Part of the job as a high school administrator is to be able to think quickly on one's feet and make decisions that will impact lives hopefully for the better. For eight years I have prided myself in my ability to do this fairly well. When my colleague walked into my office with the following question, all my arrogance flew right out the door.
She said, "I have a student in my office who is 16 years old, she is a young mother, does not speak a word of English was dumped here by the baby's father and is now living in a group home and oh yeah... she only has a 4th grade education from Mexico. How do I schedule her classes????"
OK... this was a new one for me. I sat in a room full of professionals, two assistant principals, the school nurse and a counselor and none of us could produce a workable answer. After a brief moment of chanting "INS" I came to my senses and realized we were bound by law to provide this young lady an education.
Now before you label me cold-hearted keep in mind that California schools are now facing the worst budget crisis in decades. Our district alone faces 15 million dollars in cuts if the trained monkeys we elected to lead this state do not produce a budget, which is now months overdue. In order to meet payroll, school districts were forced to submit "bare bones" budgets for approval so that they can borrow to simply meet payroll... forget about operating expenses or purchasing expensive textbooks we are mandated to update. This week I watched my principal hand out 22 pink slips to veteran teachers based upon whether they were credentialed to teach non-English speakers. Other than the now diagnosed one, this dilemma produced a knot in my stomach so big it produced a lump in my throat.
The LA Times ran an article this morning that the trained monkeys have are now producing a "bail out plan" to the tune of 11 million dollars to present to the federal government. Heck, if the bankers and auto makers can sell their deal in order to give million dollar bonuses to their CEOs surely the poor children of California are entitled to be bailed out too??? Right??
So... what do we do with our young mother? The minor parent program at the continuation school refused to take her because she does not speak enough English, the adult education program refused to take her because she is not old enough... so this poor soul is left with her 4th grade education to try to muddle through the murky waters of the comprehensive high school.
We finally opted to place her in a two-hour block of English with other students learning English and pay for a home teacher for the remaining courses. My only prayer is that after we manage to educate those who do not have to prove their citizenship that we can afford to pay the electric bill so they can actually see to read their newly adopted textbooks that we had to borrow money to purchase and we have enough paper to print the IOUs to pay their teachers who had to obtain special credentials to teach them.
