GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL -- Educationally Speaking

When I got a phone call asking if I would like to write a column about

educational issues, I said I would try writing six. This column is number

100.

Sometimes, I get crazy with all of the issues that affect the

education of our children: what should the school calendar look like,

what do we do if the school facilities get any worse, what new mandates

will be foisted on us from a politician who has never been in a

classroom?

Last week, three events brought things back into focus. First, I

spent a morning interviewing seniors for their certificate of emphasis.

These kids got dressed for success and orally presented themselves, and

samples of their work, including their senior exit project. The projects

ranged from extracting DNA to movie making with 3-D computer effects.

Their notebooks contained resumes, reference letters, samples of their

work and awards and achievements. They are motivated, well organized,

technologically skilled and articulate. I am sure our future economy is

in good hands.

That night, I attended a school board meeting and saw members of our

district’s Academic Pentathlon teams. The kids convinced all of us that

learning is downright fun. Why else would they have spent an entire

Saturday in academic competitions? Some kids had lots of medals, but they

were all winners for having committed to the teams.

Later, I found out that democracy will continue, with the help of the

members of the Student Political Action Committee at Newport Harbor High

School. The group came in shirts that read, “Never doubt that a small

group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world.”

The students have been studying the district’s zero tolerance policy,

and came to present a synopsis of their town hall meeting and student

concerns.

A district representative at the town hall meeting said that zero

tolerance is working because there are about 60 to 70 first offense

transfers a year out of the 20,000 students. The second offense leads to

expulsion, and there have only been three of those. One of the students’

concerns was about selective enforcement, where only the student that

actually passes out at the school dance gets caught. The low numbers

support that concern. If the coach or teacher doesn’t want to disrupt a

student’s life, they turn a blind eye to the problem.

A second concern was that there was no mandatory counseling or other

help; just a transfer of the student from one school to another. While

the district cannot mandate counseling, they could allow students to

propose a plan of action for the offense, and allow that plan to be

instituted, staying the transfer, to see if the plan was completed.

This would satisfy a third concern, which was that all offenses

received the same consequence, so that it lost its sense of

proportionality. The student who is in a car on the way home from a game

not knowing a fellow passenger possesses alcohol has the same transfer

consequences as the kid who smokes pot in class.

As a student put it, the policy would benefit from putting the

consequences in the hands of a human being: “I understand this policy’s

role as a deterrent is to give it teeth, but it is time to give it eyes

as well.”

A board member said her concern was, “why do kids think they have to

be under the influence to have a good time?”

I suspect that the members of the Student Political Action Committee

aren’t under the influence because they are having a good time changing

the world.