Driving schools: Delegate Tim Hugo (R-Centreville) wants to study the possibility of contracting out driver’s ed in public schools to private driving schools. Perhaps it’s the $2,000 that Hugo got from Keith’s Driving School. You scratch my back, I’ll drive yours…
Smartasses in classrooms: Coming up on the House floor for a vote tomorrow is Del. Kirk Cox’s (R-Colonial Heights) HB3201, which would require parental notification if a student was removed from class for 2 consecutive days. On top of that, a floor amendment agreed to today would allow the teacher to be sent to “professional development” if said misbehaving child is kicked out of class too often. Punish the kids and the teachers. Right.
I don’t see why this is neccesary. It isn’t long before a heated conference is organized anyway. This just hastens the speed at which one plays “What Shade of Red Is My English Teacher Turning?”
Smoking ban redux: A smoking ban with actual teeth passed the Senate 23-16, as opposed to the toothless version that passed the House.
Minimum wage: Sen. Chuck Colgan’s (D-Manassas) bill to raise the minimum wage to $6.50 passed the Senate. It will likely be superseded by a federal law that raises it further, but that didn’t stop Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R-Centreville) from voting no. Shame.
6 Comments
But at least there was a smoking ban in the House. That’s historic.
Re: smartasses in the classroom -
Reminds me of an elementary class I observed within the past year (kindergarten). One child was particularly troubled, extremely violent. The teacher was exceptional at dealing with him, but sometimes the craziness was just too much to be believed - beating children, throwing chairs, etc. When it was like that she called security (yes, security in a middle class elem. school, surprise!).
The principal’s answer - I don’t want to see this kid in the office for the rest of the year, is that clear. Sure, like that will work. How about dealing with the kid, or even sending him home when he is so violently out of control.
Not surprisingly, two days later, completely unprovoked he grabbed a little girl in her privates and squeezed. Of course, security was called immediately and he was taken to the office. And the principal?? Angry with the teacher, of course.
Sadly, “blame the teacher” is a typical response for any time that administrators don’t want to deal with telling parents how bad their children are behaving or don’t want to deal with disciplining students themselves.
Last year, a student set another student on fire in the hallway of the school where I was teaching. One student flicked a lighter and put it under another student’s hair, which had a lot of highly flammable “product” in it and burst into a tall flame. I was on hall duty, saw the flame in my peripheral vision, and ran over to the afflicted student, putting out the flame with my bare hands.
Rather than focusing on the seriousness of the student assault, my principal first tried to blame me for lack of classroom management skills, until he realized there were dozens of witnesses who saw the assault happen in the hallway between classes. Then he tried to blame the other teachers in my hallway who should have been on hall duty, too. Then he actually criticized the WAY I put out the fire!!!!!! (According to him, I should have “unzipped her outerware” and pull it over her head…apparently clueless about the fact that many types of clothing could by synthetic, highly flammable, and result in even more injury to the student.) It was insane. I knew then that I had no intention of returning for another year of teaching in that school!
Yeah, I can’t see anything really wrong with the original HB3201 bill, but that amendment sounds stupid. Would like to see the text of that floor amendment though.
Oh and Kenton, your link leads to HB2301. Might want to fix that, although that is an interesting bill as well.
-Maura
Sheesh! And I bet if you did use the student’s clothes then, if they wern’t smart enough to think of your very good point, they would have blaimed you for destroying said clothes.
Did the kid recover ok?
This “professional development” requirement was already in the Code of Virginia 22.1-276 as Paragraph D. The amendment on the floor only moved this professional development requirement to E and moved the HB3201 Parental Notification proposal from E (where it was originally proposed) to D. The floor amendment on this point was only editorial.
The only purpose of HB3201 is to make sure parents know what is going on with their child so they can help the school out; if parents don’t know, they can’t help.