Once again, the North Allegheny School District has infuriated me. For a district that touts its own excellence every chance it gets, yet has turned out hundreds of kids who cannot tell non-digital time, I am usually just not impressed. Every so often, though, this district makes me irate. This is one of those times.
The following letter is addressed to the Superintendent, and I will cc: the school principals, as well as the school board. Any corrections or tweaks would be appreciated before I send it.
Dear Dr. Gualtieri;
As a parent of an eighth-grade girl at Marshall Middle
School, I have a concern I would like to discuss with you at your
convenience. As you know, the eighth
grade is studying the Holocaust, its history and culture. Part of this unit included a field trip to
Pittsburgh’s Jewish Film Festival. This
field trip, however, was by the English teacher’s invitation only. The criteria for this invitation were not
shared with the students. My daughter
surmises that an A for the prior nine-week grading period was required (since
last grading period she received the second B of a middle school career
consisting of solid A’s). During class,
individual students were called into the hall by the English teacher, returning with sheets of paper detailing
their upcoming excursion. I assume
that at least one adult at Marshall in charge of this activity could imagine
how a student would feel as his/her friends are tapped for inclusion (shades of
sorority rush) while not being chosen him/herself. Further, I am guessing that at least one
adult has read that earnest anti-bullying credo posted in the office, which
ends with “We will make sure each student feels included.” For the sheer hypocrisy, I do request that
this sign is taken down.
Later that week, after a flurry of permissions slips back
and forth, my daughter’s chorus class (and I do so wish it was a math class, so
I could be even more furious) ground to a halt as, by her estimate, two-thirds
of the eighth grade gathered in the auditorium for further discussion of their
educational junket, which was followed by a speaker my daughter thinks might
have been a Holocaust survivor (though she obviously isn’t sure). Of course, this wasted class period does not
compare to the wasted academic day, when most of her classmates were
off-site. Yesterday was the Great Film
Festival Expedition for the Chosen Few.
All she really had to say about it was that she tried to be interested
when her friends chattered about their day after they returned to school, but
that it was hard to do so.
I wanted to contact you weeks ago. My daughter forbid me to, because, as she
said, a) “I want my English teacher to like me” (surprisingly, I had the wisdom
to not reply, “Too late for that”) and b) “I don’t want to be the kid who gets
to go because her mother made a big fuss.”
I am contacting you now, mostly to ask if the adults in the North
Allegheny School district simply suffer from a complete lack of judgment or if
instead they sport a pretty wide mean streak that they use to work through
their own issues from their student days.
I’ll leave to you the irony of ghettoizing the Uninvited,
while taking the Favored out on the town, in pursuit of Holocaust education.
Sincerely,
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