Did the Assembly Eat Gym?

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My index card was found taped at the front of the room in a third-grade classroom in an academically disadvantaged district. I believe the district may be in defiance of state law. When I left off, daily gym counted as a state requirement in Illinois. But schools with low test scores lock into fights to push their numbers up.

Every day, this school loses time to an opening assembly designed to keep students academically on-track. Students gather in the gym for team-building and pep talks. Awhile back, I wrote about another school in this district that starts the day with an assembly. I still recall my favorite line: “Every student has a right to learn and every teacher has a right to teach.”

I’d say the assemblies work. The kids know expectations and almost all of them deliver. They sit and listen. They chant and cheer when they are supposed to chant and cheer.

But that assembly — I have never observed an equivalent assembly in high-scoring districts where I substitute — has to come from somewhere. Do the assemblies eat gym? Are they counted as the obligatory daily gym?

To be continued tomorrow after I go out into the world to check a few details…

(Or as Jim Carrey said in “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” “If I’m not back in five minutes, wait longer.”)