For over 30 years I’ve been an educator of academic subjects, athletics, and various forms of the arts, both in public and private school settings. The past three years, while becoming familiar with new surroundings, I’ve been a substitute teacher for elementary, middle, and high schools in the Fleming and Mason counties of Kentucky. In the aftermath of a recent series events at Fleming County High School, this year will be my last in this line of service.
Some would ask why I care, and others ask why I dare to address a sore spot, instead of just licking the injury and limping away, out of the line of fire, to heal. Some say: “No pain, no gain”; but I say “No CHANGE, no gain.” I am not one to lie down and do nothing when I see inequities or inadequacies in leadership claiming to rescue the faithful out of a quagmire.
I’ve seen the efforts of teachers who care about their students—ones who go the extra mile to make a difference in their students’ lives. I’ve crossed paths with students who are trying to use their time in school to learn what they can before being launched out into diverse futures. But there are also forces at work determined to thwart any good the dedicated might nurture—and that includes administrators who dare not discipline or “call out” students who are repeatedly disrespectful and disruptive towards teachers and fellow students.
It seems there are limited resources or options for dealing with “delinquent students” who are not necessarily learning disabled, but ones who are unapologetically unwilling or unable to control themselves in a social setting or exhibit the kind of considerate behavior one would expect of a young adult. These are the ones teachers spend too much time writing up or sending to the office, only to find the same students back in the classroom after a day or two in an “In-School-Detention” classroom where little more than the babysitting of bullies is endured until their hiatus from required instruction has expired. Without some other provision in the education system to address the challenges these students pose, I anticipate the problem will be compounded by the passing of a recent state law in Kentucky, requiring young adults to stay in school until they’re 18.
Despite numerous positive experiences and memorable interactions with students and staff at the elementary and middle schools of Fleming County over the past few years, take-home lessons from the high school have been much different. Positive changes like hands-on projects in the Agriculture Department, opportunities for creativity in writing and communications in the English Department, new oversight of the high school library by an energetic young woman who has brought it back to life in recent months, and personal enrichment get-togethers where students are mentored in song and dance as they discover roots of the Appalachian culture, are all part of the positive things happening.
But there is also an undercurrent, if not addressed with a firmer grip, that will surely undermine and tarnish the reformation and reputation of Fleming County High School. This has to do with the lack of discipline when students are divisive and unruly. Certainly it is every administrator’s biggest challenge when a school targeted as “under-achieving” is attempting to redeem itself. Super-teachers are being paid big bucks to come in and “show the teachers how it’s done.” Principals and vice principals are eager to highlight the good, but also quick to sweep under the rug, it seems, anything contrary to an improved public image of a school in jeopardy.
Personal experience in this last category, and the administration’s lack of resolution as it’s turned a deaf ear towards at least one teacher’s calls for help in potentially volatile classroom situations, move me to expose this deficiency. Hopefully, despite the principal and vice principal’s “blacklisting” me for trying to address this issue, some good will come of a review of this ongoing issue. I, for one, am tired of seeing students get away with defiant behavior—star athlete or not— just as I’m tired of being told to call the office when there is a problem, and then, on more than one occasion, having no one show up to reinforce a teacher’s limited resources for disciplining disruptive students. In this scenario, even students who feign ignorance have figured out no one will do anything to correct them.
This is one substitute teacher whose parting impression of at least one public school in Kentucky has been adversely affected by unpleasant realities of classroom procedures and ineffective options for maintaining order in the classroom. Thousands of newly certified teachers will replace those worn out by this system. I wish them well, but I wonder if some solution, other than “black-listing” employees who have the courage to expose truths hindering the achievement of a standard of excellence, will ever be found. How else can we prevent public schools from becoming domestic battlegrounds?
It’s time for school boards at the grass roots level to determine whether or not they are satisfied with the status quo. If they are not content to underachieve, then youth preparing to enter a world beyond the walls of a school should be held to a certain standard of consideration for others and self-discipline in learning. Just as important is a plan addressing youth who could care less. In one educator’s opinion, disruptive, uncooperative, underachieving “bad apples,” inevitably appearing at the bottom of barrels left sitting and unsorted for too long, should not be kept in the same closed system as the “good apples” who desire to be and do something more with their lives.
