My son made the honor roll his first semester in high school. I’m very proud of him. He’s in a competitive (translation: high percentage of Asian kids) high school and he’s taking honors classes, where every kid thinks they should get an A but there aren’t enough A’s to go around. An email went out to parents listing the Honor Roll kids. There are a lot of kids on the Honor Roll at this school. They should send out a list of the kids who didn’t make the Honor Roll. It wouldn’t be much longer and it would teach the kids a good lesson: Work hard or be humiliated. Another idea: Only kids taking honors classes would be eligible for the Honor Roll. All other kids would be eligible for the “Honor” (insert finger-quotes here) Roll. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: High School
Rose Parade 2008
A few years ago, my son went to the Rose Parade as a spectator. This year, he worked as a volunteer float decorator with a community service group from his high school. They worked on the City of St. Louis float, which won the President’s Trophy for most effective floral use and presentation. Yeah, I know pretty much every float wins some kind of trophy, but the President’s Trophy is one of the good trophies. To give you the flavor of the thing, here’s the list of “suggestions” given to volunteers by the float-building company: PLEASE DO NOT BRING RADIOS, WALKMENS, CAMERAS, HANDBAGS OR JEWELRY. BRING YOUR I.D. AND MONEY ONLY. FANNY PACKS WORK GREAT. WEAR OLD BUT WARM CLOTHING AND STURDY SHOES WITH CLOSED TOE AND HEEL. TIE BACK LONG HAIR. FIRE LANE MUST BE KEPT OPEN AT ALL TIMES AND THE AREA AROUND THE FLOAT SHOULD BE KEPT… Read more →
More School Choice
And if you want your kid to know what to do when the principal says “Code Blue” over the intercom, move to Cleveland: Students said they took cover in closets after the school principal announced a “Code Blue” on the intercom. I just asked my own high school-age son if he knows what “Code Blue” means and he doesn’t know. In a health care setting, it means cardiac arrest, or more generically, imminent loss of life. So the day your kid comes home and tells you he learned what to do when the principal says “Code Blue” over the intercom is a good day to start looking for a new school. Read more →
School Choice
Another gem from the freshman football mailing list . . . Of the four high schools here in Irvine, only one — Irvine High — has a stadium on campus. There’s a movement afoot, led by local attorney and parent Emmett Raitt, to build a second stadium. Here’s an excerpt from Emmett’s email suggesting that parents write to the school board about this matter: The reasons a second stadium are needed include the elimination of Thursday night games, which lowers student attendance at games; it will ease the overcrowding of the Irvine Stadium facility (and particularly the snack bar, a personal favorite of mine); and it will allow all schools to use District facilities for their graduations, which they do not now do. Hmmm . . . I can’t see how increasing student attendance is going to ease overcrowding, nor do I think the fact that some local fatso thinks… Read more →
Getting to Know You
My son’s just diagnosed and fixed a problem with my wife’s laptop PC . . . “I should join the Northwood [his high school] Tech Squad,” he says, “with all the guys who tuck their shirts in.” “That reminds me,” my wife says to him. “What clubs are you in at school?” “What clubs am I in?” he says. “How about none?” “You need to be in a club,” she says. I say, “He’s in football and roller hockey.” “He can be in those,” she says, “but he still needs to be in a club so he can get to know people.” For some reason, this launches the boy into a Rodgers and Hammerstein tune . . . “Getting to knooooow yooooou . . .” “Can you look it up,” my wife says, “and see what clubs they have at Northwood?” “No,” I say. “I’m busy.” Which I am. “When… Read more →
This Week in Sports Parents Must Die
My son’s playing freshman football, pursuant to which I received the following email (names changed): Fellow Freshman parents, Zelda and I are disappointed with the poor quality of the duffle bags the boys purchased at the start of the season. Rocko’s bag is already ripping and the zippers are becoming non-functional. As a result, we intend to buy him a much higher quality, replacement bag made out of extra heavy duty material from a Montana vendor. My firm has purchased customized travel bags from this vendor before, and our clients/employees love them. We also intend to have the bag (which will be slightly larger to accommodate a football helmet) embroidered with the T-Wolf logo and his name. This is what the bag looks like, sans logo: If ten or more families decide to buy such replacement bags, the cost will be $285 each plus tax and the cost of name… Read more →
I Have a Dream 2007
My son’s going to Washington, DC, next week with a group from his junior high school. Once there, they’ll hook up with a group from Martin Luther King High School for a 5 day, 4 night Discover DC educational tour. Despite the name, MLK High School is not a predominantly black school, a big disappointment to my kid, who was looking forward to his travel companions “breaking out the cardboard mats and spinning on their heads.” I Have a Dream, indeed! Read more →
Different Drummers
In high school, I was in the school orchestra. There were no auditions; it was just a class you could sign up for, independent of whether or not you had any musical ability. And when a student with no musical ability signed up for the orchestra, what transpired was something like this: Director: What instrument do you play? Student: I don’t really play an instrument. Director: You’re in the percussion section. There were three or four of us in the percussion section who could actually read music and play it, so it was kind of depressing that it was mainly a backwater where musical illiterates were sent to bang on cowbells . . . I recollected my days as a high-school percussionist today when one of our tech leads — tech leads — pulled up some javadocs and announced that a method we were using was “depreciated.” Now if this… Read more →