EpiPen debacle solved

We've been told by the mother of the allergic student that s/he will be allowed to keep the medication at hand during the school day.

Bogalusa City Schools; - attend at your own risk!

The following was sent to us by a close friend whose child attends a public Bogalusa school. While we haven't researched this and therefore can't vouch for its accuracy, similar things have taken place in other school districts. I've added links where appropriate to aid understanding.

My son was recently diagnosed with a severe allergy to stings (wasp, hornet, bee) and was told by his pediatrician to carry an EpiPen at all times in case of a future sting. Minutes count.

Bogalusa Middle School claims that my child's EpiPen will need to be left with the nurse - who isn't always at the school. They also claim that the medication will be available because someone else has a key, but they didn't elaborate on what their procedure will be. They don't want him to carry it because it's sharp. Gee, so are pencils, pens and scissors, all standard school supplies.

I talked to a woman at the Bogalusa School Board also. She claims that she is also allergic to stings and carries an EpiPen. She said as long as my child gets the shot within 15 minutes, everything is fine. Ha! 15 minutes passes pretty quickly if he'll need to leave to find the right teacher, or go to the health center (which isn't always open). What if he's stopped by a teacher on the way? What if the nurse is out and the person with the key can't be located immediately?

She had no good answers.

I asked her if they could assure me that the EpiPen would be available within 15 minutes. She said they could not. Nice of them to treat his life so cavalierly! I asked her if she was aware that there is a diabetic student who carries all her supplies with her, including syringes with needles. She was not.

I don't think my son should go to school without guaranteed quick access to his EpiPen, and that means he ought to be allowed to carry it.

Catherine Seipp wrote possibly the definitive article on children who need to carry asthma inhalers and the stupidity of school boards. Excerpt [emphasis ours]:

...Nancy Sander referred to the 1991 death of a New Orleans high school student, Catrina Lewis, who was delayed by security guards before being allowed to get her inhaler from the office. When it didn't help, she asked school staff to call an ambulance; instead they spent a half-hour trying to call her mother first. Catrina's sister, another student, finally called 911 herself, but emergency help arrived too late. In 1996, a New Orleans judge ordered Lawless High School's acting principal, a school counselor, and the school board to pay $1 million in damages to Catrina's family.

I wonder about several things:

1. Was the woman at the Bogalusa school board office a doctor? Or was she practicing medicine without a license?

2. Is she aware that the Louisiana State Board of Education's standard forms have a space for the prescribing physician to allow the student to carry their own medication?

3. Are they aware that public schools are required to accommodate a student with a medical condition, or pay tuition if necessary for the student to attend a school that can accommodate them?

And that's just for starters. I'm sure they aren't aware of much except the pleasure they get out of playing with children's lives and saying No. Dumbasses.

High school lockdown

We've been told that Bogalusa High School was under lockdown Tuesday, Feb. 12, because a student brought a gun to school.

Developing...

Seriously injured

We've heard that a local teacher was seriously injured in an automobile accident this a.m., and will post more info when we have confirmation.

Or, I pray, we'll be back with an apology that it was a misunderstanding.

Winning ways?

We're glad Franklinton High School has a winning football team. Maybe they oughtta crack the books more.

SPRING 2006 GEE SCORES, GRADE 11: link

Franklinton High School (scores well below statewide average):

Advanced,Mastery,Basic,Approaching Basic,Unsatisfactory

English - 0, 7, 43, 28, 22
Math - 3, 12, 38, 17, 30
Science - 3, 5, 37, 32, 24
Social Studies - 0, 1, 43, 28, 27

Bogalusa High School:

English - 1, 13, 39, 31, 16
Math - 3, 8, 44, 22, 24
Science - 1, 3, 24, 32, 40
Social Studies - 0, 2, 41, 26, 31

No enormous differences here.

Guess it must be the parents of football players who're busing their kids to the "better" high school in Franklinton...

Much ado about almost nothin'

There was a uniform crackdown at Bogalusa Middle the other day. Big deal in the city schools, wearing the uniform and wearing it properly. Bunch of kids were pulled out of class to be written up for such minutiae as wearing socks that didn't show over their shoes.

I'm all for discipline, but with poor academic performance, it doesn't make sense to further lower kids' instructional time over what they're wearing.

How 'bout a sign around their neck labeled "violator" instead, and send a note home?

Indoctrinate U

Speech codes. Censorship. Enforced political conformity. Hostility to diversity of opinion. Sensitivity training. We usually associate such things with the worst excesses of fascism and communism, not with the American universities that nurtured the free speech movement. But American higher education bears a disturbing resemblance to the totalitarian societies that are anathema to our nation’s ideal of liberty. Evan Coyne Maloney’s documentary film, Indoctrinate U, reveals the breathtaking institutional intolerance you won't read about in the glossy marketing brochures of Harvard, Berkeley, Michigan, Yale, and hundreds of other American colleges and universities.

Put your name on the list to get a screening in our area here. Bogalusa will be on the map as soon as they count my vote ;-).

Via Gates of Vienna, a Very Important Blog.

Need help!

We need to network with other parents who have kids at Bogalusa Middle School and are unhappy with the way a particular course was taught in the spring '07 semester.

Please leave a comment or send an email.

This is important stuff, folks. Let's get together and help each other out, and make a positive change.

Breaking news.

We have just received a text message that BHS has received a bomb threat and the school is on lockdown.

More as we know it.

UPDATE: Not to worry. Read about it at Nola-dot-com [this is an editorial].

Black and white and read all over

We heard today that a teacher at one of the public schools read aloud an opinion piece from the Daily News as an example of bigotry.

I agree, wholeheartedly, enthusiastically, in spades, and with bells on. So the opinion piece is gonna receive a fisking.

By Lou Major:

It's bad enough we have horrid academic achievement in the Bogalusa school system, but hand-in-hand with the despicable safety and security problems, we have that age-old menace: Racial Divide.

This promises to be exciting, doesn't it? Danger, failure and "Racial Divide" all at once! Capitalized, even!

There have been many meetings over the past year and-a-half about the fast deterioration of the quality of education in the local school system. School Board members, some parents, teachers and politicians have all joined the quest for improvement. We have been told over and over that this will take time; it cannot be achieved in just one year.

It took more than a year for the problems to develop and become serious, and surely it'll take more than a year to solve them. That makes sense.

If you are going to claim that the deterioration was "fast," I want to see that backed up with stats. The problems have existed for the several years we've been here.

"Zero tolerance" of fighting, insolence and threats has been put into place, presumably as the best thing so far to try to solve those problems. Various thrusts at academic improvement have been introduced at every level.

Sounds pretty good so far. Give "zero tolerance" time to work.

And all the while, very, very few people have wanted to face up to the "racial divide" problem. It is there. Less than a handful of people at all these meetings have dared to talk openly about one of the serious problems that leads to so many of the other problems. They talk in numbers, for the most part. The numbers show that all of the students leaving the Bogalusa schools are white kids. Nobody knows for sure where they are all going and from what I can determine, nobody is zeroing in on finding out.

"The word" is that they are going to Franklinton, Pine, Bowling Green, St. Tammany and Mississippi.

I know that some of them are going to the Franklinton school district, where the parents I spoke to are claiming that the high school is "better." If they think it's academically better, I shot that down in "Dishonest or dumb?".

It's white flight, is all it is. Considering the parish's history, my conclusion is logical.

C'mon, you guys voted for David Duke. And you're surprised there's white flight? The irony has overtopped my hip waders.

Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, Bogalusa students were allowed to go to other schools, presumably until the local school system got up and running again. Hordes of them did just that. The only problem is, they have not come back, and almost all of them are white kids. After the immediate shock of Katrina ended, displaced students were supposed to "go home" to their normal schools. It didn't happen. At one of the meetings recently, it was stated that schools which allowed the Bogalusa students in following the hurricane were supposed to send them back; it was a matter of honoring school boundaries.

That has all added to the growing "racial divide" in the Bogalusa schools.

I thought students were supposed to go to their district schools, unless they were enrolled in a private school - which, naturally, might be outside the district lines. In some places, attending an out-of-district school is illegal.

If anybody's breakin' the law, maybe the DA oughtta get involved, hmmm?

Two years ago, there were 1,270 white students in Bogalusa schools. This year, the number is down to 806. Two years ago, there were 1,595 black students in Bogalusa schools. This year, the number is 1,604. So while there are 450 fewer white students, there are the same number of black students.

As the trend has continued, this means that five years ago there was a 50/50 ratio of white to black students in the Bogalusa schools. Today, the ratio is 65 percent black to 35 percent white.

If we want our kids to grow up to be able to work with people of other ethnic backgrounds, we need to quit caring about this. Yes, just quit caring. Don't see color, see people, and you'll teach your kids to do the same.

That's the only way to stop the "Racial Divide" if by that phrase you mean bigotry.

Sadly, as I read on, it appears that you mean something else.

This growing preponderance of black students is manifesting itself in ways that most people don't even realize.

What? The nearest store sells less Prell, more Hair-Gro?

Forgive me, I couldn't resist. Hang on, it gets much better.

The Bogalusa High Paper Dolls illustrates the point. In 1970, there were 27 Paper Dolls, the dancing group which struts at football games, parades, etc. Of the 27, only 2 were black girls; 25 were white. By 1992, of 23 Paper Dolls, 21 were white and 2 were black, still about the same as 20 years earlier. However, by 1997, the numbers changed to 21 white girls and 6 black girls. In just the next three years, the numbers had gone to 15 white girls and 7 black girls.

Continuing the quickening trend, the next year there were 22 white girls and 11 black girls.

This year, the "racial divide" was glaring. There are 11 Paper Dolls at BHS; not one of them is white.

Additionally, the varsity cheerleading squad this year is made up of 12 girls. Only one is white.

A look at the BHS Band tells the same story.

All this tells me is that the white kids either aren't trying out for the Paper Dolls and varsity cheerleading, or they aren't making the grade. Apparently the white kids aren't choosing band as an activity, either.

Why don't you do some research and find out why this is? And publish what the black/white ratio is at the high school, too. If white students are a small minority, it shouldn't shock you that some extracurricular activities are all black.

Now your editorial sounds like the whine of a white supremacist.

"Waaaah! The blacks have everything! They locked us out! Waaaaah!"

At most of the "curative" meetings, I recall one person willing to stand up and recognize there is a problem: Rev. Coleman Moses, one of the school system's Task Force members who has continued to be active with the group initially appointed by School Supt. Jerry Payne. Rev. Moses has repeatedly spoken out about the need for all of the school disciplinary problems to be attacked first at home. That is the obvious starting place, but getting that accomplished is another thing.

Getting down to the nuts and bolts, how do you get into the homes of the most unruly kids and get their parents, many of them only the mother, to make their kids obey the rules, be polite, study hard, cause no trouble? I sure don't have the answer and it seems like nobody else has, either.

The problems are more than readin', writin' and 'rithmetic.

I definitely believe that "zero tolerance" needs several years to show results.

However, I am dismayed at this juxtaposition of "the blacks have it all," a bunch of white kids left, and discipline problems in the editorial. There's a very unpleasant implication floating between the lines, there.

Elementary school kids are still staying in the Bogalusa school system. Even the discipline nightmare at the Bogalusa Middle School (junior high) has not sent white students running elsewhere. But the trend at Bogalusa High is alarming. The numbers prove the point. Something has to be done or the enrollment of white students will continue to dwindle until "racial divide" will be almost complete.

This won't be PC, Lou, but I can and will explain it to you.

We ain't from here. But we have had the distasteful experience of being told by white "born-heres" that we should send our kids to another high school, out of the district, because otherwise those boys will try to date our girls.

They weren't talkin' 'bout white boys.

You may recall from a previous post that back in the 60s, the FBI considered Washington Parish to have the highest per-capita membership in the KKK of any county in the nation. Do the math. It's those klukkers' grandkids that are being pulled out of Bogalusa High and sent elsewhere.

You think attitudes like that change in one or two generations? I know better. Judging from how I've been warned of the "dangers" of BHS, those attitudes are alive and kickin'. Kickin' hard, Lou.

I've never been anywhere else in this whole wide world where so many whites were so willing to be upfront and vocal about their racism. Anywhere else, the majority of the white population would shun them.

"Run, run! They'll rape your daughters!" Sheesh.

Gee, maybe the black parents are the ones who should be worried. There's a lot more historical precedent about white boys raping black girls, isn't there?

Let the bigots pack their sheets and leave the system. From what I've seen, the kids that remain at Bogalusa High - of all races - get along across racial lines and have a decent, open-minded attitude. I applaud them. They are our future; perhaps this is the generation that will bury the sorry past.

Y'all definitely need fresh blood, y'know? More come-heres, to dilute out this nonsense.

Cell phone crackdown at BHS

One of the students had their cell phone on, or they were playing with their ringtones, or somethin'. A search was instituted. We were told some phones were seized.

Please, kids, be a bit more considerate of others. The students involved in after-school activities will be greatly inconvenienced if they have to walk around in search of a pay phone to call their parents and get a ride home.

And that's what'll happen if you keep screwing around like this, and cause cell phones to be officially banned at BHS.

ROTC news

Bogalusa High's JROTC Armed Drill Team placed third in the recent meet in New Orleans.

Good going :-)!

The state of Bogalusa schools

There've been a number of articles published recently in The Daily News detailing the trials and tribulations of our supposedly rotten school system. There are discipline problems, attendance problems, and low achievement.

Parents blame the teachers and the school board. Teachers blame the parents.

I've got to side more with the teachers here, folks. I'm old enough to remember the "good ol' days." Thirty years ago, there were not these huge problems in the schools that I went to, which I admit were more upper middle class than the ones in Bogalusa. So that may have skewed things.

One thing that has changed radically in the past few decades is the number of single-parent families. When one person is trying to do too many things, something is gonna suffer. We've seen the news items about how more juvenile thugs come from single-parent homes. We know that intuitively, eh?

Single-parent homes are also more likely to be poorer homes economically. Poor kids don't do as well in school as better-off kids, generally.

A recent article in The Daily News says the school board and city are going to try and place a "resource officer" at Bogalusa Middle - basically, a uniformed cop. Will that help? Does that help? Or does it simply mean quicker arrests?

If there are gangs, as school board member Raymond Mims claims, Know Gangs is one site with info. Gangs or Us is another. And here is a list of links courtesy of Michigan State University.

I suspect what Bogalusa Middle needs - more than a cop stationed at the school - is a couple more full-time counselors and after school programs with room for any child who wishes to participate.

Addendum: From the MSU site, and thanks to the internet archive - Developing a Gang Prevention Program.

Plumbing problem?

A student at Bogalusa Middle told us there was a busted pipe or some such on Monday (1/29) which flooded floors.

School arrests

There may have been students with weapons as I was told by a student on Monday.

The Daily News has the info:

The day of in-school disturbances began Monday at Bogalusa Middle when a fight broke out and school officials called in police.

The early morning incident happened at about 8:30 a.m. and involved three youngsters, all of whom were sent to a regional juvenile detention facility, Darden said, following a written order by Juvenile Court Judge Bobby Black.

At about 11:30 a.m., another fight broke out at the middle school. This fight led to the arrest of seven students.

Arrests at Bogalusa Middle?

We heard from a student yesterday (Monday 1-22-07) that two students were arrested at Bogalusa Middle School with weapons.

Can anyone confirm?

The Daily News fails grammar.

In today's issue, this headline:

Textbook selection processes has many hurdles [emphasis mine]

I sure hope the people reading and reviewing our children's potential future school books are a bit more learned than whoever wrote that headline.

The verb is conjugated like this:

I have
you have
he, she, it has
we have
they have

Processes is clearly plural, so use have fer cryin' out loud.

Bomb scare at Bogalusa Middle

This kinda stuff has been going on forever.

When I was a kid - before the last Ice Age ;-) - there were fake fire alarms. Some enterprising little hoodlum would pull the lever in an empty hallway, bells would sound, and we'd all file out the nearest exit and hang around outdoors until the appropriate city officials came and looked through the building.

Yeah, bells. Round metal things with clappers. The schools didn't have those electronic doohickeys that sound like a robot farting.

Back in the classroom, we'd get a lecture about how it was against the law, blah blah blah. I never knew who did it 'cuz I didn't hang out with the hoods. Sometimes they were referred to as "greasers," which has a whole different meaning today.

I don't recall any of my classmates going to juvenile hall for pulling the alarm, but that was a looooong time ago and perhaps memory has faded. It was before video cameras were everywhere. Heck, it was before they were anywhere. The first VCR was sold in 1971.

Can you imagine? Nowadays, we're all in someone's lens by simply running errands: at the bank, at the convenience store, at WalMart.

In the mid 70s, bomb scares came into vogue. The building where I worked was evacuated several times after phoned-in threats. But still no caller ID, and I never heard of an arrest.

From the Daily News article:

Police Chief Jerry Agnew said police identified the call as coming from a cell phone. He said cell phone records would be subpoenaed to help identify the caller.

The call not only came into the school but to 9-1-1 as well, and 911 records are being checked to identify the caller along with voice recordings.

Today's kids have grown up with all this technology. They know they've gotta take precautions to make anonymous prank calls to their friends, f'rinstance. The patent for caller ID was filed in 1982, likely before the perp was born.

Not too bright, to believe you can phone in a bomb threat and remain unidentified.

To find this culprit, they prolly oughtta check phone records... and test scores. Heh.

Substitutes

One problem at Bogalusa Middle seems to be lack of teachers. There are at least two out long-term, we've been told by a student, info not verified.

Yet I find no vacancies listed at the state civil service employment site, at Teach Louisiana, or at Bogalusa City Schools employment page.

In Bogalusa, a substitute teacher can be noncertified and non-degreed and will get paid $50 per day [page 15, line 66].

Is it acceptable for a high school graduate to teach your kids?

Bogalusa schools

The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has taken an interest in the Bogalusa schools - because they've got problems. Low test scores, discipline, etc. Surely some enterprising parent or teacher will bemoan the supposed lack of G*d in the schools, too [sigh].

I missed the meeting and sure hope The Daily News puts the results online.

Some comments on the above-linked meeting article [excerpt]:

District 1 BESE Board member Penny Dastugue called today's public meeting - with staff members of the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) and not members of the BESE board - an "analysis and summation of data" because "it is hard for public citizens to go through data on-line."

I'll say it's hard. The latest numbers don't exist.

This is the PDF file of the 2005-2006 accountability results at the state ed. site. On page 43, blanks for Bogalusa because "Data are shaded for districts that had all schools identified as severe impact and chose to start over as new schools in accountability in 2006-07." However, I don't recall that the schools were all that great before Katrina - assuming that's the "impact" mentioned.

Here's my previous post with an overview of the spring 2006 GEE scores at Bogalusa High, specifically its comparison to Franklinton's schools.