Yesterday we held the annual senior auction, which serves primarily to fund the senior "class gift" to the school. Those of us who have watched these events over the years think that we broke several records: most bid at one time and total dollars collected. We will give the class officers some choices as to what they want to fund with the gift that will be between $8,ooo-9,000. I thank them now and will thank them later as well.
But as an educator, I have some problems with this event. It puts a monetary value on students. Popular and high profile students (athletes for instance) generally attract the most bidding. Quiet students who play second string trumpet (for instance) attract much less attention and consequently much less money. When four students get auctioned for $70 and later two students go for $2000, there have to be some hurt feelings.
Some of the posters advertising the event suggested it was a slave auction. This is nothing like a real slave auction and the tasks our seniors have to perform will not approach the hardships of millions of slaves held in bondage throughout history. To apply that term to the frivolity of what we do seems somehow inappropriate to me.
In their attempt to grab the attention of the audience, some of the seniors crossed the lines of propriety. Whether by what they wore or by what they did, some ran the risk of offending while others subjected the school to some unnecessary liability. This unique event falls in the cracks: student council runs the assembly, but no one tells the seniors what the lines that shouldn't be crossed are. With just two weeks left in their high school careers, seniors are more interested in busting loose than mature contemplation.. Maybe we just need better supervision.
All of this raises some questions we need to think about soon. Our Faith Faithful celebration lasted three hours. HS graduation will be at least that long. Both are special times for students and families, but increasingly, people are unwilling to devote that much time to these kinds of activities. The class of 2010 will likely have as many as 30 more graduates. Following our current pattern, graduation could stretch to four hours long.
It might be time to rethink some of our activities, born in the day when had classes that were in the 30-40 student range, and look for new ways to commemorate special events. We can still have memorable events without committing people to marathons and spectacles. As always, your ideas are appreciated.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Project Runway
It's official. Skirts and skorts will not be part of the dress code next year. I am curious to discover which change will elicit the most response: significant changes in our drug/alcohol policy or the banning of skirts. I think I have a good guess.
While the decision had already been made today was illustrative of one of the reasons this is a good idea in our setting. It was a bit breezy. I had crosswalk duty. Thirty feet away a group of middle school girls were gathered to wait for rides and this time of year, to talk about boys, when the wind kicked up and so did the back of this young lady's skirt. Suffice it to say I saw parts of her that should be reserved for moms and doctors. Fortunately for me, I don't know who the young lady is, which will spare both of us some additional embarrassment. Today's half second was enough.
I understand the need to be cool in a desert climate. I appreciate that dresses accentuate femininity and I am not one of those modernists who wish to blur any differences between males and females. But fundamentally, Faith is about education and no strong argument can be made that the wearing of skirts and skorts improve the opportunities for students to learn. And I am old-fashioned enough to believe that modesty should have a place in the lives of young people (and adults, but that is another matter), especially at a Christian school. There are plenty of opportunities outside of school for girls to wear skirts and shorts at whatever length parents will tolerate.
Like some other policy changes, we will review this after a year. I would be surprised however, if the faculty supports a return to the status quo.
While the decision had already been made today was illustrative of one of the reasons this is a good idea in our setting. It was a bit breezy. I had crosswalk duty. Thirty feet away a group of middle school girls were gathered to wait for rides and this time of year, to talk about boys, when the wind kicked up and so did the back of this young lady's skirt. Suffice it to say I saw parts of her that should be reserved for moms and doctors. Fortunately for me, I don't know who the young lady is, which will spare both of us some additional embarrassment. Today's half second was enough.
I understand the need to be cool in a desert climate. I appreciate that dresses accentuate femininity and I am not one of those modernists who wish to blur any differences between males and females. But fundamentally, Faith is about education and no strong argument can be made that the wearing of skirts and skorts improve the opportunities for students to learn. And I am old-fashioned enough to believe that modesty should have a place in the lives of young people (and adults, but that is another matter), especially at a Christian school. There are plenty of opportunities outside of school for girls to wear skirts and shorts at whatever length parents will tolerate.
Like some other policy changes, we will review this after a year. I would be surprised however, if the faculty supports a return to the status quo.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Perception vs. Reality
Sometime this week I will get the final report from the survey we have been conducting over the last month. My thanks to all who took the time to respond. The hard part will be determining if the number of responses is statistically significant and then interpreting what, if anything should be done in response.
I have received interim reports each of the last few weeks. It is certainly a joy to read the comments of those defined as "promoters" which outnumbered the "detractors" by about a 20-1 margin. It is nice to know people have good feelings about our school and are willing to voice them. And while it probably is a character flaw, I have spent more time reading the comments of the groups defined as "passives" and "detractors". I want to know if there is something I can do to "fix" the problems some in our constituency identified.
Some can' t be fixed. When one parent writes we give way too much homework and another writes we are not giving enough, that gap is pretty hard to bridge. My focus is more on the quality of the homework we assign and less about it's quantity. Yet I know that is how some folks will measure us. One parent asks that we be at least one year ahead of our public school counterparts and another asks that we have a program for students not headed for college. While those two outcomes may not be mutually exclusive, the obstacles to achieve both at a school our size are significant.
One of the comments that has consistently been voiced over the years (and shows up a few times in this survey) is that the school has become obsessed with money. I am never quite sure what to make of that, but I know I don't like it. When I took the call to Faith one of the attractive things about it was that people had an ambitious vision of what the future could be. There was a master plan that included ball fields, a chapel, gym and a lot of classrooms. Board members told me they were certain that Faith could have over 1000 students, a bold claim when there were just over 400 students in the school and no Lutheran schools in the U.S. with that many students. The work that has been done over the last decade has fulfilled those dreams.
But buildings cost money and here, the cost of building has escalated fairly dramatically over the last decade. It has meant that we have been in a capital campaign almost continually and building something almost every year. It also means costs escalate. Our mortgage gets bigger. Utilities increase. We have to add staff to maintenance and landscaping to support expanded facilities. As the student body has grown we've added teachers, pretty consistently matching a 17-1 ratio. Those teachers work at below "market" rates in an area that has a higher standard of living costs than where most Lutheran schools are located. It has been a priority of our Board to be fair with them.
The perception that money buys you influence at Faith is hard to see from my perspective. I am the one turning away troubled students from prominent families who promise "support" for our latest project if we will give their students an opportunity. One longtime friend of the school has distanced himself because I wouldn't take a enroll a new student whose entrance score was substantially below the cut-off. I wonder to this day if that was a good decision. Students from well-to-do families have been expelled, drug-tested, suspended and disciplined. They also made teams, got into NHS and were leads in the play. Many families who are widely held to be "rich" don't really do much for our school as far as donations. Yet when their kids succeed, make the team or get a reward too many people snipe that their success came from money and influence. That's unfair to those students.
For most of my growing up years my dad was a barber (not a stylist!). He worked 12 hour days cutting hair for $2.00 a head and half of that went to the shop owner. My mom was a factory worker who never made more than $5.25 an hour. The respect I have for families who struggle to meet Faith's rising tuition costs is visceral. We are blessed that God has given our community people with resources. We would not be where we are today without them. But people who think that money drives decision-making about who gets cut, who gets the lead, who gets admitted or who gets disciplined are just wrong.
I have received interim reports each of the last few weeks. It is certainly a joy to read the comments of those defined as "promoters" which outnumbered the "detractors" by about a 20-1 margin. It is nice to know people have good feelings about our school and are willing to voice them. And while it probably is a character flaw, I have spent more time reading the comments of the groups defined as "passives" and "detractors". I want to know if there is something I can do to "fix" the problems some in our constituency identified.
Some can' t be fixed. When one parent writes we give way too much homework and another writes we are not giving enough, that gap is pretty hard to bridge. My focus is more on the quality of the homework we assign and less about it's quantity. Yet I know that is how some folks will measure us. One parent asks that we be at least one year ahead of our public school counterparts and another asks that we have a program for students not headed for college. While those two outcomes may not be mutually exclusive, the obstacles to achieve both at a school our size are significant.
One of the comments that has consistently been voiced over the years (and shows up a few times in this survey) is that the school has become obsessed with money. I am never quite sure what to make of that, but I know I don't like it. When I took the call to Faith one of the attractive things about it was that people had an ambitious vision of what the future could be. There was a master plan that included ball fields, a chapel, gym and a lot of classrooms. Board members told me they were certain that Faith could have over 1000 students, a bold claim when there were just over 400 students in the school and no Lutheran schools in the U.S. with that many students. The work that has been done over the last decade has fulfilled those dreams.
But buildings cost money and here, the cost of building has escalated fairly dramatically over the last decade. It has meant that we have been in a capital campaign almost continually and building something almost every year. It also means costs escalate. Our mortgage gets bigger. Utilities increase. We have to add staff to maintenance and landscaping to support expanded facilities. As the student body has grown we've added teachers, pretty consistently matching a 17-1 ratio. Those teachers work at below "market" rates in an area that has a higher standard of living costs than where most Lutheran schools are located. It has been a priority of our Board to be fair with them.
The perception that money buys you influence at Faith is hard to see from my perspective. I am the one turning away troubled students from prominent families who promise "support" for our latest project if we will give their students an opportunity. One longtime friend of the school has distanced himself because I wouldn't take a enroll a new student whose entrance score was substantially below the cut-off. I wonder to this day if that was a good decision. Students from well-to-do families have been expelled, drug-tested, suspended and disciplined. They also made teams, got into NHS and were leads in the play. Many families who are widely held to be "rich" don't really do much for our school as far as donations. Yet when their kids succeed, make the team or get a reward too many people snipe that their success came from money and influence. That's unfair to those students.
For most of my growing up years my dad was a barber (not a stylist!). He worked 12 hour days cutting hair for $2.00 a head and half of that went to the shop owner. My mom was a factory worker who never made more than $5.25 an hour. The respect I have for families who struggle to meet Faith's rising tuition costs is visceral. We are blessed that God has given our community people with resources. We would not be where we are today without them. But people who think that money drives decision-making about who gets cut, who gets the lead, who gets admitted or who gets disciplined are just wrong.
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