Don’t get me wrong. That last post which conludes with a litany of challenges facing Denfeld is only meant in extreme sympathy. I know we have a School Board that currently operates under the delusion that if we just keep out troubles out of the public eye everyone will be much happier. I don’t buy that. Silence is not golden. It permits inaction.
There is one more awful irony at Denfeld. Because of its smaller population its most academically ambitious students face a special hurdle signing up for the more rigorous CITS and AP classes that many universities and entities awarding scholarships want to see on their transcripts. Yet when 45 or 50 students sign up in Spring for an advanced class than can only take 35 or 40 students a handful of kids will miss out if we only offer a single class. “Singleton” classes are common at Denfeld. Multiply this by a half dozen or more advanced classes and the Denfeld high achievers are out of luck.
They have another option available to them – college classes through PSEO programs which require ISD 709 to pay college tuition which sucks revenues from our budget. But by the time Fall arrives and we close off CTIS and AP classes to these students it is too late to sign up for college coursework.
So one of the things we encourage disappointed students to sign up for is to act as tutors for their fellow high schools students. This is a worthy and noble thing for these students to do. And yet it sticks in my craw to know we are asking them to do the work of teachers we were too stingy or impoverished to hire in the first place.
That’s a bait and switch scheme worthy of Donald Trump.
