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The wasted week in Boston schools
By adamg on Wed, 06/26/2013 - 7:30am
State law requires 180 days of education for Massachusetts students, but most BPS high-school kids really only get 175. At my daughter's school, finals were last week, so the kids are spending this week watching movies in classes (she reports she saw parts of "Gattaca" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" yesterday).
Of course, this is nothing unique to this year - it's been going on forever. But it is especially stupid and even cruel this year, when kids who can't simply skip the entire week (because they were out sick earlier in the year and are bumping up against their limits for absences) have to try to survive extreme heat and humidity in buildings with no air conditioning that were locked tight over a hot weekend.
Some kids have it even worse because they suddenly had to find new ways to get to school. BPS contracts with the MBTA to provide direct bus service to many high schools (leading to things such as 34 buses marked "Humboldt and Townsend" going down Hyde Park Avenue). But it seems nobody at BPS told the T that the school year would be ending this week instead of last (due to snow days and one hurricane day) and so the T stopped this "supplemental" service on Friday. When did BPS notify students? Monday afternoon (at least, at our daughter's school). And parents? They were notified Tuesday morning.
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Comments
Glorified babysitting...
...that's all it is, really. That's why teachers couldn't care less about students' absences at this point.
I couldn't agree more Adam!
I couldn't agree more Adam! This week has been such a waste! Granted, my son is only in kindergarten but come on! All the afterschool programs ended last week, and camps don't start until next week, which has left my husband and I scrambling all week this week for babysitters. Seriously annoying.
As someone who went to BPS...
Make that 13 wasted years in Boston schools.
While the busing thing is
While the busing thing is ridiculous, I don't think the wasted last week situation is something unique to BPS.
Don't blame the 180 Days
Blame the lack of willingness to open early in September.
Medford Public Schools are in the same boat - and it is largely due to the failure to keep schools open on election day and, ridiculously, the way the schools don't open until two days after Labor Day - even if Labor Day is September 7!
The problem is the excessive number of pissed-away days in our case, not the storms or the 180 day requirement.
I'd blame the liberal
polices regarding calling snow days and the unwillingness to reduce or cancel April vacation week in those years with a high number of said snow days.
Free Day Care
That's what the city of Boston is providing right now. Not why teachers went into teaching. They actually have real end-of-the year work to do.
Just curious
Keep hearing about these poor kids in schools with no air conditioning - did anybody out there go to school with air conditioning?
I think the teacher's room in my school had a window unit along with the principal's room and that was about it.
Is this just BLS - or all schools? I hope not - while BLS is probably fine - I'm guessing there's plenty of learning left to do in the rest of the schools and in a below average performing system with among the shortest school days in the country I'd imagine the teachers would cherish a few extra days/hours to get their kids up to par? No?
This question comes up every
This question comes up every year, but we didn't go to school until the end of June when most of us were kids, so it doesn't really resolve anything.
As I recall, I did
I believe my end of year was around June 20th plus or minus - but that was a long time ago. Bottom line - if it was 90 degrees in June or September - we went to school and don't ever recall any real arguments for installing AC or we might pass out - they told us it builds character. :-)
The good old days
Weren't always so good :-).
Sure, let's build some character - but let's turn off the AC at Court Street whenever it gets above 90. They need character, too, and I'm sure that old building would be just wonderful for that.
Going to elementary school in Lynn
(late 1960s to mid 1970s), I recall our end of year was usually the third week in June. And it was usually the last week after final exams had been completed and graded - they would give us our "promotion" slips the last day of classes.
And it seems to me that we got along perfectly fine without air conditioning. Then again, in that era, only movie theaters, some department stores, and the larger supermarkets like First National had A/C. And A/C in cars was an expensive option that most people chose not to buy.
Boo hoo!
There are kids in Africa who go to school in 120 degree heat, with dirt floors and eat uncooked locusts for lunch.
Kids today think they have it tough.
Fine
When we move to Chad or Uganda, we'll keep that in mind.
In the meantime, this is the 21st century in Massachusetts, where kids gets polio shots, don't generally eat bugs on purpose, aren't forcibly abducted to serve into religious crackpots' guerrilla armies and shouldn't have to come home looking and acting like bedraggled wet poodles just because some people still look fondly on Dickensian sweatshops and the 17th century.
I had no air conditioning
We usually finished out the year in the last two weeks of June in downstate NY on heat restriction: lights out, shades up, water bottles on everyone's desk, jump rope banned during recess and physical activity restricted due to the heat. Sometimes we had classroom fans, or made paper fans, or were banned from making paper fans. Catholic schools were charitable enough to eliminate ties from the mandatory uniform during hot weather.
Still, the heat was enough of a drain that we moved in slow-motion, and we had far fewer children with medical problems mainstreamed back then.
Does BPS actually pay the T
Does BPS actually pay the T for the school tripper buses? They're on the schedules, and anyone's allowed to ride them.
The T started its summer schedule on Saturday 6/22. They can only change the service pattern those 4 times per year, and the union contract is involved because drivers pick their runs. So could they really have run school service any longer even if they knew in advance?
Maybe not specifically
But the city pays the state an ENORMOUS sum of money every year in assessments - part - maybe half - of which is our contribution to the T system. total is almost $200 million - not sure how much of this goes to the T.
I think that's just for the privilege of being in the T district
All cities and towns in the district pay an assessment. I suspect there's a separate payment for the semi-dedicated school runs (which, yes, anybody can get on, but if you get on a BLS 39 bus, your last stop is going to be Ave. Louis Pasteur, not Back Bay station).
The MBTA is forbidden by
The MBTA is forbidden by current FTA regulations from entering into charter contracts for school tripper service. Costs for operating them are just lumped into the regular assessments.
Before 1976, however, BPS or any other school district could charter extra buses for students. Many current supplemental trips can be traced back to that era and were just grandfathered. Eventually the trips were all listed publicly in Fall 1984. Many were discontinued over time (declining ridership, increased service on a regular route, etc.)
A few years ago the T started renumbering the supps into variations of "regular" routes. Sure, anyone was welcome to ride the Route 97827, but unless you went to the Burke, you probably were puzzled at the sign and instead waited for a 19 or 23. Perhaps the renumbering was in part to just make them more well known among non-student riders.
Why classes after exams?
Why are there classes being help after exams are over? I get that there were too many snow days, but why can't the exams always be the last classes held? I went to public high school in Massachusetts and our exams were always pushed back to the last days.
The bus thing is very wrong though.
The bus thing is odd
but the rest sounds like my schools growing up. We started after Labor Day, went until the last week of June, and didn't do a whole lot those last few days except watch movies and participate in "field days".
But honestly, what would you rather the kids do?
A lot of Summer camps don't start up until after July 4th; and for the kids who aren't enrolled in camp at all and don't have a Summer job, at least it gives them something to do. There's still plenty enough Summer left for these poor babies to sit around the house playing video games or go roam the streets, the MBTA and the malls. It's not like they're going to go the library and get a jump-start on their Summer reading lists!
As someone who went through 13 years at BPS, I loved the last schools days--I learned a lot of card games and must've watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off a few dozen times over the years (which would mean, yes, more than once in the same week!). Pre-Facebook and Myspace we also used to go to the computer lab and *gasp* work on our our own amateur websites.
I believe all students were marked "absent, excused" this week
This came up on the BLS community mailing list, and from my cursory reading of the thread, I was under the impresson that all students city-wide were being marked "absent, excused" this week, whether they showed up for class or not. That's certainly what the SIS is showing for my daughter.