SF school principal punishes teachers concerned about safety.

[RandySF]

NOTE: It was not this bad at my sno's old school, but the conditions were similar: Unruly kids, frustrated parents and an indifferent principal.


While every school has its problems, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Middle School in San Francisco stands out.

Former school security guard Tobias Cain said he underwent surgeries for a knee injury and a hernia that he blamed on trying to physically restrain a student last year. Then there was the student who “threw a phone at my head and got a two-day suspension. He came back and resumed his normal tactics and nothing else happened.”

“Fights, play fights, threatening behaviors are daily occurrences,” Cain said. “We call the police about two or three times a week.”

That description reflects a pattern of violence and disarray at the school, which has seen skyrocketing student suspension rates and several staff injuries, including two security guards who wound up on extended medical leave, according to teachers and other employees.

Amid the chaos, school administrators have faced allegations from teachers union officials that the school targeted its members by unfairly downgrading performance reviews and dismissing more than a dozen employees – about a third of its staff.

Principal Natalie Eberhard declined to comment on the personnel moves. About the school’s violent history, she said she was working to transform Martin Luther King so that it is “safe for everyone.”


http://www.baycitizen.org/education/story/suspensions-skyrocket-sf-school-violence/

[no_hypocrisy]

1. As a substitute teacher, I had a principal yell at me for sending *two* children from my class

to the nurse *in the same day*. One child came to school in the winter with no socks and he was out on the playground for 30 minutes. The second child got a shock from a computer. I'm no doctor or nurse and it's not my job to diagnose injuries. I would have been accused of child neglect if I *hadn't* sent the kids to the nurse.

Apparently NCLB has a provision where if a school registers too many injuries within a day, they can lose federal aid. That makes me go WTF. I'd have given the principal some slack if they were worried that Child Protection would remove the kid without the socks from his home. But that wasn't the case.

[HiPointDem]

2. reading between the lines, the principal is instituting education deform, and it's disrupting the

school's routines, pissing workers off & the students pick up on the chaos and bad atmosphere. not the first time it's happened; common occurrence these days.

[RandySF]

3. From what I read.

She's retaliating against staff who complain about safety issues. This school has a history. A girl was raped by two other students some years ago and, in 2007, someone left a box of rat poison out and a number of kids ate it. They've had five administrators in five years and a lot of fights between the Asian and African American students. At my son's previous elementary school, a teacher physically pulled me into her classroom and asked me to talk to the principal about something. She was afraid to do it herself out of fear for her job.

[HiPointDem]

4. they're not mutually exclusive. if she's tried to fire 1/3 of her staff, that's education deform at

work. wouldn't have been possible in an earlier era, or even desirable.

there's been some loose talk about some of the schools 'in the bullseye' in nyc (schools the mayors targeted for closure) -- that crappy administrators are purposefully being sent in as 'wreckers'.

i don't know the truth, but reading some of the stories, it sure sounds possible.

[RobertAustin]

5. It is things like this that explain why Team C.A.P. is petitioning Congress.

Administrators are out of control, as this thread shows. They're also paid FAR too much.

Cut their pay, and the administrators who are actively harmful -- like this principal -- will seek work elsewhere. The only ones willing to work for reasonable salaries are the few dedicated, competent administrators -- and those are the only ones we need.

Please look at this educational reform petition to Congress designed to address this problem. It explains itself, in detail:

https://www.change.org/petitions/the-c-a-p-education-reform-proposal-save-america-s-schools-by-cutting-administrators-pay-with-federal-legislation

If you agree with it, please sign it, and then please spread it to others.

Also, at http://www.teamCAP.tumblr.com , you can see a map showing how many people have already signed from each state. When a state reaches 25 signatures, their senators will be added as petition recipients -- and California could reach that status soon.