There is one thing it is still possible to do, however, and that is for Wardynski to stop consistently linking the Pinnacle Schools contract with the threat of living in a teepee in his public statements. By doing so he is harming another group of students this contract is supposed to serve: those who previously were enrolled in the HCS’s homebound program. These kids are recovering from serious injury or illness, and while they are capable of making up missed work and keeping up with classwork, they are not yet able to attend school 7 hours a day, 5 days a week.

As I understand it, the Pinnacle Schools’ Huntsville campus combines coursework delivered on-line with counseling. I imagine those who attend for non-disciplinary reasons aren’t involved in the anger management or other counseling sessions. I certainly hope not; I can think of no two groups who are more ill-suited for interaction than those who are recovering from traumatic illness or injury, including violent crimes, and those who have been removed from their schools because of their behavior.

All you have to do to see the disservice Wardynski is doing to those who are at Pinnacle because they’ve been hurt or ill is to consider his statements in the Huntsville Times.

Wardynski is pleased with how the Pinnacle Schools contract is working out: “The children over there are working diligently.” Now, I don’t understand why the HCS itself couldn’t manage to deliver customized curricula on-line, unless, as Wardynski suggests, the kids in the program are doing their work to avoid Elk River Academy and Treatment Programs:  “Those who do not comport themselves according to the regulations and rules of Pinnacle Schools will find themselves living in a teepee. And they won’t be coming back until they can behave. And if they can’t behave, they won’t be coming back to our schools.”

In other words, the threat of being sent off for an indefinite period to the teepees is what Pinnacle has that the HCS couldn’t provide.

Now imagine how you’d feel if your kid was at Pinnacle because of a serious illness or injury. Imagine the pride you’d have in your school system driving up to the Pinnacle campus each morning after reading that.

The Teepees

The HCS is paying Pinnacle $750 a day, every day, seven days a week for five “beds” in the teepees at the residential Elk River Academy and Treatment Programs.($159,688 for . . .  January 1, 2012 – July 31, 2012), used or not. This is money I would be happy to see wasted, so to speak.

The Pinnacle Schools people may all be well-meaning, honorable, and dedicated to improving the lives of young people. But those professionals aren’t the ones out in the wilderness 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I hope the place is wired with close-circuit TVs on every tree and the tapes viewed daily because the potential for abuse in these therapeutic wilderness programs is staggering.

Basically, too, I have a big problem with situations where what would be a crime to do to an adult is acceptable to do to a child. I praised Wardynski when he did away with corporeal punishment in the HCS. He reasoned that if it wasn’t legal to strike a prisoner, it shouldn’t be legal to strike a student.

Pinnacle Schools’ Elk River Academy and Treatment Programs accept kids who arrive via transport companies, for example, Safe Passage. Parents hire these firms to send in muscle men in the middle of the night to remove their child from their home and cart them off to a secured, private facility. Once at the facility, the kids are cut off from the world. They don’t even get the proverbial one phone call an arrested adult is entitled to. At Elk River, after a while, they get one phone call home each week.

I believe if you did the same to an adult, it would be considered kidnapping and false imprisonment. If you do it to your own child, it is legal.

Let’s be clear here. Elk River Academy and Treatment Programs are, as the website says, “unlike traditional boarding schools.” The use of the term “beds” in the contract should be noted. Boarding schools, for example, Indian Springs outside Birmingham and St. Bernard’s in Cullman, don’t use that phrasing.  They have addresses, welcome visitors, hold open houses, have alumni, and so on.

“Beds” is a term used by hospitals and detention centers.

What is it, then? Well, the website says, “Elk River programs are a medical model with therapy and academics as key components to recovery.” I haven’t a clue what “are a medical model” means, do you?

If you want to read more about these privately run, no counsel provided, no court order needed places, go here and here and here.

“Those who do not comport themselves according to the regulations and rules of Pinnacle Schools will find themselves living in a teepee. And they won’t be coming back until they can behave. And if they can’t behave, they won’t be coming back to our schools”

and in The Huntsville Times’ article “Huntsville Superintendent: Fight at Lee High School was gang initiation.”

Although the Seldon Center, the HCS alternative school according to page 17 of the current Student Handbook, isn’t due to close until the end of the year, the Pinnacle era has begun. This is from the contract between The Pinnacle Schools (TPS) and the HCS:

C1. Contract Period: The initial period for this Agreement will be a combination of a short academic term from February 2012 to July 2012 and an additional academic year from August 1 through July 31, 2013. The 2013 – 2014 Agreement year (August 1, 2013 through July 31, 2014) shall automatically renew unless the Superintendent provides TPS written notification that HCS will not renew at least 60 days prior to the commencement of the next Agreement year.

2011 – 2012 (short academic period) – The cost to Huntsville City Schools will be $360,000 for 75 student slots. This amounts to a prorated cost of $4,800 per student. (This cost is based on a 6 month short term academic program HCS hereby agrees to pay TPS/ERTP, as compensation for services relating to this agreement, the sum of $159,688 for 5 contractual beds at Elk River Treatment Program at a rate of $150 per diem/bed/year for the period January 1, 2012 – July 31, 2012.

The Elk River Treatment Program is where the teepees are. This is a wilderness behavior modification program. More on that later.

But first let’s look at this report by Crystal Bonvillian on Al.com, via The Huntsville Times, regarding the kids who got in the fight that showed up on YouTube:

Wardynski said last week that the students and their parents faced a choice between expulsion and going through the district’s new alternative program. The school board voted Jan. 19 to close the district’s alternative school, the Seldon Center, in favor of a contract with The Pinnacle Schools.

The superintendent confirmed this week that all four students are now at Pinnacle. “They chose to go through the program,” Wardynski said.

The Pinnacle Schools is a Huntsville-based treatment program for troubled youth. It consists of a year-round Huntsville day campus, as well as the more rudimentary Elk River Treatment Program, which is a short-term intervention where Wardynski said students live in teepees. The Elk River program can last from eight weeks to a year.

The students must complete the program, however long it takes, before having an opportunity to re-enter their neighborhood schools.

The article also implies that Wardynski took action because he believed it was a gang initiation, although a Huntsville police officer said that “we can’t say for sure. . .The reason we can’t pinpoint it is that there’s no concrete evidence” [emphasis added].

The first obvious problem is that Wardynski says the fight was a gang initiation, but a police officer says there is “no concrete evidence” for that conclusion. Ms. Bonvillian, why would you interview Officer Carl McDuffie and then not pursue this disconnect?

Then there is this statement by Wardynski: “It was a gang initiation; these students went to lunch together afterward” [emphasis added].

According to the HCS Student Handbook, there’s “Fighting,” a Class II intermediate offense, and there’s “Assault,” a Class III Major Offense, “for which expulsion will be for the remainder of the semester and for the following semester.”

• 2.02 Fighting – Any physical confrontation between two or more individuals in which physical contact is made with harmful intent.
• 3.06 Assault – Actually and intentionally pushing or striking another individual (student or adult) against the will of the other, causing serious physical injury.

Now I could be wrong, but it seems to me that if after a physical confrontation, the two students involved “went to lunch together afterward,” then there was no serious physical injury, and what occurred was a fight and not an assault.

The Alabama Criminal Code equivalent for “fighting” would be assault in the third degree, which is a misdemeanor, and for “assault,” assault in the second degree, a felony. To go from the misdemeanor to felony level requires serious as in permanent damage. Unless the victim comes to court with a limb missing, an empty eye socket, or a bitten-off ear, something really dramatic and obvious, expert medical testimony (and not just records) will have to be subpoenaed. This is a lot of work, I guess, so a lot of folks who should be charged with a felony end up with a misdemeanor, and for a first timer, that means six months’ probation. No teepee time.

Now, let’s see what the handbook says about penalties for Class II violations, like fighting:

First Offense of any Class II Violation: In-school disciplinary actions or suspension not to exceed 5 school days. Severity of offense may warrant disciplinary actions as outlined under Subsequent Offenses.

Subsequent Offenses of Class II Violations:
Suspension not to exceed 7 school days. If disciplinary actions are not effective, principal may recommend school probation, Superintendent Level.
Repeated offenses on more than two occasions may result in disciplinary actions as specified under Subsequent Offenses of Class III Violations.

Bonvillian reported that “Wardynski said last week that the students and their parents faced a choice between expulsion and going through the district’s new alternative program.”

Why? How did expulsion come into the picture if there was no serious physical injury and hence no assault? Get real. Victims who have suffered “serious physical injury” simply don’t go “to lunch together afterward” with their assailants, do they?

Now I presume the kids are at the Pinnacle School, but who knows, they may be in the teepees. If what constitutes a Class III offense is now determined by the Superintendent, is it a stretch to assume that the penalty is, too? Remember, too, that “concrete evidence” is apparently optional these days.

Here’s another section of the Pinnacle Contract:

A6. Due Process/ Class III Offense: Students will adhere to an atmosphere of Positive Peer Culture and Accountability, Integrity and Responsibility while attending the TPS RAISE Program.  In the event a student allowed alternative placement to TPS in lieu of expulsion is charged with commission of a Class III offense, TPS will adhere to the Procedure currently in place by HCS. . . HCS may refer students who are being removed from the program to Pinnacle School’s Elk River Treatment Program for intensive therapeutic treatment, upon such terms as may be agreed to by TPS and HCS and at the sole discretion of the Superintendent. [emphasis added]

And remember, “The Elk River program can last from eight weeks to a year. The students must complete the program, however long it takes, before having an opportunity to re-enter their neighborhood schools.”

So, kids, the bottom line is this. Don’t fight on school property. If you fight there, you could find yourself living in a teepee for a year — or maybe longer. You won’t have legal counsel (“Ordinarily no attorney will be present in an advisory capacity for the expulsion hearing”), which you are provided in juvenile court. Unless you do someone an obvious serious physical injury, if you fight away from school, and get arrested, and the case isn’t diverted from the courts, and you are found guilty or enter a consent agreement, likely you’ll end up with six months probation. Shipped off without legal counsel to a teepee for “however long it takes” — that, kids, is scary, very scary.

As for the School Board: You hired this man, and you approved this contract. Don’t you think it’s about time to give kids fair warning? Every fall, every kid and parent have to sign a statement saying they’ve all read the Student Handbook. It’s sort of like a contract, too. What message are you sending kids when it isn’t followed and radical changes are made without it being appended?

There you will learn that although citizens can comment for three minutes at a Huntsville City Schools Board of Education meeting, if they fail to use their allotted 180 seconds, standing silently for the remainder and awaiting an answer is forbidden.

Here’s an excerpt, but really, just click through.

Thursday night I was informed by Mr. Lankford [head of Board Security] that if I wish to speak during the Citizen’s Comments section of the board meeting, I would not be allowed to stand silently waiting for an answer. I would have to speak and then sit down. The consequences of pulling this “stunt” again would mean that I would be banned from all future board meetings.

Mr. Lankford went on to inform me that I had made “everyone” feel uncomfortable and that he considered my actions as a threat. He certainly hoped that I didn’t intend to threaten others.

Somehow his estimates are typically wrong, have you noticed?

Red flag alert: “Students would be referred to the program by a designated representative of the school system.”  Really. I wonder which socio-economic and racial populations would land at Pinnacle. Would you expect a program that chooses its participants by  “a designated representative of the school system” rather than through publicly available guidelines to be equitably available to all?

Troubled Teens. Some Cause Trouble. Others Bear It.

I was looking for alternative schooling situations for my daughter who had been brutally beaten by a Huntsville City Schools high school student (not at the school, but at his home). The school knew all about it, however, since a teacher first noticed the bruises on her face and strangulation marks around her neck once her make-up began to wear off the day after the attack. She took her to the counselor, who called in the principal, and then she was taken to the School Resource Officer to fill out a police report.

A few days before the hearing, when the Assistant DA tried to get in touch with the principal and counselor, it took the principal two work days to get back to him. The counselor never returned the ADA’s calls.

During the 78 days that passed between the August 28 crime and the November 15 hearing, the boy, who did not plead not guilty, went about his life at school as if all was well with the world.

My daughter went to doctors, ERs, hospitals, neurologists and counselors and was treated for post-concussive syndrome, acute anxiety, depression, concussion-induced migraines, and a bruised optic nerve as the result of blunt force trauma that resulted in temporary full loss of vision in her left eye (now she only has no peripheral vision and floaters occassionally).

She tried to return to that school in spite of this because she was in a one-of-a-kind program that she excelled at. But never knowing when she would round a corner and see this defective sickened her in ever way imaginable. She needed to be in school, but in one which could make accommodations for the neuropsychological damage caused by an HCS student. Home schooling was discussed, but finally, enough time passed, and she transferred out, leaving behind the program she so wanted to take, and entered another HCS high with a much more cooperative, supportive, ethical, and professional administration and faculty.

Meanwhile, the kid who beat her up continued happily ever after at the school she had to leave.

More Questions than Answers. Not that Answers from the Board Are Expected, Of Course.

When I looked at Pinnacle Schools the first time, I thought, maybe this would work. Now I look at it again, I realize it is a means for keeping the well-to-do out of the d-home or away from not-as-well staffed free-standing behavioral units, aka psych shelters.

One thing I noticed on the Pinnacle Schools site is no statement of cost. There are plenty of suggestions on where to seek loans for your kid’s stay and suggestions you check your insurance (good luck with that one).

You know that saying, if you have to ask the price you can’t afford it? Do you eat at restaurants that don’t list their prices on the menu? I don’t. Should HCS? Gimme a break.

So let’s see here. We don’t have the money to meet special education students’ needs. We have an alternative school for kids but seemingly no way to make sure they attend. At Pinnacle,

“the district would have a guarantee that students were present and getting their education and treatment. There is no such guarantee at Seldon. ‘There are days when we have no kids there and a bunch of teachers present,’ Wardynski said.

What am I missing here? Does Pinnacle have a private security force more effective than the Huntsville City Police Department? Or does the “guarantee” mean money: if students don’t show up, Pinnacle doesn’t get paid?

Why are there “days when we have no kids there and a bunch of teachers present” at Seldon?

What does the Board say?

“Board members agree that The Pinnacle Schools could be a good program for the district. David Blair, vice president of the board, has said that he’s heard complaints from parents that the Seldon Center not only punishes children’s behavior, but also hinders their academics. . . . Board member Topper Birney said, “We have some students whose only purpose for going to school seems to be to disrupt things.”

Imagine that. The Sheldon Center, the alternative school for “students whose only purpose for going to school seems to be to disrupt things” “punishes children’s behavior.” Perhaps their academic progress is hindered because they don’t show up, and the HCS can’t make them (but Pinnacle could? how?).

Maybe if all HCS were required to co-operate with the Office of the DA, Seldon could work. That is, if the Office of the DA came to court prepared to try cases against violent juveniles. Two big if’s.

I expect Pinnacle Schools does marvelous things for the privileged population it serves. More power to it.

But until the HCS has so much extra cash lying around that it can meet all special ed IEPs, reduce class size, stop running double buses, etc. maybe it ought to make what it already has functional instead of diverting public funds for a specially hand-picked few to attend an upscale private facility that had a 147% increase in revenue in the three years between from 2007 and 2010.

If the $1.3 million that has been going annually to Seldon has been wasted for years, why has the Board allowed this?

And finally, don’t forget that for every violent troubled teen in the HCS there are likely victims in the HCS. Maybe their needs might be considered someday.

The official story is that hiring through TFA will bring to Huntsville “the ‘best and brightest’ new teachers in the U.S.”  The Huntsville Times reported that

Dr. Casey Wardynski, Huntsville’s superintendent, said the recruitment process is one that the district would have difficultly conducting on its own.
“On our last round of hiring, we just could not match that if we’d tried,” Wardynski said.

What does that last phrase, “if we’d tried” suggest to you? I digress.

The TFA recruits don’t have teaching certificates, but they “spend five weeks working in a real summer school” before starting their new jobs.

I know a way that the HCS could recruit dozens and dozens of uncertified but very bright individuals from our very own community. It wouldn’t cost a dime. It wouldn’t even require much effort.

All the HCS would have to do is encourage applications from adjunct, part-time, non-tenure track, or even fulltime, tenure track faculty at Alabama A&M, UAH, Oakwood, Calhoun, Drake, and Athens State — and waive the requirement that they hold teaching certificates.

Unlike the TFA’ers, these applicants will have advanced degrees and far more than five weeks of teaching experience.

So here’s my question for W and the Board: Consider the following scenario. Two candidates apply for a teaching position. Neither has a teaching certificate. Candidate A has an earned doctorate and years of teaching experience. Candidate B has a bachelor’s, 5 weeks of teaching experience, and has been vetted by the Teach for America program. Am I right is thinking only Candidate B would be considered for employment?

Explain.

First, I have been opposed to moving New Century to Lee or anywhere outside Research Park since I first read of the so-called demographer’s recommendations. I wrote to Dr. Wardynski:

Tell the Board to strike this recommendation. Remind them that they hired you to solve problems, not to create new ones; that it is foolish to make a change that would do no good and may well do harm; and that when people and programs are working well, sometimes – often, perhaps — the best thing to do is to stay out of their way and let them get on with it.

I still believe that there are better reasons to leave New Century alone than there are to move it.

And this is not because I dislike Lee. In fact, in the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I regretfully transferred my daughter out of New Century and to Lee several weeks ago for reasons that have nothing to do with either school’s academics. I’m delighted to say we both have been very impressed with the culture of Lee High. It is a proud and welcoming school; I understand already why its community doesn’t want to lose its identity. They are famiLEE.

Second, there’s the arrogance. From the Huntsville City Schools site: “What we have decided is to discuss the name as part of the merger of New Century Technology High School and Lee High School.”

Who is this we? Has Superintendent Wardynski adopted the papal or royal perogative of referring to himself in the third person plural? The document goes on to say that a committee will be formed “to address the school name and how to honor the history of Lee and New Century Technology High Schools.” Already the Lee name has been removed from the new building. That was, in fact, the first notice the Lee community had regarding this “discussion.”  Act first, discuss later?

But this name change business is, I fear, just the first blow to Lee as it exists today. Look very closely at this FAQ response on the Huntsville City Schools site.

Q: Why is this combination high school a good idea?

New Century Technology High School, which draws students from across Huntsville, has been identified in national publications as one of the nation’s Top-500 high schools. It is recognized for its innovative programs in computer science and related fields. Lee High School has award-winning magnet programs in the arts, dance, and engineering. The combination of the two schools on one campus will allow the New Century and Lee Magnet programs to grow within Huntsville most state-of-the-art campus while eliminating overcrowding at the Columbia campus. This new school has capacity for added enrollments and presents the community with a unique opportunity to spur student achievement and community growth by harnessing what will be the district’s most modern school as an engine for positive change.

Now consider:

1. New Century is a school of choice. You have to apply to go there. It has no zone, no neighborhood. All who are there are there because they chose to be.

Lee is a zoned high school with magnet programs. If you live in the Lee zone, its neighborhood, you automatically go there, unless you transfer out on a Majority to Minority basis or apply to and are accepted at New Century. Or you transfer to Lee to attend the magnet programs. The magnet programs are comparable in this respect to the whole of New Century.

And that is where the difference lies. The whole of New Century is an unzoned, special interest, selective school. Within Lee, as part of Lee, there are special interest, selective programs.

2. Now, look at this sentence in the FAQ response quoted above: “The combination of the two schools on one campus will allow the New Century and Lee Magnet programs to grow within Huntsville…”.

What is here: New Century and Lee Magnet programs.

What is missing: Lee High School. The non-magnet Lee High School. Where does it fit in this picture?

Could the answer be, it doesn’t?

I hope I’m being alarmist and paranoid, but remember, Johnson and Butler are also underpopulated facilities.

Totally worthless other than as an exercise in cultivating indignation is reviewing the Huntsville City Schools’ check registers posted on-line. Worthless because the monies have been spent. Intriguing, nonetheless.

Here are some things that interested me, looking back from January to July of 2011.

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Shop for Office Supplies — at the Hilton Garden Inn????  

Get your Print Job Done — at the Country Club????

I don’t know about you, but Wal-mart or Staples is where I shop for office supplies. It never would occur to me that I might be able to get a better deal at the Hilton. But that’s where the HCS spent $2,176.58 on office supplies, according to page 10 of the May check register.

After shopping at the Hilton, I might buzz over to check out what’s on offer at the Huntsville Country Club, where the HCS spent  $3551.42 on non-instructional supplies, printing and binding in April (p. 14).

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Got to Pay Jennie’s Dues

This may be totally legit. If so, it still raises interesting questions. The HCS cut Board member Jennie Robinson a check for $655 for “other dues and fees” in January 2011 (p. 17). None of the other four Board members received reimbursement for “dues and fees.”

I can think of two reasons for this. One is that JR is a star Board member, belonging to all the right Board professional organizations, and the other four are all slackers. Very possibly true.

Two is that the “fees and dues” JR got reimbursed for are not directly relevant to her service on the Board, and that is why the other four weren’t similarly cut checks for $655 each.

If these fees are for organizations directly relevant to her service on the Board, good for her. But not all professional groups would fit that criteria. For example, let’s say an electrical engineer were elected to the Board. He shouldn’t expect his IEEE dues to be paid, because membership in the IEEE isn’t  relevant to serving on the Board.

Of course, there is no point in simply asking her at the next Board meeting, since Board members don’t answer questions from the public.

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Q: How Many Consultants Does It Take to Screw in the Proverbial Lightbulb?           

A: As Many as You Are Willing to Pay

First, remember that $70,000 so-called Demographer’s Report? The utterly worthless insult to the Huntsville taxpayers? It really cost $70,656.50. In March, a check was cut to Steve Salmon’s Gude Management Group for $37,669.76, followed by one for $32,986.74 in April. And remember in June the Board voted to pay Salmon’s boss at Education Planners, James Wilson, $3000 to attend the community meetings in place of the pseudo-demographer? Turns out that Wilson was really paid $4,692.60, funneled through Gude. Total amount blown on that fiasco: $75,349.10.

A modest proposal: Until the HCS is in the black, no more consultants.

• No consultants from California to play party games with the superintendent and Board (“During a more light-hearted exercise, each participant at the retreat had to anonymously write down a secret detail about their lives and the others had to guess which participant the secret was about.”). When the August check register appears, we’ll find out how much that day in the (Burritt) park cost.

• No consultants from Georgia to cut and paste freely available documents together and call it a study.

• If the five Board members can’t handle their responsibilities without having their hands held, then they should resign.

• Surely with five aides, Dr. Wardynski doesn’t need any more consultants.

Well, that’s enough for today’s exercise in futility. Bounce on over to the HCS Finance Report and find your own favorites.

Did ex-Superintendent Ann Roy Moore travel 1455 local miles in June?

If not, once again, the Huntsville City Schools have paid money for nothing.

Allow me to explain.

Fact: in June 2011 Moore was paid $800 for local travel, just as she was every other month this calendar year through June. At least she was not cut an $800 check for local travel after she started being a stay-at-home employee in July (I suppose I should be impressed.).

Fact: The State of Alabama mileage allowance for State employees in June was .51 per mile (July to December 2011 is .55.5 per mile).

Fact: $800/.51= 1568. That means Moore was paid for driving 1568 miles.

Fact: There were 22 work days in June, and most schools were closed. 1568 miles/22 days = 71 miles per day.

Conclusion: Unless Moore drove1568 local miles in 22 days, or averaged 71 miles a workday on Huntsville’s roads, once again, the Huntsville City Schools have paid money for nothing.

How likely is it that she drove these 1568 miles? Not very, especially considering that for part of June she wasn’t even in Huntsville. How do I know this? Easy: she also was cut a check for $1493.17 for in-state travel.

I’m not an accountant, but I think it improbable that had she been required to submit a mileage report, she could have claimed to have traveled 61 local miles on the same dates for which she submitted in-state travel  reimbursements claims. But she didn’t have to, since she got the $800 a month whether she traveled .1,1,10,100. or a 1000 local miles a day.

I’m not even going to bother speculating on how stupid it is to pay a superintendent who is lamer than a dead duck $1493.17 for in-state travel during her last days of office. She and Jennie Robinson must have stayed in some fancy places and eaten some gourmet meals that month. Robinson was cut a check for $1034.52 in-state travel in June.

Suffice it to say in-state = Alabama. It takes real effort for one individual to spend that kind of money on herself here.

Well, that’s in the past, you say. True, and I suppose I should be tickled pink that Superintendent Wardynski is getting paid only $600 a month for local travel — at least, $600 is what he got in July, but his first day was July 5, so that $600 was only for 19 workdays. Perhaps when the August check register appears, it will be higher. Who can guess?  

Let’s run the numbers. $600/.55.5=1081.

So if he were being reimbursed at .55.5 per mile, like other Alabama state employees, and if he drove 1081 miles, then he would be entitled to a $600 reimbursement. Did he average 57 miles a day during July? If he drove over 1081 miles in his first month on the job, Huntsville taxpayers came out ahead.

But if he drove 1080 miles, then, once again, the Huntsville City Schools have paid your tax dollars for nothing.

Yes, it is a pain to have to keep mileage logs instead of just getting a flat rate monthly supplement. But these are austere times, remember? And the Superintendent does have not one but two secretaries to help with his claim reports.

Times of austerity require such sacrifices of convenience. The students at the bus stop at 6 am in tomorrow’s rain can tell you about sacrificing  convenience to save money. So can the one who have to share textbooks.

Really, this is getting so very tiresome.

Kyle Koski told the Board that parents should know when to pick up their kids who ride the bus as majority-minority transfers or to attend magnets because the schools have posted the information on their websites.

As someone who obviously spends a good deal of her day online, I reacted as if there was nothing inherently flawed in Koski’s response, as long as the sites were maintained. I wrote: “Tell Koski that if he is counting on the schools to post the bus run schedules, he’d better be sure they are doing a better job of keeping up their websites than he is his departments’.”

So what’s the problem?

Just this: As hard as it may be for you, reading this online, and for me, writing this, to remember or believe, not every household in Huntsville has a computer. And not every household that has a computer has internet service.

That needs repeating: Not every household in Huntsville has a computer and internet service.

Because the HCS is scrambling to save pennies in the schools, while spending freely downtown, fewer printed copies of announcements, syllabi, study guides, and so on are being distributed. Ask a question and you are told the answer is online.

There would be nothing wrong with that response if it were possible for all students and parents to go online. It isn’t.

You don’t believe me? My child has a friend who comes over whenever there is an online assignment, whether my daughter is home or not. She knows what to do; all we need to do is open the door.

Why doesn’t she go to the library? To go to the public library means that mom, who needs to be at work at 6 am, needs to load up toddler and 6-year-old to go along, since dad works afternoons and evenings. Once at the public library, there is usually a wait to get time on a computer. And like most teens, this girl sometimes doesn’t start Monday’s homework until long after the Sunday closing hours.

So why doesn’t she use the computers in her school’s library?

I love libraries, but I have to say I no longer see the point of investing more in the schools’. Kids aren’t allowed in the building until 7:30 in the morning, and have to clear out at 3:15, unless they are part of an organized extracurricular activity. So when are they supposed to use their library for work, or, imagine this, pleasure reading?

But this is a digression. We were talking about assuming that all parents can access essential information online.

It’s a false assumption. There are some that can’t.

We who are fortunate need to remember that we are just that — fortunate, lucky, privileged. That means there are those who don’t have what we have. Simple idea, easily overlooked.

Thought for the day, HCS:

Not every household in Huntsville has a computer and internet service.

In these households are parents and children whose need for information must be met. The HCS and its Board are not doing their jobs if there is information that is available to some, but not all, parents.

What makes her different? She brings to the attention of the Board, Superintendent, and public her concerns for children.

I first noticed this in the exchange about bus suspensions on July 7, 2011. This week she commented on a situation that is nearly unbelievable in its callous disregard for the safety of children, including the very youngest students. McCaulley asked the director for Safety and Transportation, Kyle Koski, what the system has in place for kids who are dropped off late in the day because she has driven by schools and seen kids hanging around unchaperoned. She mentioned too the case of a little girl whose ride never came and who was unknown to anyone and unable to tell her name.

Koski’s response was that this has been a problem for “years” with the magnet school and majority to minority school runs, that parents have been informed of the routes, and he doesn’t know what could be done other than an aftercare program. He emphasized that it’s the “parents’ responsibility to pick the child up at their drop-off time.”

Reading between the lines, what do we have?

1. It’s kids in North Huntsville that are being dumped at closed buildings.
2. This has been going on for years and is news to no one.
3. The HCS will provide bus transportation to kids from the North to go to magnet schools or to take advantage of the System’s majority-to-minority transfer policy, which is the bone it throws to the Justice Department, but if parents want to take advantage of this, they need to leave work at 4:00 or 4:15, even if like everyone else in the office they are expected to be there until 5:00.
4. Koski can’t think of anything other than an aftercare program, and acts like that is just the most outlandish of ideas.
5. The HCS has no responsibility for leaving kids as young as 5 unsupervised on its properties for hours, including, in winter, hours of darkness.

Let’s take point 4 first because what Koski had just finished repeating to the Board was that it doesn’t matter how many runs a bus makes, the cost is the same. In that case, why dump the kids at a closed facility? Let them stay at the school they attend in the aftercare program there and then run a bus that arrives at the dumping ground at 5:30 when their parents can be there to pick them up. Send a bus aide along and charge by the minute for any kid not collected when the bus arrives.

When McCaulley replied it was a “liability” to leave kids unsupervised like that, she was right on target. Yes, Koski is partially right that it’s the “parents’ responsibility to pick the child up at their drop-off time” — but if the HCS doesn’t have it on record that the parents are absolutely aware of when and where they are expected to be, and that they agree to this and can manage it, then it is living dangerously.

Even so, sometimes there are things like wrecks and tornadoes that prevent parents from making it across town: what happens then? Thank goodness most kids carry cell phones — older ones, anyway, but that won’t help the very youngest if their parents can’t make it and no one has bothered to stick around.

It should be obvious that it is morally reprehensible to proceed like this, but some care more about whether they can be sued if a child is hurt than for the child. And I think, arguably, that were one of these kids hurt in any way, the answer would be yes.

Two concepts apply: in loco parentis and duty to protect. The first means basically in the place of the parent. Now it is one thing if you are talking about high school, middle school, even upper elementary. And another altogether if you are talking K-3.

When a 6-year-old is at school, the child is basically in the custody of the school until he is returned to the custody of the parent or an adult designated by the parent. A parent who dumps the child off at 6 am in front of a locked school that won’t open til 7:30, or the school acting in loco parentis who leaves her alone at a locked building from 4:00 to 5:30: what’s the difference?

Sometimes even age doesn’t matter. You know how it is when there’s a tornado warning? Let’s say you’ve driven like fury to collect your kids, and you get to the school only to find out that the school is holding them until the warning is extinguished. So there you are, your kids on one side of the door, you on the other, and that is just too bad. Custody. Duty to protect.

I looked at some legal cases and found comments like these:

Just as it can be said that students do not abandon their constitutional rights when they enter the school house door at the beginning of the day (Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist. (1969) 393 U.S. 503, 506), a school’s responsibility to ensure the safety of students does not entirely evaporate as students walk out those doors when the school day ends. Indeed, the school’s own policies in this case reveal what one might construe as silent acknowledgement that the district owes some measure of duty toward students’ safe departure from school because the school did not let kindergartners and first graders walk home unaccompanied, but released them only to responsible adults.

 

Just because a student has left the school premises does not mean the district’s obligations have ended. If a district has undertaken to provide transportation from the school, the duty of care may extend beyond the door of the school bus until children have been discharged to a place of reasonable safety. In Farley v. El Tejon Unified School Dist. (1990) 225Cal.App.3d 371, 376-377, the parents of a 7-year-old killed while crossing a street after disembarking a school bus alleged that prior to the accident the school principal was aware children being discharged at the bus stop customarily crossed a road to meet family members. The plaintiff also alleged that the driver had instructed children not to cross the road until the school bus was out of sight, and the bus driver should have supervised their safe crossing. The court of appeal held that the district could be liable for failure to exercise reasonable care, and that it “had an obligation to supervise the children during that transportation and a duty to provide a reasonably safe system.” (Id. at p. 380.)

Ms. McCaulley, dig in your heels. Be firm. Be mean if you need to be. What is happening is wrong. Thank you for bringing it to our attention, although I fear with all the drama this week it will have gone unnoticed.

You can change that. So far, the HCS and most importantly these kids have been very, very lucky.

But luck runs out.

PS: Tell Koski that if he is counting on the schools to post the bus run schedules, he’d better be sure they are doing a better job of keeping up their websites than he is his departments’. Go to the HCS Directory and click on Safety & Transportation or Transportation and in both cases you get a dead link page. Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.