What’s Wrong with This Picture?

The school I work at used to be the happiest, highest achieving middle school in the district. The lowest and scariest middle school was across town. It seems we have switched places. Our school still has the highest API, but I think that will drop this year. The school across town has a very strong administration that has made sure that the students and staff feel safe.

At our school teachers are actually hiring other teachers to do their rotation of duty supervision because they are afraid of the students. We have an 11-step process we are to go through before the administration deals with disciplinary problems. Some other things need to be taken into consideration. The happy school has about 600 students, and we have about 1300. We no longer have campus security. Our campus security now works at the happy school. The teachers at our school do not feel supported by the administration; they feel neglected.

Another part of the problem is that our district is a low achieving district, and so the state has put sanctions on the entire district. In an attempt to fix the problems for the district, our school is being pulled down to those standards. Instead of fixing us, they are breaking us. The saying, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” really applies here. The result of these interventions is an unhappy school. I think our school would be much happier if the welfare of the students and staff were a priority instead of state testing. Did I forget to mention that? All of these sanctions are being done in an attempt to raise testing scores. The lack of discipline is a result of the district saying too many students were being suspended and expelled. The district is given money based on daily attendance. Money and test scores are the priority in this school district. What’s wrong with this picture? Something doesn’t add up.