Word is that the Special Education department central office is being replaced(?) leaving(?). My school’s longtime(20+ years)and beloved school site administrative assistant has been demoted and transferred via a May 15th letter. There was no face to face interview (that I know of) with the transferred/demoted employee, just a letter.

How will the district settle the grievances that will surely be filed? Out of what budget will the salaries of those responding to grievances be paid? Out of what budget will all these transferred and demoted employees be trained, and from what budget will supervisors be paid to fix the mistakes of newly transferred employees?

1. As an earlier poster mentioned, federal law requires OUSD and other school districts to provide military recruiters the same access to students that is granted to colleges and potential employers. This is a provision of NCLB and took effect in July of 2002.

a. A relevant passage from the Department of Education website: “Congress has passed two major pieces of legislation that generally require local educational agencies (LEAs) receiving assistance under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA)1 to give military recruiters the same access to secondary school students as they provide to postsecondary institutions or to prospective employers. LEAs are also generally required to provide students’ names, addresses, and telephone listings to military recruiters, when requested.”

b. More information can be found at this link: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/hottopics/ht-10-09-02a.html

2. OUSD has included an opt-out form in the registration packet, which every family needs to co since at least 2005 and probably earlier, although I can’t verify that immediately. Three years ago, the District moved from having separate forms for different topics (certifying receipt of the parent guide, opting out of military recruitment, opting-out of inclusion in the directory, etc.) to a single comprehensive form addressing these topics. The thinking was that shrinking the number of forms would reduce the likelihood of one being overlooked.

3. The proposal seeks to increase the visibility of the form by including the opt-out information on the Emergency Card, thereby increasing awareness of the options available to families. The logistics of this change have yet to be finalized, pending the Board’s decision.

It’s true that a lot of parents don’t get it and complain, “The district wants to give my child’s contact information to military recruiters!”

Do the schools have some kind of duty to the child to instruct compliance with this law and law in general?

Of course I believe schools do have such an obligation, along with training the chillun not to play in the street.

As a lawyer I see certain young people – you know who – who turn 18 without basic knowledge of law and the horrible penalties in store for those who get caught in violation of certain laws (75 to life imposed for a 110lb no criminal history 19 year old for fondling underage girls). Or even the minor penalties (ie Minor in possession of alcohol equals no driver’s licence). These kids at 18+ really didn’t imagine what was to happen to them when they did these things. They knew it was wrong, but…

We should discuss the scope of what the urban public school is supposed to accomplish in the production of 18 year old “graduates”.

It seems to me nowadays we just have the survival of the (cognitively) fittest.

Brave New World!

Military service has a LOT of benefits which are especially desirable to lower class youth. Your kids may not need to strongly consider joining up because your kids have other options up to and including living off you and your friends and society.

Fatherless Boys, Trick Babies, Foster Kids and no accounts of all kinds, if they can get accepted in service, have a chance to get out of Dodge, see the world and create themselves an adult career free of ghetto pathology and their unfortunate birth – if they cut the mustard. They have to have an acceptable IQ to be considered and not have disqualifying conditions (which is why they need to get in sooner rather than later before these conditions set in). Higher functioning youth see the military as a great way to start their adult career also. They start at a higher pay grade. They also select more competitive career paths.

Ghetto schools, which typically are NOT interested in the long term well being of it’s black and brown male students (and the females??) are known to make sure the ghetto youth do not have military opportunities. Much of this comes from rad-lib hatred of the US and the military and no little distain for the students either, distain coated in honey.

When we have people such as Elena K blocking recruiters we know very well what they are. They serve to keep the chillun on the reservation.

Until there is national military service including the children of CONgressfolk, I don’t want them anywhere near my kids.

Let’s subject urban schoolchildren to testing that the children of politicians at private schools will never have to take, and then send them to wars that children of politicians can watch from afar!

So like everything else, the stats differ by race with you-know-who being disqualified at the highest rate. Black students on the group average are not being prepared by their public schools to keep this option open (by “prepared” I mean they reach age 18 with little to no coaching on a wide variety of life skills which Ken and Barbie get from their society if not from school).

I for one believe the recruiters should have free access to the kiddies whether the “parent” likes it or not. For ghetto kids and illegal aliens, military service is one of the principal tickets out of the underclass (and underclass mortality tables) open to them. Once that train leaves the station, it’s gone for good. The public school should require exposure to the option. Once the child remains in the ghetto into adulthood they lose whatever eligibility they had (criminal cases, tattooing, more advanced drug use, etc).

I have seen a lot of underclass people get into the military at 18 and use it to make the jump to something their brothers and cousins never had – the middle class and even professional class. It is a very good thing for Foster Kids with no family and kids with a pesky alien status they need to get out of. Service brings citizenship. (At least it used to, anyone have info on this issue?)