Having
finished my Democratic Education early childhood through early
college concept proposal for the bright neurologically diverse, the
Twice-Exceptional, by the Fall of 2005, and since there was so much
of a push in the City at the time to establish Charter Schools, I
thought to explore the possibilities of taking Rockaway College the
Charter School route. Obviously, I knew an application like the
School for Democracy's would not work. Still, I wondered since the
school would be for a “disabilities'” group, the
Twice-Exceptional, latitudes in design would be granted and thus a
synthesized Democratic Education, Montessori and Open Classroom learning environment would
find acceptance. Whether differentiated learning and quality
differentiated outcomes attending to the individual intrinsic
motivated learning of a Democratic Montessori-Open classroom would
find friends was an open question, but I thought as the aphorism
says, “nothing ventured...nothing gained”. I went deep into the
process for almost the entire '05-'06 school year. I spoke with any
one who was anyone in the Department of Education having any
responsibility for Charter schools. Indeed, during the nearly nine
month process: I learned the intricacies in the Charter Law, the application procedures
and the criteria for successful application; I made friends and
advocated for the concept.
Five
things became definite by the time I neared the end of the process:
1) the Charter School application required a committee of folks,
especially from the neighborhood where the school was proposed to be
sited, as much to demonstrate community support for the school as to
assure authorizers there were folks deeply involved who knew what
they were doing and could satisfy the pledges of the application; 2)
the governance and administration structures of these schools
excluded all students-in fact, governance and administration were
quite conventional; 3) Charter school authorizers would not sanction
early colleges; 4) the Charter, at base, was a trade-off agreement to
be renewed every five years between the State and the Charter School
governors and administrators where the Charter school folks would
assure adequate yearly progress in ever higher mandated State-wide
test scores for an independence from local school district oversight,
especially in hiring, wages and work rules; and 5) the head of the
school-whether called Principal or Director-the one most responsible
for establishing the school which included the hiring, firing and
supervision of staff and instruction-was required to be a State
certified Administrator.
I
had been unable to enlist anyone along the way to help with the
project. But then I hadn't undertaken a concentrated effort. So,
while I thought having a development committee was problematic, I
thought it could be resolved through a recruitment drive in the
Rockaway communities. That Charter rules went against Democratic
Education's inclusion of youngsters in school governance and the
possibility of students in school administration was not that
problematic to me in that I was willing to forgo student inclusion in
these areas for letting the individual intrinsic motivated and
negotiated learning of a Democratic Montessori-Open Classroom to
happen. Likewise, I was willing to re-structure the concept
extending the Secondary Education Program and eliminating the early
college, again, as long as the self-directed and negotiated
Montessori-Open Classroom structure remained. However, demanding to
make ever increasing scores on mandated State-wide tests the measure
of success of the school and essentially the sole criterion for
continued existence of the school was diametrically opposite the
mission of Rockaway College; in this regard there was no way to work
around this and, thus, by itself ruled out Rockaway College from
being a Charter School-but there were other requirements just as
obnoxious. However, the one about the person most responsible for
the school, staff and instruction having to possess a State
Certification as an Administrator put it in personal terms: I did
not have such a Certificate, nor did I have the money to take the
required degree classes to qualify, and therefore, I was ineligible
to oversee my own school. I mean, I was not going to do all the work
and then give it away!!!
But,
as it turned out, Charter Law of the State of New York forbids
Charter schools to be established exclusively for special needs populations: This was the
single requirement which actually extinguished any hope for Rockaway College as a
State Charter as Rockaway College would be proposed to Start
authorizers to directly serve the bright neuo-diverse, the
Twice-Exceptional, a disability group.
Summer
2006 was approaching and so I turned to Plan B, establishing the
school as a private, independent community school like so many of the
schools I got to know through NCACS. I turned to Alan Berger's
method of organizing: I authored a series of articles in our
community news paper, The Rockaway Point News, and followed up with
informational meetings where I could recruit Pointer parents to form
a core of the development committee. My thought was to get Breezy
Point, where I live, on board and then leverage the core committee
from Breezy to recruit the west end of Rockaway; and, then, if
necessary use the West End committee to recruit the rest of the
Rockaway communities. I figured to publish the articles over
the summer when Breezy swelled with residents and visitors taking the
pleasures of the sun and the beach. (Breezy Point is a beach
community located at the western tip of the Rockaway Peninsula which
stretches into the Atlantic Ocean along the southwestern Long Island
shore.)
I
did not have the pleasure of a progressive organization and the
neighborhood the likes of the Cooperative and Park Slope. In
fact, Breezy Point, was, is and, I suspect, will always be very much
right-of-center, that is, rock-ribbed Conservative and Republican.
Knowing my neighborhood, I surmised-obviously, I still think
correctly-the freedom to learn and adult non-coerciveness attending
learning freedom just would not resonate favorably with anyone here.
The appeal I thought to devise which should work would resonate with
the parental need to find alternate school settings for their
children struggling in their current schools. Conversations over the
years with many neighbors had told me that this community held many
troubled youngsters. So, I figured there was an audience for my
messages and a real possibility of the articles generating the
interest necessary for development committee recruitment., and with the committee, the school itself would become a reality.
The
first series of articles written, Square Pegs, told the stories of
four struggling youngsters. I was relying on parental identification
with these children to spark interest in the concept of an
alternative school for their distressed children. Immediately after
the stories, I penned a second series, Square Pegs: Searching for
Solutions, which outlined schooling capable of yielding healthy,
happy, self-regulated and self-actualizing young adults. Naturally,
the supportive school outlined was the initial version of Rockaway
College re-named “Sands College” for this effort.
(For
those interested in the articles I have posted them in successive
order immediately following this post.)
Walking
through Breezy during the run of the articles I was complemented by
at least one or two folks every time. But, in the end my assumptions
on the ability of Breezy parents to identify with the children
portrayed were proved false as conversations with parents, especially
of parents of children I had previously known to be struggling,
demonstrated either that they could not acknowledge their children's
distress or that they did not believe they actually had the power to
create a different way of schooling capable of reducing or
eliminating their children's hurt while establishing schooling
success. More, the follow-up meetings were poorly attended bringing
in the merely curious far more than the serious.
With
Fall, 2006, well underway, I closed-up any further attempts to
organize Breezy Point. For the rest of the '06-'07 school year, I
took my concept to as many civic meetings as possible talking it up
with parents and non-parents as well as teachers, school
administrators and civic leaders whenever I was given an opening to
talk about it. Non-parents, educators and civic leaders had no
knowledge of Twice-Exceptionality; but the disturbing element here
was that, with one very important exception, no one was interested in
learning about these children. Equally distressing to me were the
overwhelming negative attitudes toward individual intrinsic motivated
learning and the all-consuming belief in the total adult power over
children, which says children must be forced to do everything,
especially learn what is told to them to be learned in school and in
the way the teachers demand they learn.
But
the most disappointing were the parents. They kept on falling into
one of three categories: one set of parents said they were satisfied
with where their children were placed and thus found no need to help
develop a school they had no intention of transferring their child
into; a second group of parents said that it was about time that
children were told what to do otherwise they would do nothing as
children are by nature lazy and must be forced to do everything and,
thus, they would not be bothered helping to start a school based on
children making their own decisions; a third group of parents said
that if the school were already on-going they would be interested,
but since it wasn't they weren't as, they said, they did not want
their children to be lab rats and, thus, they saw no need to work to
develop anything.
By
October, 2007, I was so discouraged and disappointed, I halted all
outreach. I began looking for a conventional full-time teaching
position, but I only came away with a Substitute Teacher job at the
Upper School of The Kew-Forest School, one of the most traditional
academic schools in Queens. I took the off days over the next six
months to restructure the proposal adding a budget and began a very
tentative second community outreach. But, by late 2008, with no
interest in the project shown by parents or any one else I
button-holed, I put the project away taking it out only if I thought
someone would be interested.
No comments:
Post a Comment