Food Fight At The Not-So-OK Corral
Anarchy has ensued at West Orange-Cove Middle School, where a food fight Thursday led to class cancellation today.
The campus hubbub started recently when O. Taylor Collins, school district superintendent, dumped the entire middle school's personnel apple cart, saying that administrators, teachers and staffers would have to re-apply for their positions. The move came after a scathing outside review of the campus.
The problems at the campus, which has been divided over the school's principal, escalated at a hot-tempered school board meeting Monday, when audience members, including teachers, criticized Collins' decision. Collins fired back, saying some teachers at the campus had harassed and threatened the principal.
More napalm was thrown on the fire Wednesday, when three teachers allegedly tried to incite their eighth-graders into skipping school Thursday. The students told their parents, who flooded the administration with calls of concern.
The calls for skipping school went unheeded, and other than some student chanting and tray-banging in the cafeteria during breakfast, the potential uprising appeared to have been quelled Thursday morning.
But then came the lunchtime food fight.
Today, we're gathering information on how it started, what kind of disciplinary measures will be taken and how Collins and his staff are going to get this deteriorating situation under control. He wisely canceled school for today, although teachers must report for duty as an in-service day. I hope he gave the instigators an earful and then some.
While a food fight certainly has its entertainment value for those following this bizarre story, it underscores the screwed-up nature of this campus, brought on by the shameful acts of some teachers.
Regardless of how they feel about the administration's personnel decisions, the teachers' recruiting of eighth-graders, many of them tragically misguided, to do the dirty work is appalling.
The students who sparked the food fight either should be expelled or sent to the alternative school for the remainder of the year. They also should have to pay for whatever damage, preferably through some community service.
And those malcontent teachers should be sent packing. Their kind of instruction and guidance has no place here. If you don't like your job or your workplace, find something else to do.
Shame on you.
The campus hubbub started recently when O. Taylor Collins, school district superintendent, dumped the entire middle school's personnel apple cart, saying that administrators, teachers and staffers would have to re-apply for their positions. The move came after a scathing outside review of the campus.
The problems at the campus, which has been divided over the school's principal, escalated at a hot-tempered school board meeting Monday, when audience members, including teachers, criticized Collins' decision. Collins fired back, saying some teachers at the campus had harassed and threatened the principal.
More napalm was thrown on the fire Wednesday, when three teachers allegedly tried to incite their eighth-graders into skipping school Thursday. The students told their parents, who flooded the administration with calls of concern.
The calls for skipping school went unheeded, and other than some student chanting and tray-banging in the cafeteria during breakfast, the potential uprising appeared to have been quelled Thursday morning.
But then came the lunchtime food fight.
Today, we're gathering information on how it started, what kind of disciplinary measures will be taken and how Collins and his staff are going to get this deteriorating situation under control. He wisely canceled school for today, although teachers must report for duty as an in-service day. I hope he gave the instigators an earful and then some.
While a food fight certainly has its entertainment value for those following this bizarre story, it underscores the screwed-up nature of this campus, brought on by the shameful acts of some teachers.
Regardless of how they feel about the administration's personnel decisions, the teachers' recruiting of eighth-graders, many of them tragically misguided, to do the dirty work is appalling.
The students who sparked the food fight either should be expelled or sent to the alternative school for the remainder of the year. They also should have to pay for whatever damage, preferably through some community service.
And those malcontent teachers should be sent packing. Their kind of instruction and guidance has no place here. If you don't like your job or your workplace, find something else to do.
Shame on you.
posted by Brian Pearson at 11:15 AM
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