Posted on 05/08/2005 6:47:15 PM PDT by Born Conservative
BOW, N.H. - A decision to take Advanced Placement biology instead of gym will cost a Bow High School senior her diploma, but it won't keep her from going to college in the fall.
Though Isabel Gottlieb is a good student, a trumpet player in the school band and holds varsity letters in three sports, she discovered last fall she was one gym class shy of having enough credits to graduate next month.
She asked for a waiver, but the school wouldn't budge, telling her instead she had to drop a class to take gym.
"Why would I drop an AP biology class to take P.E.?" the 18-year-old said. "It's just not on my priority list."
The missing credit wasn't caught by the school last spring when Gottlieb's schedule was set. The class in question is called BEST, or Building Essential Skills for Tomorrow, and is required for all Bow students to graduate.
At the Seattle high school Gottlieb attended before moving to Bow before her junior year, gym requirements often were waived for students in varsity sports. But those waivers aren't something Bow High School is willing to accept.
"Waivers vary from school to school and they're not standardized at all," said Principal George Edwards.
Gottlieb added the class last year after the school told her she had to take it, but then dropped it when she found out it was too much on top of classes she was already taking, including two Advanced Placement classes and calculus.
Both Gottlieb and her mother said the school suggested dropping either band, chorus, AP biology or calculus. But she and her mother decided sacrificing any of those would have diminished the quality of Gottlieb's education.
"I'm trying to get into college and someone isn't going to want to see someone drop an AP biology class a month into the year in order to pick up P.E.," Gottlieb said.
There will likely be no compromises in time for graduation. The class is not offered in the summer.
And it may not matter. Gottlieb already has been accepted to Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., where she plans to major in biology.
Trinity is aware of Gottlieb's situation and said that as long as she gets her General Educational Development, or GED, in time, there won't be a problem.
Gottlieb said that she already has taken the practice test and, once she hears back on that, will schedule a time to take the official version of the high school equivalency test.
Meanwhile, her mother, Ashley Warner, is planning a "non-graduation" party for her daughter.
"We realized that not graduating wasn't the end of the world," Warner said. "But it took a long time to come to that conclusion."
Her outcome will be fine. But it isn't like she had it all planned out to happen this way.
I'm very aware of the fact that companies have arbitrary rules. I'm also aware that many of these rules are wrong and that they should be changed whenever better policies can be formulated. I love nothing more than seeing a company lose good employees because those employees move to companies that treat their employees better. Every time we change a bad rule, we make the country better. Every time a company fails because it couldn't keep good employees, the business world gets better.
Where I work, they tried to hand down a new program last spring. The program was going to cost millions of dollars to execute, but the premises on which it was built were faulty. Occasionally, it would do good, but in many other cases, we would spend a great deal of money for no return. We would also be ignoring some places where we needed to spend money, and those omissions could have led to problems. I started sending complaints up the line. My boss realized that I was right and supported the idea of making change. I presented my thoughts at a meeting of folks from our worldwide technical community. Others agreed, and we started making changes. Some people are still resisting, but I think we have the momentum to create a better program. I'm sure that some of those originators see me as you see this young lady. They see a guy who just refuses to follow proper orders. I sleep better at night knowing that I did the right thing. My company will be more profitable because I'm making the program better.
If your company needs people who don't think but who just follow rules, then you clearly don't need people like this young lady. If your company needs people who can challenge a bad idea and work to find a better one, it needs more like her. Clearly, she and her family thought through the situation. They checked with her college and made sure that the college was okay with her not having a diploma. They thought. They evaluated. They made a plan. I think our country is dying for lack of people willing to do this.
You can't seriously be arguing that something could be right because that's the way the IRS does it. The IRS is an example of much of what's wrong with this country. Crushing that kind of wrong and arbitrary exercise of government power is a good thing, not a bad thing. The IRS constantly violates the principles of the 5th Amendment to our Constitution. I can't believe any real conservative would support it.
Getting a diploma was important, and the family has a right to complain about things that are wrong. That's why we have a First Amendment. When things are wrong, we criticize. We hope that constructive criticism will lead to changes for the better. In this case, the family decided that the biology class was more important than the diploma. They made a hard decision forced on them by bad policy. They are accepting the consequences but exercising their First Amendment right to criticize a foolish policy.
Bill
Those who can't DO, TEACH. Those who can't TEACH, TEACH gym.....
Very true. Not enough time or activity in a week to make a difference. I hated gym in the 60s, didn't get more than a C in any semester except for the swimming and lifesaving semesters (I already had the red cross swimming and lifesaving certs). My arrogant gym teacher told me that I'd never make it through Marine Corps training, I was "too weak". It was the source of a great deal of satisfaction going to see him on leave after completing boot camp and infantry training and rubbing his nose in it. The problem always was him and the class itself.
You hit the nail on the head about the rule change.
Military kids get moved a lot and often get hurt by this kind of educrat nonsense. MD requires 1 semester of PE, Hawaii 2-3 years. Move from Maryland to Hawaii late in high school and your are screwed. Seen it happen to several of my daughters' friends.
Then again, few school systems are as screwed up as the Hawaii public schools.
Ironically, the Bow NH schools have a "Gifted and Talented" program in the lower grades! What the h*** for!!
My alma mater used to do that, and I think it makes sense. Having to take a gym class when you're already in 3 varsity sports is BS.
She clearly didn't have "an array of options" and know that "the class was required."
She was taking things like band, chorus, etc. In general I really do agree with you, but let's not make it sound as if she had to take courses like band and chorus. I had choices to make about my schedule by the time I got to senior year, and I made them. I didn't have to take AP Calculus or AP Spanish, or chorus for that matter, but I did. She could have taken whatever she wanted, so yes she did have an array of options. Am I saying she should have taken gym? Given half the chance, I wouldn't have. Alas, my high school did not give me a choice and automatically penciled in a gym class for every eligible student.
I just came through the system--not public school, but we were still open to the educational rules of the state. We've all got choices to make, like I had, and I'm glad that she is still moving on with her education. She got what she needed out of high school and is going on to better things, and I wish her luck. If anything, this proves that the whole damn system is a sham. The point I was trying to make is that somehow she had to have known what the new school's requirements were and probably could have taken the time to see if everything checked out with an academic dean or principal. At my school what they did (from junior year on really) was tell you what areas you needed to take courses in and then you picked from a subset of available courses. If you had open spaces for electives, you could do whatever with them.
Like I said, I DO agree with you and just about everyone else here that varsity sports should exempt you from physical education requirements, but not all schools do that anymore. My alma mater only did until about my sophomore year.
This is bringing back bad memories of gym class! :P
Those are good things to show to future employeers.
Incredible - that principal should be ashamed.......
This girl doesnt work for the school...on a salary. On the contrary...her parents have paid alot of their hard earned money in SCHOOL TAXES to get this girl a good education. The school works for the parents in my estimation.
She wants to take classes that are important in furthering her career goals...so why not go for it?
And yes...Id hire this girl in a minute (if she was an engineer of course).
Its easy...she will probably work rings around other employees who show up exactly at 8...do just what they are told...no more..no less...and go home exactly at 5.
She has more drive, determination, and discipline than most...so she wont have any trouble doing what it takes to make her employer happy.
And that's coming from someone who had two letters and took "Weightlifting" to get an easy A to bump my GPA to a 3. It worked. :)
The worst thing that I got from gym class was an aversion to stretching. I'll never be flexible, but good stretching would have helped me. Unfortunately, I got the old "GET DOWN, STRAIGHTEN YOUR LEG" shouting from brain-dead coaches. Of course, that kind of idiotic approach never improved the flexibility of those who weren't born with good flexibility, and it turned me off to the whole idea. Years later, a friend worked on me pretty hard to understand the techniques and value of proper stretching, and with practice, my flexibilty has improved. Like most things the government does, it taught gym poorly.
Bill
I had them send my diploma in the mail.
I skipped "required" gym courses two semesters, once in junior high and once in high school. The former was verbally "approved" even though "the law" said I had to take it; in the latter case I simply ignored it to take a more interesting class, and they never noticed or cared.
I'm awful glad that American entrepreneurs don't have that attitude, or the American Dream would be dead. This girl knows that AP courses prepare her for a real future much more than a trumped up PE course, especially when she is a 3 sport varsity athlete. This is another case of little men given a little power becoming a bit too sure of their own rightness. Follow the rules to the letter, or blaze the trail...to each his own.
Well the first option her princiPAL came up with was that she could drop either calculus or AP biology st take senior BEST ("Topics range from law as it pertains to the transition from adolescence to adulthood, to financial information on credit cards and purchasing/leasing vehicles")
"A decision to take Advanced Placement biology instead of gym will cost a Bow High School senior her diploma, but it won't keep her from going to college in the fall."
Of course it won't. As long she completed all of her course requirements, she has graduated, piece of paper or not.
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