School District Never Expels Anyone

Hey! Did you notice that little gem apparently dumped right at the start of the weekend, where nobody would see it? Fortunately, I’m a loser who reads the media on the weekend, and I did.

KYW 1060 reports school district officials are going to start expelling students in violent incidents, instead of just sending them to Shallcross or wherever. But here’s the fun fact: Nobody has been expelled in the past three years.

Despite thousands of violent incidents over the last three years, no Philadelphia students were expelled. Those who were disciplined were sent to alternative disciplinary schools.

Mayor Nutter told the SRC this week he couldn’t fathom that: “I believe upwards of 20 percent of our schoolteachers had some form of assault or aggressive activity against them last year. And how no child in the school district could have been expelled from school is impossible for me to understand.”

We should probably separate the “assault” from the “aggressive activity” but: Um, wow. Pretty awesome.

Phila. Public Schools to Enforce Strict Discipline [KYW 1060]

Principal To Teachers: You Suck, Soon I’ll Be Fired

Principal Edward T. Roulhac wanted to motivate his teachers at Kinsey Elementary for the second half of the year. So he sent them a letter. And here’s what it part of it said, according to the Daily News‘ Valerie Russ. (The emphasis is his.)

However, most of your students are not on level in reading, and are not proficient or advanced according to the district and state standards.

The failure of the students to not be proficient or advanced is not the students but yours. The students are not inferior, but your teaching has produced inferior results… . There is a direct correlation between your teaching and their achieving proficient and advanced status.

Ha ha, eat it teachers! Perhaps not the most tactful way to address failures — Kinsey Elementary didn’t meet AYP (some sort of standard under No Child Left Behind) last year, which means less than 45 percent of its kids were proficient in math and less than 54 percent proficient in reading — but, hey, he’s the boss.

As a teacher at the school, you have several options. You can (a) ignore the letter, (b) call the principal an “asshole” when you’re tired of making fun of the students behind their backs in the break room, or (c) get a job at Council Rock paying $70,000 a year where the kids all have private tutors anyway.

The teachers, of course, decided to pick choice (d) complain to their union rep. And complain they did! The principal has been denounced by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers — who “demand” a retraction! — schools head Paul Vallas, Federations, Inc. (the nonprofit that runs the school) and probably the Pope, too.

A PFT spokesperson summed up everything pretty nicely.

“Everybody in the district is working very, very hard, and we need to encourage each other to make sure we’re providing the support necessary so that all children can succeed.”

Also this year: All the kids will get automatic As and be passed on to the next grade (”we need to encourage each other!”), the Public League basketball championship will be declared a tie (”so all children can succeed!”) and Edward T. Roulhac will be fired.

Principal to teachers: Happy New Year - you stink [Daily News]