom pled my case to the bitch at Westwood and coincidentally, that shooting happened while I was in school there. My mom freaked and needless to say got me back into Westwood. I think that was a big downhill marker for McNeil. I even ended up years later becoming friends with that kid who had brought the gun to school (not knowing it was him at first) and he's really cool now. I think McNeil just kind of didn't put their foot down after that and that was weird, and of course they took no responsibility.

I noticed that while I was there. McNeil had no control, no discipline for the kids. People did terrible things and got away with it. The red neck boy who bloodied my nose my freshman year was never punished. I think the violence was building up while I was there, because I remember witnessing some pretty brutal beatings.

you know, what really convinces me that things are bad is that Williamson County police don't want to go there. You know what those guys can be like, and if they aren't willing to work in the school... I shudder to think. Thank God we're taking my sister out of there.

Hi Amanda,

I was following the Totoro chain and came across your journal... (And I was excited to see The Last Unicorn too!! yippeee)
Anyway, I got caught in your school talk. I am currently a high school teacher (though not in Texas) and let me tell you, it is awful all over. I am counting down the weeks before it all ends and I go on to something bearable. I am 25 and this is my first year teaching fulltime, and I don't know who to blame: myself, the kids, their parents, the school system? It's all screwed up. I've found discipline to be the hardest challenge: but also apparently the most important thing. Teaching in itself has to be put on the backburner, and it impossible to make any real progress with students acting the way they do. Then the good students suffer and it's sort of the teacher's fault for not controlling the class. That's part of what I've been up against. Everyone gets away with things, the kids backtalk, manipulate and no one can stop them. Also I see teachers and administrators ignoring their duties or just plain not caring. The priorities don't make anysense. I did care, but have begun not to. It's become a survival tactic. The negativity is too much. Best of luck to your sister... hang in there.

I have tremendous respect for anyone who teaches. It's a difficult job, and one we so desperately need good people for. I want to teach so much, and I dread it at the same time because I know how bad it is out there. I am sorely tempted to run away to Russia or the Czech republic and do my teaching there.

How did you get into teaching? What made you care in the first place? I hope you make it through the end of the year. Good luck.

My god that sucks! Why doesn't your mother move so that your sister can go to a better school???

Because she has lost faith in the school district, and she simply can't afford to move. She bought the house 8 years ago before the market went insane in Austin, and it is near her job, ACC & all that. I don't think she could find another house in that part of town for less than $150,000. Which is ridiculous, and the Austin housing market is inflated.

My sister isn't really much of a student. She would rather get the GED and get a job right now. Come Novemeber she will be 17 and legally able to drop out of high school without my mother's permission. Sending her to ACC to get the GED is perhaps the best way to keep my sister from totally screwing herself over.

Aahhh.. I see. Well, I agree that she definately needs to get out of that school. Send my "good luck" to them. :>

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texas public schools

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yeah McNeil is weird

the downfall of schools

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