A Good Idea

Taken from the internet:

The title reads as follows: “Tennessee high school accused of ‘segregating’ students based on grades during lunch periods” with subtitles that explain, “Students who perform poorly are forced to spend the first half of their lunch period in tutoring sessions” and “One father of a special needs student calls the policy a ‘civil rights violation.”

Here is what that angry dad is ignoring:

“Since the policy has been in place, the school’s graduation percentage has gone from 77 percent to about 90 percent

I might as well throw in most of the article itself. It’s instructive.

The American South has a painful history with segregation, but that hasn’t stopped a school in Tennessee from ‘segregating’ its lunchroom – according to the father of a girl at the school, anyway. Only, La Vergne High School isn’t segregating students based on race, it’s segregating them based on grades. Regardless, the school’s policy to separate students who perform worse academically from their better-performing classmates during lunch periods has drawn criticism from parents and students alike.

The school says students who perform poorly academically have to spend the first half of their lunch period with a tutor. Paul Morecroft is the father of a 10th grade girl with special needs and doesn’t appreciate that his daughter is being forced to not eat with her friends who perform better academically than she does.

‘To me, it’s considered separation, because you have your special needs kids and the kids getting the good grades on one side, and the kids getting below an 80 on the other side,’ Morecroft tells WSMV. Morecroft adds ‘I call it a civil rights violation and segregation, no doubt.’

The concerned father took his troubles to the school district, which explained that the school has a ‘split’ lunch period: half of the period is for lunch and the other half is to help students who may be struggling in a certain subject.

‘They are not segregating them in the traditional sense. If the kids’ scores are low in certain areas, they are getting help in that area. If you want to label that segregation, then that’s not the correct way to label it,’ said Rutherford County Schools spokesman James Evans.

The program has been in place for two years at the school, and is part of a statewide pilot program aimed at helping students perform better academically. Most schools, however, have incorporated the extra help program into the school day. La Vergne developed a split lunch, where some students go to a learning lab in the auditorium for the first half of the period.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2485091/Tennessee-high-school-accused-segregating-students-based-grades-lunch-periods.html#ixzz2jY4Gy2Eh
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Eduhonesty: That dad has bought into the idea that school is a social venue. It’s not. School is for learning. Extra tutoring is the only hope for many academically-challenged students. In regular classes, these students fell behind. Whether they lost their academic footing because they could not keep up, because they did not bother to do the work needed to keep up, or because of outside factors beyond their control, such as frequent moves by parent(s), the critical factor is that they are now at the back of the pack. Once students fall behind they can never catch up by receiving the exact same instruction as other students who are not behind. To catch up, they need extra time and tutoring. Lunch works well because the kids are on campus. After school programs can also work, but often the funding does not exist for such programs — and even where it does, many students simply don’t stay after school. Those kids who are choosing not to do their work can be expected to slip out of school and onto the bus. Parents are often working at this time, if they are involved at all. Some have to babysit or work to help the family.

LaVergne High School’s academic lunch makes sense.

One more note: Reading between the lines, it sounds like they are using 1/2 hour or slightly less for tutoring and 1/2 hour or slightly less for lunch. (That’s what my school does.) Dad needs to understand that a full hour for lunch for his daughter who is academically behind would be cheating her. She needs more academic time, not less.