Reply to incidents at W schools disproportionately represented in media/DCUM?

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Reply to "incidents at W schools disproportionately represented in media/DCUM?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Sure, move to parts of the county where they're too busy dealing with students who are gang members and getting pregnant to worry about things like a racial epithet scrawled on a chalkboard...[/quote]

I’m an MCPS teacher and no, I do not think this is happening in other non-W schools and being swept under the rug. And comments like the one quoted above are what’s wrong here. Pray tell, PP, where do you live and where do your children attend school? How many kids do you personally know who attend these oh so terrible schools? How many teachers do you personally know at these schools?

Your comment reminds me of a mom from a FB group I’m in who came on to ask about Rockville HS and their “poor ratings.” She loved a house in a neighborhood that was slated for RHS but her parents, who lived in VA, warned her of all the “gang activity.” Initially, people came on to agree with her parents’ sentiments, and then I asked if any of them actually had kids attending the school. At that point another mom came on to comment that her daughter attends Rockville high school and has had a wonderful experience. A few other parents came on to chime in with the same sentiments. Coincidentally, my own kids are slated to go there for high school. When I see students from Rockville high school out working at our neighborhood grocery store or out and about around town, I ask them about their experience. Not once has any teenager told me that it was bad, and in fact many of them talk about how small the school is and how that makes everyone feel close to other students and to the teachers.

[b]If we continue to promote the idea that “great” schools are those where kids wear blackface and use racial slurs and where students of color feel they are devalued, then we need to seriously rethink what a “great” school is. I damn sure don’t want my kids going there.[/b][/quote]

I couldn't have said it better. From the perspective of a teacher in the cluster, I think these schools are so impoverished for diversity that the kids don't have much of a chance to learn tolerance. There are no natural consequences when kids mess up early on because for the most part parents see themselves as the defender of their child instead of someone responsible for raising good human beings. So, when teachers see things, have frank conversations and try to assign consequences, parents begin asking for evidence, organizing a defense, and appealing to the principal before even talking to their kid about what they did. The few students of color in the school are indeed hassled in subtle and not so subtle ways and have to laugh it off because they are so far outnumbered and like all teens, just want to fit in. I'm not saying that other areas of the county don't have different problems, but for sure the issue of racism is much more severe in these majority white, highly privileged schools.  [/quote]

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