Swimming in the Pensieve

2005.08.25 - 21:24

I received a couple of interesting phone calls today. One was from another Jackie Robinson parent, and the other was from Dr. Gwendolyn Mathews of the LBUSD K-8/Middle School office.

Dr. Mathews called, unfortunately, while I was making dinner in the kitchen. My attention doesn’t effectively divide into addressing 3 or 4 simultaneous tasks without something falling by the way-side. In this case, as usual, it was my ability to pay attention to what I was suposed to be hearing on the phone; as well as focusing upon using a proper inflection of voice in my conversation. I’m sure I sounded either very, very, sad; or stoned out of my mind–at which rememberance, I can’t help but laugh.

Dr. Mathews did ask me what the matter was, to which I could only reply something on the order of making dinner and having my attention focused elsewhere; as I looked around and thought, “Geeze! You’d really have to be in the midst of these five kids, to have a true appreciation of what the real matters are.” Thankfully, she cut things short by telling me that, the documents we had requested to be removed from our daughter’s Cumulative Academic Record folder; would indeed be removed according to our desires.

Good. I really don’t have the time to waste upon addressing the issue properly; had they made the mistake of refusing.

Pleasant good-byes ensued, and I went back to making dinner–feeling somewhat sorry for the woman in having to work under somebody like Steinhauser.

In that same vein, I was left to ponder anew how the conspicuous absence of the ever-timid Chris Steinhauser, from the discussion of falsified documents, screams of an LBUSD culture of passive administrative ineptitude; particularly when contrasted against the usual manner in which Carl Cohn handled such matters. Just a few years ago, the general situation might have been a bit worse, but we had somebody who would assess a situation and take decisive action–implementing the shortest lucid pathway to a solution. Now, the best we can hope for is Press Telegram articles about a school district that wags its tail for meaningless awards, faulty attribution of skyrocketing property values, and a string of empty promises.

:::Shudder::: This does not bode well for our future.

The parent call came much earlier in the day, and was an interesting confirmation of our family’s experiences with LBUSD, Jackie Robinson Academy, et al.

Apparently (pardon the pun), as the corroboration goes, while LBUSD hates accommodating a child under special education; they writhe in inexorable agony at the mere mention of accommodating the special needs of the gifted child in any other way than their one-size-fits-all, low-balled, approach to GATE program provisions.

This woman was also told that her gifted child was the only one in Robinson, so she had to take her child to another school, across town, where GATE programs were provided to the students. She spoke of many other troubles and lies spoken to her, by the principal, in nearly the same words we have used to describe our own experiences with the district drones. (Does this sound vaguely familiar to some of you, out there?)

However, her greater impetus for speaking with me was to confirm that her daughter and ours would be able to keep in contact with one another in the future. It seems that a mutual bond of kinship developed between these two third-graders, last term; and the general reaction was one of angst at the spectre of possible non-friendship developing as a result of our departure from the jaws of LBUSD (well, it is a paper tiger, at any rate).

I’ll give you three guesses what the topic of conversation turned to; after tendering assurances that the girls would definitely be accorded time together, beginning next week; and only the first guess counts.

Yup! CAliVA@Kern, and the K12 curriculum, and she seemed very interested in taking a closer look at the concept next week. I do hope that this is something that can work into her lifestyle. I want you folks to know that I’m beginning to feel like an Amway Sales Associate, here; but, it is easy to be enthusiastic about CAliVA, given our experiences to date.