About a month ago, I spoke against the 8-period day. I hear it’s now called a 9-period day, starting at 7:30, with an optional first period. Sounds like the same thing to me.
About a month ago, I said that the institution of this schedule means the institution of educational apartheid. Any teacher can tell you which child will take advantage of the optional period, and which child’s parents will refuse him a ride. They’ll use the Achievement Gap as a guide.
About a year ago, we discussed that Gap and how to address it. I sat on the Strategic Planning Committee and I’m still waiting for some action. You see, the majority of the students on the bottom side of that Gap live on the other side of Springfield Avenue, as do the majority of the students in supplemental classes. Somehow, the majority of the students hurt by the proposed 8-period day, also live on the other side of Springfield Ave. They don’t get a bus and as underclassmen, they can’t drive a car. For many of them, it’s already an ordeal to get to school on time. Yet they’ve got to come in half-an-hour earlier to take the class they enjoy.
Apparently, some people already consider Columbia an urban school, and some of our statistics support them. Half of the freshmen failed at least one class first semester this year. Our average SAT score is 126 points lower than comparable districts. There are fewer faculty members per administrator than the state average. How long will it be before all electives are replaced with supplementals, as is the current trend among inner-city schools?
I stand before you, a student worried for her school. I, like you, merely want what’s best for this district, and I have poured over the numbers as you have, looking for some way to get us under the CAP. I refuse to accept that allowing some students to start their day earlier than others saves us money.
I’m not sure why this schedule is being proposed, but I cannot bring myself to believe that it’s because the Board is racist, or class-ist, or anything else I’m being told. I have to believe that it is because this Board is poised to begin cutting so-called extraneous electives and handicapping the student body as a whole, not just minority pupils…because I refuse to believe that the people sitting before me are anything other than compassionate reasonable human beings faced with impossible choices. I cannot speak to how you will be viewed by anyone else. I wish you luck.
