In addition to everything else I'm about to lay out, the building is doing nothing to mark the one year anniversary of the shooting. Just ignore it. It'll go away. Counselors just came into 6th period yesterday to ask for ideas to mark the day. Yesterday. Nobody planned anything and now counseling is like...um....we should do something? They said there is a chance admin won't approve any of their ideas, anyway, which why would they, they've no time to plan. UGH.
Curricular vs. Extracurricular
In twenty years, nobody has ever questioned that choir classes are where you rehearse your choir concerts, which are then performed at night and are part of the class. Or band. Or theatre. They are curricular, all one entity as class. But suddenly, because a kid is literally failing out of school and won't graduate, it's being separated. He can be in class but he cannot perform. The AP's logic: Because in football, they take strength and conditioning as a class, which is curricular, then the team is separate after school: extra curricular. We're just like football. Performing arts are just like football. These are words that were said to me. Wish I was kidding.
Now, I'm not going to bore you with board policy, district policy or building policy. They all state that performing arts classes are curricular, and the expectation for students is that they attend after school rehearsals and performances, which are part of the class, not extra curricular.
Or it was...until you have a kid in the musical class who is so epically failing out of high school -you may question how nobody noticed until now, so let's pause. It's November of his senior year. He only comes to his choir classes. That's it. He's enrolled in APA--the class that does the musical and is curricular. He was not enrolled in quarter one because he had to take civics for credit recovery. We knew he had to take credit recovery and would join us quarter two. We knew he wasn't going to graduate, because we talked to counseling before casting the show. They said he has "no chance", and he only comes to school for performing arts. Since he's passing our classes, we shrugged and figured we could cast him as Roger in RENT. He comes to our classes, it's not our fault he isn't graduating. And it seemed to us that everybody knew that, and nobody cared he had a lead in the show. In fact, at least it gets him in the building and he gets his senior musical. Right? That's what we thought. Never assume that anybody knows anything.
The AP over seniors pulled him and "discovered" he is not on track to graduate. This discovery was made the week of a choir concert. I'm guessing she didn't know that he was so far off track. He's not "off track", it's like he looked at the track and bundled his knapsack on his shoulder and marched in the opposite direction. And now that she knows, it's suddenly a problem for him to be in the show, because it's "extra curricular". And students who are flunking out cannot play football or do any other extracurricular activities. So he can't do the musical, which is a class, because the performance is extra curricular.
Um, no, it is not. Please read the words from district, building and board that I unearthed with the help of counseling and sent to you in rebuttal. We learn, see, the AP really really wants him out as we are in turnaround and it effects us less if he goes the GED route. So instead of putting him in recovery classes and leaving him in his PA classes and making him double triple quadruple up on recovery, the hammer came down and he can be in the class, just not perform. Which is incorrect, as it's a class, and I'm beginning to feel a little bit insane. So the AP went to legal to define the words from district, building and board, and legal backed her up by saying "In this case the policy means if the student doesn't attend a concert or play, it can impact their grade, but if admin says he can't, then he can't and it won't effect his grade."
Huh?
Either it's a policy or it is not. Either we are curricular or we are not.
So right now we're trying to understand why our admin is trying to kill the performing arts. We are the reason these kids come to school. If you start booting them out of our concerts because they have F's in other classes, there's no reason for them to be in our class, and we're dead.
This has all been an exercise anyway, as the student had a contract with us stating he would attend his classes and not receive any F's to remain in the show. Which he did not do and did do, so he can't do the show anyway, still I take umbrage with your posit that performing arts classes are curricular but our performances are extra curricular. By this example, any kid failing more than two classes who is enrolled in PA cannot perform at the concert they've just spent the semester preparing for. Which will cause them to fail the class. Not to mention it's an exercise in insanity to have a student learn a vocal part, or lines, or other instrumental music, as part of an ensemble in class, only to know they cannot perform with the group at an extracurricular concert.
Do I need to reiterate their equally insane football scenario? Strength and conditioning is a class taken by football players, a class that football players take, but they cannot play football, which is extra curricular, if they are failing classes. So if a player has two F's they can still take strength and conditioning, which is curricular. But they can't play football, which is extracurricular They are not practicing football during strength and conditioning, so this makes sense. We are practicing performance during class. Do you see how this makes a person nutso?
So that was my entire day yesterday.
Behaviors Through The Roof
The shooting was a year ago this week. We had a secure perimeter Monday, and I'm shocked we haven't had more, at least one a day. The fights are out of control. The AP (the one who has decided I'm extracurricular) got knocked down during a fight last week, it's all over social media. I just had a girl tell me to fuck off when I redirected her away from students who were trying to work.
The musical is disintegrating in front of me. I had to move the kid playing Mark to Roger, and an ensemble to Mark. Then yesterday we discovered Tom Collins--also a senior--is flunking four classes. By the newly reinterpreted policy, he can't do the show now, and we're out of boys. Literally. So if he can't pull it out in a week, we're looking at Tom being played by a female. Great. At what point do I have any dignity left? Do we keep making these changes to drag this show over the finish line? Why? For the three kids who actually care and will be devastated not to have a musical?
This is happening because these kids' needs are not being met on a basic level. You cannot function if you do not feel safe. See the graph.
Now, consider the teachers are in the same predicament. We feel unsafe, lose sleep, fear being bullied by admin, caught in literal crossfire and are unsafe. Did I mention school shootings effect teachers as well?
And then you're going to tell these damaged kids, whose only lifeline is a performing arts class, that they cannot perform with the class because they are failing at school, and they are failing at school because their needs are not being met.
And the band played on...
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