Something is rotten in…Roslindale

The Parent Imperfect loves the springtime, despite the fact that it is his most frantic time of year. It is the time when I add spending a lot of time with a group of kids in the Regan Youth League to a life that is already barely doable. The RYL Opening Day was “postponed” this year, not because of the April showers that often do the trick, but because it was scheduled for the day after the city had been locked down as thousands of police combed Watertown for Suspect #2 in the Marathon Bombing. The games started on the following Monday and the parade happened on a gorgeous day a week later, so the season is now well underway. It seems that playing baseball is part of what has gotten life back to “normal” for many of the league’s children….and parents.

Getting back into the rhythm of school has been another part of starting to live life again in Boston. Both Connie and Vince were unusually ready to get back to school after the week-long vacation that began with Patriot’s Day and the Marathon. They were in full complaint mode (and, in Vince’s case, nonviolent resistance to homework) by Wednesday of the first week back, but that, too, was part of beginning to put behind them the wild mix of feelings that had resulted from two explosions on one of their favorite streets in the city. Connie is still not sleeping well, plagued by dreams playing out horrible scenes that she’s not talking about in her waking hours. Today, she’s planning to go to a large gathering of people for the first time since Patriot’s Day. I know she’ll have some different emotions than what she had the last time she helped Wake up the Earth.

Spring is always a difficult time for her in school. Like most kids, she really wants to be outside at this time of year. Her declining patience for the routine and the boredom of school coincides with a natural increase in the stress level of the teachers who must somehow deal with 25-30 kids, most of whom are constantly contemplating a group jailbreak. Add to those tensions, the nine-hour day in force at the Irving, and you have a recipe for trouble…even for the children who carry the “teacher’s pet” label in the cafeteria.

Connie definitely enjoys some parts of her day at the Irving, and one of the things that makes life bearable this spring is a theater elective that she has two or three times in alternating weeks. Yes, there is a theater elective at the Washington Irving Middle School. She is frustrated by the fact that many of her classmates could care less about something that she really loves, but she has grown accustomed to that…matured, one might say. Her teacher has, however,  noticed her love and found some ways to feed it. One of those ways was to cast her as Hamlet in a production of a fragment of that famous play. The small group of theater enthusiasts in the class so rose to the occasion that the teacher arranged for them to do their scenes yesterday at an assembly of the students of a nearby school.

Connie was more excited leaving for school yesterday than any day this year. I was sorry that I wouldn’t be able to see her as Hamlet. It turns out that the neighbor who often goes to school with Connie was playing Claudius in the show, so their energy on the way to school was palpable.

When I got home too late last night, I was excited to ask Connie how it had gone, but she wasn’t home. Before I had a chance to ask Liz about it, she said, “Connie didn’t get to do Hamlet today, so she’s pretty upset.”

It turned out that a scheduling confusion at the other school meant that they had to cancel the production there. This was certainly a huge disappointment for Ms. Connie and her fellow thespians. Knowing how excited they were about this day, the teacher scrambled to organize a show for several classes at the Irving. Having succeeded at that Herculean task of organization, he gave each of the cast members a pass to get out of class to be in the show.

Unfortunately, for Connie and the others, this meant presenting a pass to the teacher who has been very difficult for Connie and some of her fellow classmates since the beginning of the year. Predictably, when they presented the passes to the Teacher, she said something like, “He can’t do that…he had to tell me that at least a week ago…you can’t miss this class just before MCAS.” And she outright refused to honor the pass, telling the children that they’d better take their seats and be quiet.

Connie was crushed. Leaving aside, for the moment, the fact that MCAS scores are definitely not Connie’s problem at the Irving,  she just couldn’t believe that someone could be so heartless. It got worse when they proceeded to spend the next 80 minutes practicing this ridiculous “clicking” mechanism that they use, quite inexplicably, to identify the right answers on the test.

Since the theater teacher had already organized the presentation, he had to scramble to find other kids to read the lines off a script. Those students were all excited about having done so and understandably shared their excitement in the halls during the short break between classes. This pushed Connie over the edge. When it came time to go to Science class, she just couldn’t do it. Quite thoughtfully, she asked if she could go see the Guidance Counselor, and seeing how upset Connie was, her Science teacher gave her the pass to do so.

The Guidance Counselor was very welcoming and comforting to Connie. Upon hearing the story, she immediately told Connie that “Ms. — was wrong. When a child comes to her with a pass from another teacher, she must honor that pass.” That made Connie right, but she’d much rather have been Hamlet than right. The counselor’s affirmation made her feel the injustice of what had happened even more strongly.

Anyone associated with the Irving in any way knows the characters in this tale, regardless of my feeble efforts to protect the innocent and the non-innocent. I’m sure the teacher in the story is a perfectly good person who could probably do many jobs in the BPS quite well, But, at this point in her life, the demanding task of teaching a living and breathing group of our sixth graders is not one of those jobs. In our system, however, she has just that responsibility and will probably continue to have it next September.

Ironically, this sad tale transpired on the day after the inaugural meeting of the Quality Working Group of the Boston Public Schools. That group, which came out of the long debate about school assignment in Boston, will spend many hours trying to unlock the magical formula to “measure” educational quality. I don’t know how one would measure what happened to Connie yesterday. Incredibly, if Connie scores one point higher on the MCAS test (which won’t happen) because she was “clicking” instead of reciting Hamlet, the spirit-crushing arbitrariness of the teacher in question would count as a “quality intervention” in our current way of defining educational quality.  Even more incredibly, the extraordinary efforts of the theater teacher to nourish the special interest of a few kids in theater, and then, against all odds find an outlet for that interest, would have no place in our considerations of what makes a quality education. If, over the next weeks and months, the Quality Working Group can find no way to change that equation, its time would have been better spent savoring the lilacs in the Arboretum.  

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Not that crime scene, this one

About an hour ago, the Governor lifted the “shelter in place” order, saying that it seemed that the suspect had gotten away. Minutes later, we headed outside for a walk in the Arboretum. Quite a few people had the same idea, despite the threatening weather. As we headed back home after 45 minutes in the park, we started to hear multiple police sirens. Given the occurrences of the day, the multiple cars made us a bit more nervous than usual. Might this bombing guy have come to Roslindale?

At least eight emergency vehicles came by us as, one after the other. They all seemed to be stopping on Washington St. not far from the back of our house. For some reason, Vince and I decided to walk up to Washington St., curious about what had happened. Sure enough, all of the police cars and ambulances were blocking the street, just a few yards from the baseball field. We could already see yellow police tape securing an area that extended into the street. As we stood watching from some distance, two young women came walking toward us.

“What happened?” we asked.

“Somebody got shot…see, the yellow tape is the crime scene.” They were shockingly matter-of-fact about it.

A uniformed man in a nearby car asked, “Are you sure they got shot or was it a stabbing?” The girls just kept walking.

Vince wanted to go see the scene, but I’d had enough for one day and we headed home. I could care less whether it was a shooting or a stabbing. Our story is that there was an “accident” on Washington St. No one here needs to know about more craziness.

Back in the house, Connie was making a fruit smoothie, which was very welcome. She was skeptical about the accident story, but decided to leave it alone. Instead, she only wanted to know how we can close the storm window on the back door.

Liz immediately told us that the police apparently had the remaining bombing suspect cornered under a boat in Watertown. Maybe that’s one threat that’s finally over, but the deeper, closer feeling of insecurity can’t be solved by a SWAT team, or two or three.

Shelter in Place

The Parent Imperfect got up at about 5:30 this morning, just as he generally does. I got up thinking this morning about the moment yesterday afternoon when I sat in a pizza place, grabbing something to eat before Regan League baseball practice. The TV happened to be showing the crowd singing the National Anthem at the Bruins game the night before in honor of the young boy killed in the bombing on Monday. I’m not big on hockey or singing the National Anthem, in particular, but this scene was quite overwhelming. I had to get up and leave my pizza behind, and, if you know me, that’s unusual.

In any case, The plan this morning was for Vince to get up very early and go get a haircut before his final Driver’s Ed class. I actually slept in Connie’s bed last night, as she asked to sleep with her Mother in case she had more of the bad dreams that have been bothering her the last few days. On the surface, the bombing at the Marathon hasn’t seemed to bother her too much, but the terror has been working at another level.

I was in the shower when the message came via robo call. Unfortunately, the new phones we just got broadcast voice messages throughout the house, so Connie awoke to the news that the city would be closed today due to “intensive and ongoing police action” in several places. Much had happened while I slept.

We now know that one of the suspects in the Marathon bombing is dead, but the other suspect–a nineteen-year-old present or former student at UMass-Dartmouth–is still at large. Friends and former classmates contacted by the press describe him as “friendly and really social”…’perfectly normal”…”a sweetheart.” They are shocked to know that the captain of the wrestling team who got a scholarship to UMass could have been involved in this. Maybe it would be easier if he were a strange kid who seemed sullen and withdrawn. His older brother (now deceased) seemed to be having a more difficult time in this country. He is reported to have done a photo essay in 2008 saying that “I don’t have a single American friend…I just don’t understand them.”

We have been told to “shelter in place,” which means stay where we are. At first, this was just for the Allston-Brighton area and several surrounding cities, but about an hour ago the Governor extended this alert to the entire city of Boston. I am sitting here, so I’m obviously complying with the alert.

My work has been cancelled as my place of work is shut for the day. Liz’s clinic is apparently open, but they are not encouraging people to come in. The activities planned for both Connie and Vince have both been cancelled. Vince is glued to Twitter, soaking up every rumor anyone is willing to put out.

I told him to get a grip when he started talking about pipe-bombs, then it came over the radio that the police had done a controlled explosion of a pipe-bomb somewhere. It would be easy to become quite hysterical about all of this. The citywide lock down only intensifies the fear factor. Maybe I should get a grip.

WBUR just broadcast some interesting advice: “Don’t let your older children traumatize your younger ones.” That’s tough, given that we’re told to stay indoors and not answer the door. Vince has actually been very mature about this and quite careful about what he is saying to his sister. He’s watching “The Lion King” with her at this moment. His biggest frustration is that I won’t take him to get his hair cut, even though the barber shop is open.

It turns out that Connie knew the little boy that was killed on Monday. He and his family participated in the Winter Sports Program at Youth Enrichment Services. She’s not talking about this a lot, but I’m sure it makes it more real and for her.

Now they are talking about more “controlled explosions” in different places, as the police discover explosives. How can a nineteen-year-old kid evade this kind of a manhunt? Not for long, I would think, unless someone is helping him.

What Now?

A lot has happened since that dramatic night when the Boston School Committee voted in favor of a proposal by the Superintendent to change the City’s school assignment process. The new home-based process will steer students to the schools closest to their homes, but will provide some access to out-of-neighborhood quality schools. As was said many times during the discussions of this plan, the devil will be in the details of how the BPS implements the plan.

One thing for sure is that the new assignment plan, alone, is not going to improve the quality of education in struggling Boston schools. It will take resources, inspired teachers and school staff and thoughtful interventions at the school level to fulfill the right of Boston’s children to quality education. That leaves the Parent Imperfect thinking a lot about two related questions:

1. What must we keep our eyes on as the BPS implements this system, if we want to be sure that the new system doesn’t provide even less access to quality schools for students in neighborhoods where good schools are scarce?

2. How do we move the conversation from how kids get assigned to poor schools to how we make the poor schools MUCH better?

If you wonder about these issues, too, or would just like to find out more about the new assignment plan, consider attending a panel discussion that will be held from 6-8PM on Monday, April 22 at Northeastern University School of Law. The panel will include three people who were very involved in the recent discussion, and an activist leader on the “right to education.” The event is free, but let the organizers know you’re coming.

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A Quarter-Step Behind…

The Parent Imperfect does not have the energy he once had for evening meetings. More than a few people are happy about that. Last night, I very much wanted to sit home and vegetate after a stressful day at work, but something told me that I should accompany Liz in an evening pilgrimage to the nation’s oldest public school, so I did. My evenings on Ave. Louis Pasteur don’t always leave me in the best frame of mind, but this one did.

The Friends of the Keefe Library at Boston Latin School sponsored a talk by Michael Thompson, School Psychologist at Belmont Hill School and author of many books about the psychology of adolescent boys, most recently, The Pressured Child.

We arrived late, of course, and I was honestly shocked to see that one of the library’s main open spaces had been cleared and filled with chairs. Almost every one of the chairs (I counted something like 120 of them) was filled with a BLS parent. If the School Parent Council is able to attract one-sixth of that number for its monthly meetings, it is considered a great night. I know that many parents at BLS are concerned about the effect of the school experience on their child (or children), but it was an eye-opener for me that so many people would attend a meeting like this one.

I have to admit that I get a little cranky when someone starts right off talking to me about “independent” schools and public schools. If private schools didn’t depend on government in a million ways, I’d feel better about that language, but I got over it, in this case. He is, after all, an employee of a private school.

Thompson is an engaging speaker who obviously does a lot of this. He is very good at connecting the substance of his talk to a series of stories about his experience counseling boys in a school that isn’t so different from BLS, in terms of what it expects of its students. As a noted embellisher, myself, I was clear that Thompson’s stories had been gently massaged to serve a purpose, but that doesn’t bother me.

He wanted to get a roomful of parents to let go of our own needs and anxieties for a moment and try to see the BLS experience from the perspective of our sons and daughters. Thompson’s own perspective is informed by his clinical experience at Belmont Hill and other places, but it is also rooted in a practice of accompanying students through entire school days at many different types of schools. He asked who in the room had ever done such a thing and raised hands were conspicuously absent.

I can’t imagine doing such a thing, but the talk did push me to think about what it must be like for Vince to enter that building at 7:30AM, rush to his locker and then to his homeroom by 7:35 (to avoid “tardy detention”) and then begin the long march through seven periods of “drinking from a fire hose,” separated by four minutes of frenzied transit between classes (woe betide you if you arrive late to class!). Somewhere in the middle of all that, he gets 20 minutes to stuff a sandwich, a piece of fruit and a couple of cookies into his mouth before rushing off to the next class. In every one of these periods, a teacher will be expecting to be attentive to his/her rambling and enthusiastic about the material, and this will be just as true at R8 as it was at R1. And there are, of course, occasional study halls, but these, too, are moments of intense social control.

At a school such as BLS, according to Thompson, perhaps one-third of the students have a brain that is very-well suited to such an environment. Those are the “fast processors” whose parents were doing something else last night. Another third get along OK, but they are very aware that something is “not quite right” for them at the school. If they develop good friends and a supportive social environment at the school, they can be quite happy there (provided that they parents can adjust to the reality of the situation). And then there is the “other third” of students. They can be quite “bright” (they had to be to get into the place), but, for one reason or another, their brains are just not designed for the kind of environment in which they find themselves. Everyone at the school experiences stress, but this last group of people can really struggle in such environments. This strikes me as a good description of what I see at BLS.

This narrative definitely raised the tension level in the library. Thompson balanced this with many stories that allowed the assembled parents to shed stress through laughter. Through it all, he encouraged parents to “find another way to think about your child’s journey through school.”

For anyone who was looking for specific answers, he had few. The psychologist in him offered three things that he looks for when he speaks to a youth who seems to be struggling. These are connection, recognition and a growing sense of mastery. If he sees these things in the experience of the student, he is able to look beyond the specifics of the report card to sense that s/he is doing OK.

Vince’s insistence that he wants to stay at BLS comes from the strength of his connection to his friends and the fact that he gets some sort of recognition from them and (very occasionally) from his teachers and parents. This question of a “growing sense of mastery” is more difficult for me to discern in relation to my dear son.

Late in the talk, Thompson told a story of seeing a teacher taking a run with two high school girls. He started out at a pace that was too fast for the girls. They ran with him, but struggled to keep up. Before long, the girls slowed and finally started walking. After walking for a time, the girls started to run again and, before long, had returned to a pace that was comfortable for them. When they started running again, the teacher took up a spot, “running with them, a quarter step behind.” When the girls slowed down, so did the teacher. When they found energy to speed up, so did he, and, in this rhythm, they completed the run.

This is a story that you know is made up, but the point is one that stayed with me. Thompson is suggesting that thoughtful parents might follow the example of the running teacher in accompanying their children as they face the stress of schools like BLS.

The discussion got more real in the question and answer period. Parents (all women) put before Thompson their angst about the decision they are making right now about sending their child to BLS. Others talked about their own experiences with young people whose anxiety made it impossible for them to get up in the morning and go to school or whose attention issues left them struggling to keep their heads above water. In a setting very different from his office at Belmont Hill, Thompson showed why a wealthy private school would pay him what he asks to speak to its children and parents. The interactions also made me wonder who the people gathered in the library could talk to about their attempts to help sons and daughters through this “journey.”

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The Exam School Choice #11, The Letter and the Number

The last time around, the letter was a much bigger deal because that’s how the Parent Imperfect found out about Vince’s exam school assignment. This year, when the letter came on Wednesday, it was anticlimactic. We already knew that Connie had been invited to the nation’s oldest public school, which is what we need to know to make a decision about next year.

But the letter is not content to tell us what we need to know. It also gives us Connie’s numerical score on each section of the ISEE test. We have no idea what these raw numbers mean, although it was nice to see that her raw number was more or less the same on each section.

Then came another set of meaningless numbers. The letter tells us that, of the 2009 children who took the test and chose Boston Latin School as their first choice, Connie ranked “X,” taking into account both her test grade and the summary of her grades in fifth and sixth grade that has appeared, as if by magic, there on the page.  Again, this ranking number doesn’t mean a lot to us, but we were curious to see that her ranking for BLS was actually “higher” (better) than it was for the other schools. How is that possible? The letter doles out these numbers, but provides no explanation.

In any case, without much discussion, Liz and I decided that we would continue the time-honored tradition of not sharing with our children this ranking. In Vince’s case, that worked fine. He actually asked for this number for the very first time about two months ago. Only three of the 39 students in his sixth-grade class got invited to BLS and these were not kids (including Vince) who were going to rush into school and start comparing their numerical rankings. Liz hid the letter somewhere (in fact, I have no idea where it is) and we sort of forgot about it.

But not all sixth grades (or sixth graders) are alike. Did it slip our mind that we decided to have Connie go to an Advanced Work Class? It seems that the next day, nearly everyone in Connie’s class was talking about their ranking (I must wonder if it was really “almost everyone”). In the more competitive AWC environment, this question of the number took on prime importance for some. According to Ms. Connie, three of the young ladies in her class ranked in the top 16 of all children taking the test throughout the BPS, so she was more than curious about her number. I’d like an audit of those results…

Liz and I looked at each other, suddenly realizing that we should, of course, have talked to Connie about the letter and the number before she went to school the next day. When we sheepishly told her that we had received the letter and, as in the case of her brother, had decided not to share the number, drama ensued.

Would we please not compare her with her brother or assume that because something was the right thing to do with him, it is the right way to treat her? It’s bad enough that she can’t see TV shows, will never have her own laptop and has a phone from some other time that barely does text messages…now we’re not going to give her a chance to be proud of how she did on an important test? Having weirdos for parents is more than a girl can take sometimes.

We wavered before the real (and somewhat justified) emotions of youth denied, but did not give in (at least as far as I know). We apologized for not telling her about the letter the day before, but insisted that nothing good can come of her knowing a number that can only serve to make some people feel better and others feel not so good. The only thing that matters is what schools she has to choose from, right? I could see in her teary eyes that she was ready to go to all of the other meaningless numbers that seem quite important to us, but she spared us that observation.

Why does the BPS feel that it needs to tell this group of parents exactly where their child ranked on the private school admissions test that they use to decide who will go to the only public middle and high schools that have anything like the resources needed to educate adolescents? Why, when so much important information is not shared with parents, does this tidbit deserve to see the light of day?

Now I have to find the letter. With all our focus on the number, I’m not sure we got to the part of the letter that tells us how we need to respond to confirm that Connie will, indeed, join her brother at the nation’s oldest. Once bitten, twice…gnawed.

 

 

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The Exam School Choice #10, The Golden Fleece

The Parent Imperfect has become something of a one-trick pony lately. It’s much easier to talk about (and do something about) “the assignment policy” than to help our own children find their way in the Boston Public Schools.

But while I’ve been sitting in interminable Boston School Committee meetings, the clock has been ticking inexorably toward another of those decision points. Being a sixth grader, dear Connie is in the midst of an assignment moment that was almost never mentioned in the year-long assignment policy discussion. If the walk-zone preference is the “Sacred Cow” of Boston school politics, then the exam schools are certainly its “Golden Fleece,” the mythical prize that knowing parents are supposed to have in mind from Day One of their BPS Odyssey.

Vince’s experience has shown that the fleece isn’t so golden for everyone. But, for the moment we’re talking about Connie’s choice, not her brother’s. It’s “once bitten, twice shy,” right?

The last time, the news came in through the mail slot on a Friday afternoon. For some reason, I first came home to look at the letter before I picked up Vince and Connie, who were then spending many of their after school hours at the Jamaica Plain Branch of the Boston Public Library. He was overjoyed at the news.

But times have changed…This past Friday, when I came home early from work, Connie was sitting in our living room with the white MacBook on her lap, staring at the screen.

“Y  ¿qué noticias hay?, I asked as I came in the door.

“I don’t know. The website’s not working. not the app they gave us or the BPS site.”

It was true. Heavy traffic apparently had crashed the site through which the BPS was telling families where the sorting hat had placed them. Since at 2PM, almost all BPS children were still in school, it was curious parents who had overwhelmed the available bandwidth.

I can honestly say that I had forgotten that Friday was the day until Connie anxiously texted me the moment she got out of the Irving at 11:20AM (half-day on Friday because of the nine-hour Monday-Thursday marathon). She hadn’t really been talking much about the tension she was feeling about this day, but it was clear that everyone in her class had been talking about it that Friday.

“Vamos a volver a ver el sitio después de tu clase. Todo el mundo está tratando de ver su resultado de una vez.”

She picked up her sheet music and we headed off to her piano class. I wondered how she would be able to concentrate on “Fur Elise” with the sorting hat so much on her mind, but luckily, she’s much more focused than her father.

At just after 5PM, she was looking over my shoulder as the uncrashed website loaded on the screen. Just to build the suspense, I acted as though the site wouldn’t scroll the inch we need to see the key info, but she wasn’t buying it. Connie took the “Down” arrow into her own hands and, there it was…It was now officially her choice whether or not she wanted to be in the same school with big brother for the first time in four years.

A sort-of-audible, “Yes!” emerged from somewhere inside her. She was not as excited as her brother had been, four years before, but she was clearly happy that it would now be her choice (with a little help from her friends) whether or not she would attend the school that had caused so much sturm und drang in her house over the past 1400 days.

As far as the BPS is concerned, the decision is now made. The sorting hat has spoken. Those offered the Golden Fleece will, of course, either accept it, or abandon the odyssey for some other journey. But Connie will want to talk about this. She’ll want to talk about how she felt when she visited the nation’s oldest public school. She, more than I (I’m used to it by now), felt that BLS was doing us a favor by showing us their school, while a very different visit to Boston Latin Academy seemed intent on getting us to think of BLA as “our” school. She’ll want to talk to her good friend from the Hernández about how happy she is at BLA, but she’ll also be talking a lot to her friends from the Irving, many of whom will have gotten the same result she did. In those discussions, there will be much excitement about embracing the Golden Fleece, together, and less about the privilege the fleece represents. And she’ll want to talk about what she felt as we walked through the music department at BLS, where students just a couple of years older than Connie practiced the violin, the cello, the French horn and the clarinet. And she’ll especially want to remember the way her mouth literally fell open when we entered the library at BLS from above. The libraries at the Hernández (nonexistent), the Hennigan and the Irving, taken together, wouldn’t fill even a corner of the BLS space.

We’ll talk as if all options remain before us. Connie’s Mom, to her unending credit, will challenge Connie to remember that both schools have the same curriculum and to think about who she’ll be going to school with and to imagine how she will feel in the two schools. She’ll do all that challenging, and then she’ll listen to what Connie wants and we’ll make a decision…hopefully the right one.  Help!