I am so perturbed by the lack of concern for other people's time, and the ease in which those in control so easily rationalize it away as being insignificant.
It didn't even happen to me, but if I don't blog about this, I will end up calling my niece's principal, so I think this is a better bet.
My sister, as you all well know by now, lives in Michigan, where the private school population is not large enough to apply pressure to receive busing from the district. Thus, they all carpool their children to and from school everyday. Everyday their children leave at the same time, and are home at the same time, just like on a school bus. Everyday. You get out of school, you get home a set amount of time later. Like clockwork. When your kids are in tenth and twelfth grades, it really is like clockwork, you can plan your schedule accordingly, know that your other carpools will not be impacted, and just generally maintain some order in the evening rush.
Unless one teacher decides to punish her class by keeping them five minutes later at the end of class...at the end of the day without any notice to the parents, and no notice to the other kids in the carpool, so as a punishment to seventeen year olds, who couldn't care less, parents, other kids in the carpool , and younger kids have to suffer.
What's five minutes? Well, if your kid is home at the same time EVERY SINGLE DAY for four years, it's pretty easy to run your life around that, and that includes appointments that hinge on either older kids being home, or being dismissed AT DISMISSAL TIME!!! You may make a choice to leave a younger child at home alone, knowing it will be a set amount of time, but if you have to wait for the five minute punishment plus the three minutes for the kids to get out of the building, that's an eight minute punishment, and that is a significant amount of time, no matter how you try to wish it away.
A punishment at the end of the day shows lack of care or concern for the lives or time of the rest of the family. A claim of "it's just five minutes," proves how callous it really is, because to each person five minutes means different things, and effects the timing of other things as well.
The worst part is the snide reaction from the principal, and the fact that SHE LET THE TEACHER DO IT A SECOND TIME!!!!!
If a kid came "only five minutes late" to class or to school, it would be seriously frowned upon, and perhaps a punishment instituted. I have no problem if a teacher wants to punish a class, it just doesn't have to be that day. The parents should be notified, if you want to give detention, then give it the next day, and if you want to teach these girls a lesson, make it for 30 minutes.
The sad part is so many parents are just sitting back and taking it. It is no wonder the schools don't care.
3 comments:
i had this issue with a local High School, that uses detention for being late on CARPOOL days. This causes the parents to have to come and get the kids ( and it isnt close) so if the kid made the carpool late, then you are punishing the parents without cause. If the parent made the carpool late, then you are punishing the child without cause, and who the heck are you to punish a parent?
Well said! The principal even told me that they would not allow a teacher to do this to other teachers because it is so disruptive and takes away from the second teachers time!!!!
I guess as parents we don't count!
I also think that if you don't have another (Boys) carpool a few minutes after the girls or an appointment that night there are many parents that wouldn't even notice which is what the school was counting on.
you people are missing the point. you know how the mafia targets the wife and kids? same concept. have one day of disrupted routine, missed appointments, kids home alone for eight minutes, and those parents will read their kids the riot act, threaten to take away their phone/ipod/driving privaliges, etc. unless they shape up and behave in class. DISCLAIMER! DISCLAIMER! not saying I agree, but that's the logic.
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