re: #31 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave to the waffle light)

If both parents (if there is more than one) are off working 50 hours a week to support their families, when are they supposed to find time and energy for discipline and education?

Sounds like the entire school board has also gone into “don’t retreat, reload!” mode. It helps that they have an entire wing of the media backing up their view of things.

Many parents, and not just low-income parents, expect the schools to provide the guidance and discipline they cannot seem to provide their own children. There are parents of all income categories, all ethnic backgrounds, who are just crappy parents. It’s the teachers who are expected to tame these “wild beasts” parents can’t or don’t or won’t raise properly.

When the schools drop the ball, then no one is looking out for these youngsters, except themselves.

There are some teachers who do manage to provide guidance and nurturing for their students, but imagine doing for that a different class of 30-35 students five times a day, five times a week. It’s exhausting work, and certainly not what they prepare us for in teacher prep classes. Teachers need the support of their principals, and the administration overseeing the principal to survive. All too often, that support is missing. Teachers get burned out, and leave, or get cynical and defeatist, and basically give up on the kids while going through the motions of teaching.

School violence, drug abuse, sexual assaults and crime in general just adds to the pressure on teachers and students. Having LEOs on the premises is a band-aid solution to a much deeper problem, one that can only be addressed by the entire school staff as a team, with the support of the board and district. But most higher-ups only care about standardized test scores.