There’s another new post up at AJ’s Clubhouse and quite a few comments on the last two posts. Sorry to be posting over there today, but there’s a lot of drama going on at AJ’s school and we’re trying to prepare for battle even as we hope they’ll call off the war.
I don’t have much else to say here today, except that I should probably direct your attention to the ongoing comments in last week’s entry entitled, Ming the Merciless. It was a small entry responding to a meme request from Mr. Unfocused in which I mentioned Mr. Happy Crack, the mascot of a foundation repair business called The Crack Team. Mr. Happy Crack’s so-called “bodyguard”, Sidney Crackstein responded by graciously offering to avoid suing me and instead give me a t-shirt. But the fun continues! Click on over and see what’s going on in the comments.
And now, back to blue-penciling.
May 7, 2008 at 1:08 pm
It seems so short-sighted of the district to create such large classes. I imagine that the proposed changes are in response to budget cuts, but a move like that is likely to reduce their tax base. What a mess for you and AJ. I hope that it works out.
May 7, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Budgetary constraints are certainly behind this and there have been some teacher cuts, but AJ’s class is getting the brunt of it, because there are 25-30 more kids in his grade than in any other grade at the school. I’ve been suspicious that something like this was going to happen to them, that they were going to try to squish the 30 extra kids into the same classrooms. I don’t even think there’s going to be room for all the desks. The classrooms are crowded with 27. I don’t know where they’d put 6-7 more. Also, I looked up the post for the replacement for the retiring teacher. They’re advertising for a bilingual teacher, which means they are planning on reintegrating the ESL students. That, at least, I think is a good thing, both for social harmony, basic civil rights, and also because I like the idea of bilingual classrooms, if done correctly. But these kids have been in Spanish-speaking classrooms for the for all of their school careers to date. The reintegration is likely to be yet another drain on teacher resources that will make individuation difficult.