senior.
There are only ten weeks left of school and then senior class is starting to feel its' status.
Today we had a meeting with the seniors, the principal, the counselors, and a couple of other teachers. Plans for prom and graduation should have been finished months ago, but are still underway. The meeting was unproductive and chaotic. The counselor or principal would speak to the group while the students listening would shout at them arguing "Why prom gotta be so expensive!" or "Don't no one gonna tell me I can't graduate on time!". The other students were talking and laughing with each other, not paying attention. But it wasn't all their fault, the staff was disorganized and the principal would often interrupt herself and hold up her finger to the students while she conferred with another teacher on things like what time graduation would start or how much the senior luncheon was going to cost.
Since we are a small school we only have about 50 kids graduating. When they were freshmen their class was about 400 students large, but the drop out rate is high here and the graduation rate low. Some of the seniors in the meeting today won't be graduating either. Othell, who I wrote about a couple of entries ago, hasn't come back to school. His situation doesn't look good. I spoke to the counselor about him today "Doesn't look like he'll make it" she said. I doubt he'll try for a third time.
The time is exciting, though, and things are coming together for a lot of the graduating students. Albert, also a second year senior, showed me an acceptance letter today. He was beaming. It was a city school that I had him apply to earlier in the year. The school accepted him with a GPA of 1.7 and an ACT score of 12. "Are you gonna go?" I asked him.
"Hell yeah." He said.
Today we had a meeting with the seniors, the principal, the counselors, and a couple of other teachers. Plans for prom and graduation should have been finished months ago, but are still underway. The meeting was unproductive and chaotic. The counselor or principal would speak to the group while the students listening would shout at them arguing "Why prom gotta be so expensive!" or "Don't no one gonna tell me I can't graduate on time!". The other students were talking and laughing with each other, not paying attention. But it wasn't all their fault, the staff was disorganized and the principal would often interrupt herself and hold up her finger to the students while she conferred with another teacher on things like what time graduation would start or how much the senior luncheon was going to cost.
Since we are a small school we only have about 50 kids graduating. When they were freshmen their class was about 400 students large, but the drop out rate is high here and the graduation rate low. Some of the seniors in the meeting today won't be graduating either. Othell, who I wrote about a couple of entries ago, hasn't come back to school. His situation doesn't look good. I spoke to the counselor about him today "Doesn't look like he'll make it" she said. I doubt he'll try for a third time.
The time is exciting, though, and things are coming together for a lot of the graduating students. Albert, also a second year senior, showed me an acceptance letter today. He was beaming. It was a city school that I had him apply to earlier in the year. The school accepted him with a GPA of 1.7 and an ACT score of 12. "Are you gonna go?" I asked him.
"Hell yeah." He said.
posted by teacher | Wednesday, April 11, 2007
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