Posted on 03/31/2014 6:07:29 PM PDT by moonshinner_09
When Alphonso Stevenson was knocked unconscious by a student at Bartram High recently, staffers were shocked by the assault on the tall, genial man whose job was to keep the school calm. But many were not surprised.
The school, by many accounts, can be a frightening place, where fights and drug use are common and large groups of students often roam the hallways.
"I had a better chance in Vietnam," said longtime social studies teacher Stephen Pfeiffer, an Army veteran. "Here, you lock your door and pray no one comes in."
Rudy Helton, the building engineer, has been busy replacing door handles and locks damaged when students break into classrooms, he said. He installed a slide bolt on locker-room doors, because unruly teens were using their ID cards to pick locks and cause trouble.
MORE COVERAGE March 21: Staffer knocked out at Bartram High March 26: Bartram High briefly placed on lockdown A national honor for Philadelphia activist Helen Gym "There's no control," Helton said.
Bartram made headlines during Pfeiffer's first year there, 1999, when an assistant principal was shot by a student in the school. Pfeiffer said things were worse now.
In interviews over the last week, more than 20 Bartram staffers and students described a school that's often in chaos.
Superintendent William R. Hite Jr., who made his fourth unannounced visit to Bartram on Thursday, acknowledged the school has problems. On Monday, he will send respected former district principal Ozzie Wright to help calm the school.
Hite also said he, the assistant superintendent responsible for the school, and its principal, Kimberly Collins, would work together on Bartram's discipline plan and to emphasize restorative practices, a program that stresses building relationships to prevent conflict.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
"There are fights constantly," said one teacher, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. "I call downstairs for help - sometimes they answer and sometimes they don't." .........I am very glad when I went to school we did not have of any this going on..
Is this the climate that we are being warned about by the benevolent UN that makes people tend to more criminal?
...to BE more criminal?
DOH!
Damn Amish.
The principal is a girl, and the situation “raises concerns about education”.
I would say, that horse has left the barn.
If Holder conducted an honest evaluation of student discipline in US schools, he’d likely learn that large numbers of incidents of bad behavior by minority students are never punished in any way. The disparity he’s whining about is likely a significant understatement.
Probably a typical inner-city school
Barbara Lee, would you like to take this opportunity to apologize to Paul Ryan?
In a sane society, schools having problems with disruptive, violent “students” roaming the hallways and/or assaulting teachers etc. would have authority people with large clubs called in to beat the miscreants about the head and other body parts. Then the miscreants would be transported to an isolated building or a penal colony where they would have to work to live. But we are not living in a sane society. Liberals are responsible for all the violence in schools. Conservatives in charge would have these problems nipped in the bud. Conservatives are not in charge. Liberals are. When liberals are in charge, civil society decays.
“Raises concerns” is lib-speak for “gee, we hope those students going around beating teachers and other students aren’t made to feel bad and have their self-esteem damaged by being punished. We’ll give them a time-out and explain to them they’re not responsible for acting out.”
That global warming is bad.
They are going to work together to design a discipline program to "build relationships" and hope to establish discipline thru that.
These people are clearly insane. The students harming people and property should be tear-gassed and locked up. Plus, they should have to work to eat--no tv, no internet, nothing but hard labor and strict routine til they learn some primary lessons of life.
vaudine
I read the article. Since this seems to be Philadelphia, I presume the majority of students are black.
Oh wait...that'd be racist.
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