Article “Not making the grade” is super headed “Unhappy parents pull honor students out of a Lancaster school. Officials say concerns about behavior have been addressed, hope demographic changes aren’t driving complaints.”
WATCHDOG: This article about the perennially challenged Wheatland Middle School is an excellent piece of balanced reporting. Unfortunately, the heading “hope demographic changes aren’t driving complaints” is not representative of the thrust of the article and comes across as though the SD of L is blaming the victims.
Middle schools are plagued by the problems of adolescence. There needs to be ongoing communication between individual parents and faculty as well as an active parents / teachers association. Both must act responsibly. And if parents feel their complaints are ignored, they should join together and take them directly to the school board at their public meetings.
Part of the problem is misunderstandings and latent hostility among parents of different socio-economic circumstances, as much from those from the underclass as others. When youngsters are first mixed together, there is a lot of room for misunderstand. Furthermore, teachers can fear parents which in turn inhibits disciplining youngsters. The consensus among teachers and parents of what constitutes proper behavior is not as homogenous as in schools of less diversity.
Fortunately, by the time the youngsters reach McCaskey High School, parents and children have acclimated and calmed down. With three youngsters at McCaskey this year (a son and two grand daughters), the Watchdog has not heard a complaint about discipline.
Two wags of the tail to the Sunday News for the , gumption and professionalism to discuss a controversial local social problem in a constructive and thorough manner. Hopefully, this will not be the last article dealing with the subject of discipline in school districts. Without a public consensus being formed, the teachers and principals are left without proper community support and requirements.
The most disturbing thing about this article, to someone who graduated from Wheatland and who has friends whose children attend both Wheatland and reynolds, is that Reynolds is now a much more desirable school than Wheatland. It was only a few years ago that things were horrible at Reynolds.
The was an article in the Lancaster newspaper talking about lavatories being locked, fights, threats, etc. Most of those problems have been corrected. The principal at Wheatland is a great guy and was an OUTSTANDING elementary school principal who was thrown in the Wheatland mess. He has not had as much success there as he did at his elementary school.
it wasn’t balanced, and it wasn’t accurate, and it wasn’t fair.