The hapless Gresham High School principal unable to perceive, and respond to, the carnage over which she presides has resigned. (Background here.) Certes, whoever replaces her faces the same appalling violence and gunplay; but almost any form of leadership is better than Blanche DuBois sashaying around, spraying perfume, throwing paper shades on bulbs, and insisting everything is peachy.
October 28th, 2024 at 2:27AM
During the time when I was a HS teacher, there were proposals to arm certain teachers and administrators in order to eliminate anyone, including students, carrying out a mass school shooting. It reminded me of a close friend telling me military officers carry sidearms to facilitate killing their soldiers as needed.
Scott was 82 Airborne, and I don’t doubt what he said was true. I always wondered if elite units have very different rules of engagement than the rest of the military. Some of his colleagues were psychopaths, would go AWOL at night, and when they returned, no one never questioned where they went, or what they did. Are schools creating psychopathic behavior, and will teachers and admins be required to have a military officer’s ethos?
October 28th, 2024 at 8:32AM
charlie: Unless the ethos of “saving” all students for public education goes away, I think militarization of some schools is inevitable. Already happening. Expulsion has got to happen more often, more quickly.
October 28th, 2024 at 10:59AM
The problem is public k-12 gets paid per student attendance. Fewer students = less funding. Also, Fed and state subsidies are often predicated on school failure. The school where I taught was the worst performing in a city of horrible k-12 academic achievement. We qualified for Fed and state grants for all sorts of things, including subsidies for school construction, remedial tutoring, and how to teach kids not to beat the hell outta each other. Lots of people with their snouts in that taxpayer funded trough…..
October 28th, 2024 at 11:43AM
charlie: Yeah, I get that there are TONS of incentives for schools to retain kids who only a few years ago were at their worst obnoxious bullies, but who now carry guns and can’t wait to use them, and in more than a few cases are actually GOADED by their fucked up parents to carry and to shoot. But surely only a mentally challenged or criminally indifferent/cynical administrator would under current conditions put everyone at the school at risk.
You’d think they’d at least be smart enough to keep up with the news.