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NewslettersThe Creek isn't all bad
I am avid reader of the posted blogs and it really bothers me when it appears that many residents of this county have decided that there is a black sheep amongst the area's high school. I have had the pleasure of having an unobstructed and unbiased view of all the high schools in the area. Yes, there are schools that seem to have more than others, but no one has taken the clientele served by each school into account or the leadership in each building. I have yet to meet a teacher that didn't love to teach because I am very sure that one must have to have a love for the profession to enter it. That same can be said for the Creek.
For people to say that the Creek is all bad is a vast overstatement. There are good teachers and good kids at the Creek. The sad reality is that the clientele is not the best - poverty and low socioeconomic status is not the best breeding ground for educational success or exemplary manners and social skills - and the current leadership is a joke. Incompetent and inept doesn't begin to describe what I've witnessed. The current leadership has allowed too much garbage to take place and is not doing anything constructive to remove the current dark cloud that shrouds the building. It may be due to a lack of ability and knowledge, just being small and closed minded, or not being of good character.
The students there are, on the whole, well mannered and the teachers are caring. Yes, there is a bad element there that seems to have a run of the building and surrounding grounds, but once again that is due to poor leadership.
It is high time that the community gets behind this school to help lift it up and maybe even advocate for a change in leadership. Unsatisfied parents of children who attend the Creek need to band together and speak up. The school isn't all bad, but an obvious change is needed. Remember - The squeaky wheel gets the oil.
- Porkchop0616's blog
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in the analysis of Battery Creek. Where there is poverty, the socially unadjusted exist. Battery Creek is full of students who want to to learn and teachers who want to accomodate them. The realism is that many communities that are socio-economically disadvanatged feed into this school.
When education is not a priorty in many homes, this spills into the schools.
There is no easy answer. Reform the welfare system for starters.
We agree on two points now, there may be hope yet!
It takes a really strong person to say..."I'm not going to make AYP this year in x, y, and z because I'm going to kick all the chafe to the curb."
Hard to find in this day and age.
Take families who don't care and combine that with NCLB (No Child Left Behind) and you end up with problems with the kiddos who do not wish to conform and schools who HAVE to put up with them.
Most of what you say is in fact true. But to say that the current leadership is a joke is absolutely ludicrous! If you want to blame the leadership (and I do believe that is where the blame should lie) you need to look back a few years. There was once a superintendent here who was more focused on affirmative action (no doubt the same policy that got him the job) than finding quality educators to teach these kids. That same superintendent has his own early vision of No Child Left Behind, and many other senseless and counter-productive notions. The blame lies firmly and exclusively with him. The current administration is charged with cleaning up what he did, and they are making progress. The saddest part of the deal is that former superintendent was allowed to retire, and many folks revere him as some sort of hero. He should be wallowing in his total failure, locked up somewhere for his crimes against our children!
Hey Top,it's Top. I think Porkchop was stating that the BC leadership needs the change, not the current district leadership. Over the past year, I have interacted with both groups and have first hand knowledge of where the problems lie. Dr. Truesdale actually attempted to help with my problems with BC. BC attempted to pretend there was no problem. Dr. Truesdale inherited the BC administration but has been unable to do much about them because of the Teachers union and their lawyer brethren who write the laws and regs which govern situations like BC. The US Education Establishment is a closed union shop. If you want to teach you have to join the union. The NEA has grown so powerful that arrogance has become their most distiguishing feature. I agree with Porkchop that there are good, even excellent, teachers at BC who conscientiously try to do a good job but when you have a few flowers in the middle of a garbage dump, the dump still reeks. The odor you smell coming from BC emanates from the office of Mr. Burnes, the BC Principal, and from most of his administative staff. A wholesale cleaning of BC is the only way to improve the school. This is known in various circles and I would not be surprised to see a few reassignments and retirements soon at BC. Of course the retirees will get a nice plaque with some nice sounding platitudes that add up to "go away and don't come back". It may not be the ideal solution to the problem but it will get these jokers away from BC so that, hopefully, competent administrators can be brought in. We will have to wait for their replacements before passing judgement on the district in this matter of a public school careening out of control
Teachers are not members of unions in this district. Many of my friends are teachers and would love to have a union here. The lack of a union is what has created an issue with Dr. Truesdale and upper management at district. She can say and do just about anything and the teachers don't have a leg to stand on. I am not sure where you are getting your info topwatch but if it came from Dr. Truesdale that way be careful of the source of the info.
I was a little curious as to what teacher unions were active in Beaufort (or the state of SC for that matter), never heard of any myself.
You bring some good points, and I don't disagree at all. I took PC's remarks as being directed at the top leadership, and even though PC may not have been aiming remarks at them, I think the problem did indeed start there. I do not however think that it relates at all to the current top management. BC does need an administrative overhaul and that is more than obvious. The principle and upper management were put in place by a prior district administration, and they are obviously incompetent. BC boasts great facilities and for years those facilities were far better than what BHS had. Two Battery Creek High Schools were built before the aging BHS was replaced a few years ago. One can only attribute the woes at BC to the administration. What comes to mind is the scenario that is used in a couple of movies where a hard a$$ed new principal with a baseball bat is hired to clean up the mess. Those movies are based on true stories and while it is sad to think such tactics are needed, it just may prove to be necessary. You can't let the bad inmates and their apathetic parents run the asylum! And that is exactly what Burnes has been doing. The teachers cannot be blamed, the ones who are trying to help are stifled and the bad ones are the responsibility of the principal.
. . .in my assessment of the current situation at BC. It is not the district that has allowed BC to crumble. It is Burnes. There have been numerous parents and community members that have taken their honest concerns and complaints to him only to have them dismissed. It is very true that Superintendent Truesdale inherited the lackluster excuse for some of the administrative staff at BC, but it is our responsibility as taxpayers and community members to take a stand at BC and not allow our children to be taken out with the garbage. Kids will be kids. That is what they do. Even a well behaved child can fall victim to peer pressure or just plain give up when his/her surroundings are filled with people who choose do nothing or act inappropriately. The hoodlums and thugs have been given their run of the school and the good children and teachers have been left to fend for themselves with no support from Burnes.
My comments were not a slam against the district office. Superintendent Truesdale, nor any of her staff, are not in any school everyday and unfortunately Burnes is a boil that was allowed to fester before she came.
BCHS has had problems for many years, long before Mr. Burnes took over. It's ridiculous to soley blame the principal and teachers for societies' problems. Take a drive through the attendances areas of our poor-performing schools. If you have half a brain, you'll see what the problem is and it doesn't start with the schools - it starts with the home. The schools and the personnel charged with attempting to make positive change have an uphill battle. Things have been like this here (and in other communities) for many generations and it's foolish to think that one principal and a few teachers will change generational/cultural dysfunction. I don't have a dog in this fight because my children do not go to BCHS, however, I do know that Mr. Burnes is a born and bred Beaufort/Burton man, and he is invested in his community. I'm pretty certain that he and the faculty/staff at BCHS are doing what they can to positively affect the student population. It's easy to sit at home on your computer and throw blame bombs around, but what does that help? Change starts with an individual and instead of everyone being negative and pointing fingers, go see what you can do to help - if you're so concerned.
You are correct that the problem starts and stops at home. I've said that for years. We have a segment of society that views welfare as a career objective, and that class of people could care less about education. I doubt frankly that they even care about their children other than having them as financial assets. Then they blame cultural bias for their own failures. This is a fact of life in today's society but it is nonetheless a problem that can only be solved in the schools. The failing parents aren't going to voluntarily be part of any solution. Tough times require tough measures. Tough measures can only be facilitated by tough administrators. The laws should be revamped to help. For instance, if your child is chronically disruptive or chronically working below their capabilities, your welfare should be cut off and you should be held accountable in the court system. The teachers and administrators should have the true authority to maintain order in the schools. One of the worst things that ever happened in our school systems was taking the paddle out of the hands of those who should be in control. These kids know that teachers and administrators have no real authority anymore, and some take advantage of that fact. Before the paddle was taken away, we may not have liked a teacher or principal, but we certainly had respect for their authority! I use the paddle as a euphamism here in a sense, but it is one of the things that should be reinstated. That and holding errant parents legally responsible. It will take tough no nonsense administrators as well.
there lies the true problem. BC folks really don't care for any outside help if such help goes against the grain of their current practices however chaotic they may be. Furthermore, the downtown office simply turns the other cheek and lets BC's actions ride on the basis of site management.
This is a very messy situation that stands a chance of never changing directions for another century if nothing is done about it. Probably the most promising potential for change is a reduction of the number of students in the schools via competing educational avenues that are becoming more and more available on the internet, i.e., virtual schooling by way of the charter concept. A number of states have this available right now. Eventually, with a decrease in the student base the school districts would have to downsize and get rid of the useless fat that's been malignantly bloating for years. Who knows, there may even be fewer lawsuits against the school districts ( or should I say against the taxpayer).
Honestly you might understand the mess better if you spent some time in the classes to experience the true discipline problem that has been brewing. There is little challenge but to let the top 10% generally waste their days away. The next 30-50% are constantly being distracted from the concept of learning by the lowest half of the class.
Now, take the upper half out of the school system and place them in environments conducive to learning such as a computer and the internet can provide (with appropriate supervision). They will do just fine and probably end up performing better along the way.
Looking back at the schools with the remaining 50% or so......you'll see half as many teachers, half as many administrators, and even fewer concerned parents. Along the way, that population will start to differentiate itself in a likewise manner with the upper 20-30% realizing how little growth is experienced in every week in such an environment.....I could see many of these possibly moving on to small-school, socially-based charter schooling groups.
The remaining batch....well, as Kant once said....they will continue to be fools governed by their own agenda. However, with the population adequately whittled down to this group, specialized elective courses could be delivered in such topics as Prisons 101 and Homelessness 101. Maybe, just maybe, a few more would choose to vacate the asylum thus defined for greener pastures.
Upon review of the result we would hopefully see the last of these lame administrators who claim such worldly knowledge of the educational process. In recent years when I heard one of these idiots argue that books weren't necessary I felt my jaw drop to the floor. When teaching the products of the system that this person manages, it is the most profound thing to watch when a student in a class of 200+ asks whether they should be reading the book or not. Ridiculous questions like these have but one source, i.e., years and years of vulnerable and forced exposure to administrative philosophies lacking in the basics of learning from the get-go.