But I didn't mean it!

Sex! Sex! Sex! Aargh! I am sick and tired of seeing pictures of APS teachers making headlines for admitted or alleged sexual activity with students. Other New Mexico educators have also been accused of having sex with minor students. Last weekend’s Albuquerque Journal had an in-depth article on this disgusting and troubling trend. While what these teachers did to their students is criminal (if true) they aren’t the only people in our schools misbehaving when it comes to sex. I am saddened to report that an increasing number of your children behave badly in the related area of sexual harassment. The new APS website (www.aps.edu) has a link to the district’s handbook on sexual harassment which I excerpted below:

“Physical sexual harassment is any unwanted sexually oriented physical act:
 Purposely bumping or rubbing against someone
 Kissing or holding a person against his or her will
 Blocking someone’s movements or preventing someone from moving freely
 Grabbing or touching someone, especially his or her private body parts
 Tearing or pulling at someone’s clothing”

“Verbal sexual harassment means offensive words and comments, spoken privately to someone or in front of others:
 Comments about body parts or rating someone’s body
 Sexually suggestive jokes
 Using sexual orientation (homosexuality or bisexuality) as an insult
 Sexually suggestive threats
 Spreading sexual rumors or stories”

“Nonverbal sexual harassment:
 Displaying obscene sexual material or placing it in someone’s locker or on someone’s desk or computer
 Writing someone’s name along with sexual remarks, suggestions, or drawings in public places, e.g., bathrooms or desks
 Staring or pointing at someone’s body or body parts
 Making obscene gestures”

In the past few weeks, I have suspended a number of male students for both verbal and nonverbal sexual harassment to other male students. Typically this involves one of more of the bulleted items listed above. The most frequent complaint we receive is from boys who are being called names referring to sexual orientation, making fun of body parts, or intimating lewd acts. When confronted by a principal, the boys often admit the behavior adding “But I was just kidding, I didn’t really mean it”. When I explain to the child that this is sexual harassment whether he meant it or not and the consequence is a one day out-of-school suspension the boys often panic and start to cry. I then call their mother with the child present and read the exact words or remarks their child said to the victim. Then the mothers start to cry or become very angry or embarrassed at their child’s behavior. I explain to parent and child that sexual harassment is against federal law (Title IX) and APS policy. I have yet to have a parent question my decision to suspend their child for this behavior. I suspect this is because we as adults know how demeaning it is to be harassed.

As I said in the beginning, we know this behavior is becoming increasingly prevalent among middle school students. The reasons why harassers do this are as individual as the harassers themselves: ignorance, poor formation, and peer pressure. But one 6th grade boy told me that he did it because he “wanted to be seen as cool by his friends and the older kids”. He tearfully told me he “was stupid for talking like that and had learned his lesson.” That is good and well and I certainly hope he did learn his lesson. But if it is true that up to 35% of students nationwide have been harassed, Mrs. Meyer and I are only scratching the surface. We need your help to deal with this behavior. Please talk to your child about sexual harassment and its consequences. Remind them it is against the law and the consequences if caught will be severe. Let them know it’s never funny and that the excuse that “I was just kidding” or “I didn’t mean it” will never hold up when they visit my office.

Haiti Fundraisers in the works

I am so impressed by our staff and students! This morning Mark Williams, our illustrious 8th grade science teacher, approached me with a proposal from some kids to sell cupcakes to help Haitian earthquake victims. Then a few minutes later, Alyssa came by the office with an idea she dreamed up. Her idea is to sell tickets to students for a Dress Down Day with the proceeds going to earthquake relief.

I met with Taylor Student Council officers and sponsor this afternoon and we worked with Alyssa's idea. As we discussed it, we expanded it until we arrived at the following:

1. Students may purchase a ticket next week during lunch for $3 which will allow them to have a dress down day on Monday, January 25.
2. Students may also purchase a ticket for "Hats On for Haiti" for $2 to allow them to wear hats on January 25 too.
3. Student Council members are developing the tickets and fliers to publicize the event.
4. Council members will sell tickets next week during lunch.
5. All funds will go to the Red Cross.

My thanks to our awesome students and teachers who see a need and take action to alleviate it.

Kids say the darndest things!

Is anybody else old enough to remember Art Linkletter? Art was a TV host and author in the 1950’s and 1960’s who wrote a book entitled “Kids Say the Darndest Things!” Anyone who has ever raised kids or worked in middle school knows just how true this title is. I mention this because I was visiting with students about their report cards on Wednesday in the cafeteria. One student proudly showed me his report card with 5 A’s and 1 B. “Wow”, I exclaimed, “That’s a really great report card. Did you know my grades in middle school were never that good?” And the kid stopped, looked at me, and asked, “Then how did you ever get to be principal?”

I laughed as I told him that grades are not always a great predictor of future success. I explained that I was bored in much of middle school and high school and that it wasn’t until college that I finally got serious about learning. It wasn’t until I saw that education had a purpose beyond just filling up reams of notebook paper with notes that I would forget as soon as I turned them in. It wasn’t until I took classes from some passionate professors who ignited my smoldering fuel that I grew to love learning. Thankfully every Taylor student is not the underachieving slacker I was. I can attest to the fact that many of your kids want to learn. And our teachers are eager to teach them. So it is with great joy that we honor our straight A and 3-5-4.0 honor roll students next Friday. I hope you will be able to join us as we celebrate their accomplishments.

“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity”. - Eleanor Roosevelt

What's new at Taylor?

With spring just around the corner, a not-so-young man’s fancy turns
to thoughts of master schedules, educational plans for student
success, and soccer.

Master Schedule Changes Proposed by APS: Superintendent Brooks
convened a study group in September to look at the feasibility of
having a single master schedule for all APS middle schools. The two
schedules under consideration are a six-period day and a five-period
day. The six-period day would feature:
• Math, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, and one
elective every day of the week for 60 minutes.
• The sixth class would be known as META (maintenance-enrichment-
tutorial-advisory) and would last 45 minutes.
The five-period day would feature:
• Math and language arts every day of the week for 75 min.
• Science and social studies every other day for 75 minutes.
• Two electives every other day for 75 minutes.
• META every day for 45 minutes.
A selection is expected by the Superintendent’s Office in February.

EPSS: The Instructional Council reviewed the CLASS survey results
from parents, students, and staff. They distilled the following keys:
Parents indicated Taylor’s strengths were: (1) respectful relationships
with parents, (2) stresses importance of student achievement, and (3)
students are treated with equity and fairness. The main opportunity
for improvement was providing timely feedback to parents regarding
a child’s progress. Student surveys indicate the following strengths:
(1) students appreciate how teachers allow different ways to
demonstrate proficiency, (2) Spanish speaking students feel positive
about their relationships with teachers, (3) disciplinary rules are in
place and are stressed, and (4) students feel they are treated
respectfully and fairly. They said opportunities for improvement
were: (1) teachers could do a better job of helping all students
including ELL and special education students to learn, and (2) reteach
content to students who do poorly on tests. Staff members
indicated that they taught Taylor’s strengths were: (1) classroom
based practices, (2) quality of curriculum, (3) content knowledge, and
(4) opportunities to demonstrate proficiency. Areas for improvement
included the need for grade and department level collaboration and
training in continuous classroom improvement practices.

Soccer: Due to popular demand, we will be starting boys’ and girls’
soccer teams this spring. We are finalizing who will coach and the
schedules. We realize we have some extremely talented soccer
players among our students and we want to give them an
opportunity to showcase their talents against other middle schools.
We will be having an after-school meeting in the near future to share
information with students and parents.

That’s it for this week. Next week I will be sharing information about
the projects at Taylor to be funded by the bond. Stay tuned! ;o)

It's 10 o'clock. Do you know what's on your kid's cell phone?

Last week, the topic was texting. This week the topic is sexting. Don’t recognize the word sexting? Neither does the spell-checker on my computer so don’t feel bad. Sexting is the sending of sexually explicit pictures, videos, or text messages via cell phone.

According to a CNN News report: “The National Campaign to Prevent Teen & Unplanned Pregnancy, a private nonprofit group whose mission is to protect children, and CosmoGirl.com, surveyed nearly 1,300 teens about sex and technology. The result: 1 in 5 teens say they've sexted even though the majority know it could be a crime… In many states, like Florida, if a person is convicted of a crime against children, it automatically triggers registration to the sex offender registry. Thirty-eight states include juvenile sex offenders in their sex offender registries. Alaska, Florida and Maine will register juveniles only if they are tried as adults. Indiana registers juveniles age 14 and older. South Dakota registers juveniles age 15 and older. Most states allow public access to sex offender registries via the Internet and anyone with a computer can locate registered sex offenders in their neighborhoods.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/07/sexting.busts/index.html

The APS Board of Education is very concerned about this disturbing trend and has proposed procedural directives on what to do in the event that a student is found to have sexted or is suspected of doing so. This is part of a larger proposed policy concerning the use of cell phones at middle schools. Briefly, the proposed policy prohibits middle school students from using cell phones at any time during the school day. Currently students at Taylor may use cell phones outside of the school building before school and after school and during lunch. The new policy would not apply to “students who have a special medical condition for self or family member or if the student is using the cell phone or electronic device for an educational or instructional purpose with the teacher’s permission and supervision.”

I encourage you to talk to your kids about sexting and find out if they have been a victim of this. If they have, please report it to the police and school officials immediately. We want your children to be safe at school.

Textual revolution?

Did you see the Zits comics in Wednesday’s Albuquerque Journal? If you missed it, it starts with young Jeremy looking quizzically at his cell phone while his parents stand nearby.

“Seriously you guys. Something is wrong with my phone” he says.
“Can you still make calls with it?” his mom asks.
“Why would I want to do that?” Jeremy asks incredulously.

I enjoyed this strip so much because it cleverly points out how age effects how we see our cell phones. To me, it’s a phone. To kids, it’s a digital telegraph.

I was visiting with a parent yesterday about how kids use their cell phones more for text messaging than for talking. She shared how she noticed her son was becoming withdrawn and uncommunicative. His grades were dropping and his attitude was less than stellar. Her solution: let him keep his cell phone but remove the texting option. The result: his grades improved but more importantly he became more communicative.

This conversation got me to wondering: Are their negative effects of text messaging for middle school students? My cursory research found:
• Teenagers average over 80 text messages a day
• Repeated texting can lead to pain in thumbs, neck, and shoulders
• Since many teens keep their phones by their beds at night, constant texting can cause teens to interrupt sleep or never settle into a deep sleep.
• Habitual texting can lead to inability to shut down outside communication. Texting puts kids in instant contact and there is societal pressure that makes kids think they need to be in constant contact all the time. A text message demands a response as soon as possible. Plus since teens often feel an innate need to know what is happening there is added pressure to constantly check for new texts.
• Decreased attention span can result when teens are more focused on secretly texting during class than on the teacher’s lesson.

Science is just beginning to assess the effects of text messaging on our youth. But you don’t need to be a scientist to know that kids love to text. In fact I rarely see our students talking on their phones (except to their parents).

Do I think that texting is bad for our students? It depends on each child’s maturity and each family’s situation. I do think that parents should be aware of the potential hazards of texting, both physical and social, and have a conversation with their kids about it. I also strongly encourage parents to check their child’s messages, pictures, and videos to find out who they are texting and what they are saying. Remember, texting is an option and kids need to be reminded it can be removed.

Thanksgiving thoughts

Ahhhh, Thanksgiving - such a sweet time of year. A time to count your blessings and give thanks. At the risk of getting a little “out there” I want to share my thoughts about what Thanksgiving means to me.

The desert fathers of the 3rd century described seven cardinal sins, one of which was greed. In their struggle for spiritual perfection, these early monks found that one antidote for greed was thanksgiving. More about that later. Many authors have written about greed’s effects on humanity. But no author captured the powerful pull of greed more poignantly than Leo Tolstoy in his story “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”

Written in 1886, the story tells of a man named Pahom who complains that he does not own enough land to satisfy him. He sets out to acquire more land but the more he acquires, the more dissatisfied he becomes. Finally he meets the Bashkirs and is told they are simple-minded people who own a huge amount of land. He approaches them to take as much of their land for as low a price as he can negotiate. Their offer is unusual: for a sum of 1,000 rubles, Pahom can walk around as large an area as he wants, starting at daybreak, marking his route with a spade as he goes. If he reaches his starting point by sunset of that day, the entire area he marked out is his. He is delighted believing he can cover a great distance and thinking he has stumbled upon the bargain of a lifetime.

His journey starts well. He covers a great deal of land but he is not satisfied and decides to walk even farther extending his boundaries as he goes. As the sun is setting however, he realizes his error and runs back as fast as he can to the awaiting Bashkirs. He finally arrives at the starting point as the sun sets. The Bashkirs cheer his return saying “Ah, that’s a fine fellow. He has gained much land!” Unfortunately, Pahom, exhausted from the run, drops dead. Tolstoy concludes: “His servant picked up his spade and dug a grave long enough for Pahom to lie in, and buried him in it. Six feet from head to his heels was all he needed.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon said the same thing in fewer words when he said: “You say, ‘If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.’ You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.”

And so this Thanksgiving season, I pause to reflect on the much that I have rather than the more that I don’t have (and don’t need). The much I do have includes a loving wife and family, my faith, good friends, great coworkers, good health, a sound mind (mostly), a sense of humor (usually) and a great place to work. Concerning Taylor, I give thanks every day for the opportunity to work in such a fine school set in stunning surroundings working with great people educating wonderful children.

Like William Shakespeare in Twelfth-Night, I can honestly say:
“I can no other answer make but thanks,
And thanks, and ever thanks!”

Happy Thanksgiving!