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I am a recently retired high school teacher. My last few years were a real struggle. Dr. Grier's policy of lowering the drop out rate sounded great on paper, and will make his resume look better I guess. In reality, it meant that students were allowed to stay in school no matter what their behavior or performance in class.

I spent more time maintaining good behavior than I did in actual teaching. I saw the looks of disgust from serious students as I ignored them while having to deal with out-of-control, rude, disrespectful, and disruptive students. The percentage of disruptive students was very small. But as any teacher will tell you, one student can bring the whole teaching process to a halt if they are allowed to continue.

In one class my last year, I had numerous disruptive students. I continued to try to keep order and teach. By the end of that class I was totally drained. I talked to the students individually, assigned detention, called their parents, wrote them up, sent them to the office. Nothing helped to improve their behavior. They were never suspended. We had a new principal and three new assistants, one who came from an elementary school as a teacher, and one who came from a high school as a guidance counselor. They had no idea how to deal with these students and no experience to fall back on. We had many students who were sent to Southwest against their will, so they had a huge chip on their shoulders to begin with.

The "High Point Plan" has been a total failure. The moral of the teaching staff was further lowered with the forced "Racial Healing" workshops. I have never been more insulted in my life. What a racist group they brought in. If the huge amount of money spent on that was used to hire more teachers, we might have seen some results.

So everyday when I wake up, I thank God that I made it to retirement, and pray for all my wonderful teaching friends.

Until order is returned to the classroom, no education can take place. Just common sense.

Two intelligent people who have spoken the truth. Is anyone out there listening?

I

mrproduce I concur. I know one of the two individuals and have great respect for the words written by same.

Shalom

Thank you Ms. Dunn for you words of wisom. I wish more teachers would give insights as to what it's like inside the schools.

Mr. Produce, thank YOU for acknowledging that the pleas of those affected in High Point are still, 2 years later, falling on deaf ears.

Until the entire County comes together to demand a change in High Point, its families and students will continue to have this plan force-fed to them.

Please contact each and every Board of Education Member to demand that this High Point Plan be dismantled immediately. It's time to hold them accountable for their misguided plan. These individuals are elected to serve as our representatives. I implore every reader to make them work for their recent, self-approved raise.

Dr. Walter Childs, III
childsw@gcsnc.com
Phone: (336) 889-6420

Susan Mendenhall
mendens@gcsnc.com
Phone: (336) 883-0879

Darlene Garrett
dygarr@aol.com
Phone: (336) 643-6070



Alan W. Duncan, Chairman
alan.duncan@smithmoorelaw.com
Phone: (336) 378-5315

Anita Sharpe , Vice-Chairman
sharpea@gcsnc.com
Phone: (336) 294-5238

Marti Sykes
mcsykes6@aol.com
Phone: (336) 272-5346

Kris B. Cooke
kcooke73@triad.rr.com
Phone: (336) 379-0649

Deena A. Hayes
hayesd@gcsnc.com
Phone: (336) 272-9290

Amos Quick, III
quicka@gcsnc.com
Phone: (336) 324-1668

Nancy R. Routh
nrouth@bellsouth.net
Phone: (336) 674-7083

Dorothy Kearns
dotkendall@aol.com
Phone: (336) 887-6177

"Andrews can't be helped by combining clichés with cheerleading"

Thank you Mr. Merriman, THAT should be the quote of the YEAR.

I wonder if our highly-paid Superintendent of schools was absent the day in Superintendent School when they talked about how to improve a school?

Surely you would think that a man with a resume as thick as his would know that a lot more needs to be pumped into Andrews than just some fresh blood.

I will call each of those board members listed above. It's a Holiday but what a way to spend the afternoon. The kids in High Point are worth it.

All,

As long as public education exists and must be tailored to try to please everyone, there will be political correctness, poor discipline, low standards, and wasted money. That's the price you pay for forcing together kids of different social and economic backgrounds and kids who want to learn with the troublemakers who don't. Forcing all of these people together is like a three-year-old trying to force the square peg into the triangular hole.

The only way to ensure good education is to abolish public education. With no public education, there will be no more forcing squares into triangular holes. Instead, everyone would send their children to schools which are perfect matches for them in terms of curricula, disciplinary methodology, and classmate relations.

As for discipline specifically, the reason it's so poor in public schools now is because of what I've mentioned above--political correctness. Since the public school system has to please everyone and no single method of discipline is acceptable to everyone, the only thing teachers can be allowed to do is basically nothing at all. At worst, a student will be suspended, in school or out, which is no punishment at all.

In fact, nothing can really be a punishment for the real troublemakers anyway. They don't want to be there, period. "Punishing" them is not going to cause them to want to learn. Those people do not belong in school, period. In the meantime, our money is being stolen and wasted on these people. And they can't be permanently kicked out of school because they have a "right" to be there.

With public education abolished, however, these people would never go to school and ruin other students' educations in the first place. If they did go to a private and cause problems, however, the private school would be able to kick them out for good if it were deemed necessary.

I had three children go through the public schools in High Point and all three went to Andrews. As with any school, there were problems but minimal compared to what I hear today.

The genesis of this problem began with the school merger and the fact that High Point literally had no say in decisions made for its students and schools. Look at the record.

What do you think has driven the creation of so many new private and church related schools in High Point? There is an old saying that the fish stinks from the head. This has been the case since the merger and has not reached proportions that might no be able to be corrected.

Yes, some students still leave Andrews and do quite well in advanced education. The problems are real and can't be solved by leaders the students can bully and intimidate.

Mr. Elledge,

Thanks for the practical, highly-plausible solution. My children thank you.

The children of High Point need help NOW. Not when some "no more public eduction" movement comes to fruition--which would be, uh, NEVER.

Until you turn around the thinking of the educational system in all of America, do me a favor and call those board members listed above. They are the ones currently wasting your tax dollars TODAY.

I wonder Mr. Elledge, did you attend the Public School System in NC?

Shalom

Thank you, Carol Dunn, for speaking out! I wish you a wonderful retirement!!! If you survived reaching retirement in GCS, you can survive anything!!!

And thank you, Mr. Merriman, for your common sense approach to behavior problems!
I sincerely hope someone with the power to change will make it happen!!!

I Have A Dream,

It is a highly plausible solution. Sure, it seems unlikely now, but if we get one person at a time to see the wisdom of it, it can happen.

Daryl,

Yes, because the government has a monopoly on education, making private education accessible only to the rich and upper-middle class, I was forced to go to a public school. Unable to afford private schooling, the government gave my parents three choices:

1) bring your children to us
2) starve because you don't work in favor of home-schooling your children
3) go to jail for refusing any of the above choices

Mr. Elledge,

Did you fall and hit your head?????? We cannot even get 6 school board members (the majority) to vote to dump the illegal High Point busing plan! If you can "one person at a time" get these half-wits to "see the wisdom" in that, then you might be able to win me over to your "oust public education" idea.

Please take this on as a challenge. We only need 6 votes to rescue the kids in High Point. Okay, get ready.....GO! See what you can do. I've been trying for 2 years. Let's see if you have better luck.

I Have a Dream,

You've virtually proven me right. You indicate that you could go for my plan to abolish public education. If you're willing to believe in it, then others are too.

But your pessimism over getting it done is misguided. You're suggesting that it will only happen if we convince the current board to disband. Of course that won't happen. The reason the current board members are there is precisely because they want to control everyone.
So instead of trying to get them to change their minds, we elect new board members who would do the right thin, which we could certainly do if we'd just get the word out and get people to understand it.

I'm trying to do my part, and I'm happy that you've at least been fighting for saner policy for two years. Don't stop. The only way to guarantee that idiotic policies such as busing will continue is for people like you and me to stop fighting them.

Onward!