When Being Late is a Good Thing

This article by Lisa Philip was all over social media yesterday, carrying the news that Council member Jon Weinstein has spearheaded an initiative to provide late buses so all students can participate in after-school activities. My first reaction was: wait, we don't already have late buses?

I went to high school in Stamford, Connecticut and we had late buses. In fact they ran twice daily: a four thirty bus and a five thirty bus. And their were two routes for our school, a north route and a south route. We just took that for granted. You could stay after school to work with a teacher, do research in the Media Center, play sports or attend a theater rehearsal.

But the Stamford, Connecticut school district had exactly three high schools at that time. And while they did provide late buses, they didn't provide food service in any of the schools in the system. They must have at some point because all the schools were set up to have it, but it was considered no longer affordable. We had vending machines to supplement our brown bag lunches. I remember ice cream sandwiches fondly, and yes, they did sometimes stand in for an actual lunch.

So I don't want to jump on Howard County for not already having late buses, because it's a very large system, and if I had to choose between late buses and kids eating, I'd definitely go with the latter. On the other hand, at a time when administrative positions and salaries at Central Office are ballooning and actual student services in schools are being reduced, it does seem odd that Mr. Weinstein had to reach out to community businesses to fund a project which is essentially a student service.

Good for them, and Mr. Weinstein, for seeing the need and stepping up to respond to it. Wouldn't it be great if the school system did that sort of thing?

Comments

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word. Days passed. They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts. Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public. So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that. But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...

Separate and Unequal

Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not. It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

Village Green/Town²

Search This Blog