middle school petition

Christopher just showed me this petition, which is making its way around the middle school.

He doesn't know who wrote it, but he thinks it's a super-smart girl. He signed.

I said, "I love this petition! I want to sign!"

Christopher: "What do you love about it?"

Me: "Doesn't this sound like something I would have written when I was your age?"

Christopher: "Yeah, it does."

Of course, I don't think I would have written it as well.

January 2007

To the administration:

We would like to bring to your attention some concerns regarding The Irvington Middle School environment, on behalf of the students.

The simple problem is the amount of freedom that we, as students, receive. There is no clear resolution for the lack of freedom, but there is a cause that can be worked with. Students who don’t respect their education and make bold statements, such as disturbing classes, conducting bomb threats, and stealing, etc. reduce the respect and trust the administration has for the student body. The entire Middle School should not b punished for the actions of the few troublesome kids. In fact, stricter rules encourage more children to do these things, in their haste and displeasure. It should not be necessary for kids to want to make bomb threats simply because they don’t want to endure a few hours in school. The following are examples of some actions taken by the administration that suggest the distrust of students:

1. The assignment pad “passport” that limits the amount of times students can use the bathroom
2. The necessity of a pass for the library during lunch, sending the wrong message to students in suggesting that reading is only important if a teacher is in the act of forcing children to do so.
3. “Indoor recess” where students are not allowed to stand, let alone go to different tables with friends in the crowded cafeteria.
4. Restricted time when lockers are accessible.
5. Never having or suggesting a space inside where students can “hang out” or spend free time at lunch, especially when the weather is unpleasant (similar to the teachers lounge)
   

Budget and other factors are understood as reasons as to why these rules are in place, but it should also be understood that the environment for middle school students is becoming increasingly unpleasant with these restrictions. The most important part about middle school is said to be to learn about one’s self in a nonacademic way. For this, there must be an environment that is welcoming and enjoyable for that “self” that is to be discovered.

I can't tell you how happy I am to see this petition.

A new friend of mine, who has a son in 6th grade, told me a couple of months ago that her work regularly takes her to federal buildings. None of these buildings, she says, has "security" at the level of our middle school.

The tight security inside the middle school has been hard on her son, who has become demoralized. He feels like he's living inside a prison, and in a way he is. This is the place Ed and I used to call the Green Zone, after all.

As she put it, "Unless the police have advised them to put in security measures at this level, they need to drop them."

And now here is this petition, written by a child. And she nails it.

She's nailed it for me, too. Life as a parent in Irvington Union Free School District is not free.

One parent with long familiarity of the district says Columbine was a turning point; the district used Columbine to write and impose policies and rules for children without writing or imposing policies and rules for itself.

My own perception is that the district used 9/11 as a justification for taking power, or perhaps I mean access, away from parents.

Not long after 9/11 the district began locking all doors to the buildings; began forcing parents to enter only one door without exception (if a mom happened to be carrying a heavy basket filled with presents for the teachers, that mom couldn't use the door close to her car but had to circle the building to reach the Parent Entrance, staggering under her load); began forcing parents to stand outside in the freezing cold waiting for their children to be released to them after school; began punishing parents who dared to pick their children up in person (we are urged to have our children take the bus) by releasing the bus children from the building first, one classroom at a time, while the in-person parents watched and shivered; began imposing ever-increasing restrictions on parking; began posting guards to enforce these ever-increasing restrictions, etc.

I'm told that the K-3 school has actual lock-downs, 20-minute periods during which no one, including parents, is let in or out of the building.

I can barely believe this, and of course nothing is written down - yet another "practice" as opposed to policy. But this is what a close friend was told one day when she was on her way out of the K-3 school. Someone in the building told her to get out fast because they were going into "lock-down." If she didn't get out before they went into lock-down she wouldn't be allowed out for 20 minutes.

That has to be illegal.

Doesn't it?

Parents are regularly apprised of new rules that come down to us from on high, rules that invariably make life more difficult and limit access to teachers, administrators, and other parents.

Then we are thanked for our cooperation.

Now, of course, we have the union making public threats to sue a parent and being provided the name of "the parent leading the committee to oppose the bond."

Things are wildly out of control.

And now we have a middle school child calling it.