Your local High School, part 7
One cannot really judge a person until you have seen them face adversity. And what better way to judge the timber of our educational system than to see how they handle vandalism?
Early in the morning, as the staff begin to arrive, the horrible news spreads among the staff: yesterday, several cars in the parking lot were vandalized! Horrors! Shocking!
The caretaker appears bearing a sheaf of three part vandalism report and compensation forms. Each had a five digit number in red, for accounting purposes. The form was detailed and stepped the victim of vandalism through the who-what-where of fact collecting. A tick box was there for victims to select that their compensation be sent to the same bank account as their pay.
The new people, those that have not been through the trauma of parking lot vandalism at a Toronto High School, are outraged. Have the police been called? Has the video of the parking lot been checked to identify the scum? When will Canadian Justice be done? The old hands, shake their heads. They just share memories about the first time their cars were scratched, painted, or smeared with feces. The steward is almost smiling: just take the money, and do not bring your favorite car to school. Save your BMW for home, bring the Ford to work.
Later, one of the hallway monitors, told me that the administration knew perfectly well who the vandals were. There are, at the school, a number of students who do not attend classes, at all. They just float around, carried on the books, generating revenue for The Board, but consuming no expenses. Every High School has a bunch of them, I was told. The hallway monitors know them by sight ... they cause trouble (like vandalism), and The Board just has to put up with them until they reach 18. That is, The Board has to take money from the Province, has to count these ghostly students as enrolled, and has to disburse money to staff for paint and body work.
In the background, as the hallway monitor told me an anecdote about street wise teachers who brought in derelict vehicles for a free paint job courtesy of teen vandals, was the mandatory Multiculturalism is Strength mural. The flags of the world, embraced by the loving arms of some red-black-yellow-brown harlequin. Actually, not all the flags of the world: there was no Canadian flag.
I, Fenris Badwulf, wrote this.
Early in the morning, as the staff begin to arrive, the horrible news spreads among the staff: yesterday, several cars in the parking lot were vandalized! Horrors! Shocking!
The caretaker appears bearing a sheaf of three part vandalism report and compensation forms. Each had a five digit number in red, for accounting purposes. The form was detailed and stepped the victim of vandalism through the who-what-where of fact collecting. A tick box was there for victims to select that their compensation be sent to the same bank account as their pay.
The new people, those that have not been through the trauma of parking lot vandalism at a Toronto High School, are outraged. Have the police been called? Has the video of the parking lot been checked to identify the scum? When will Canadian Justice be done? The old hands, shake their heads. They just share memories about the first time their cars were scratched, painted, or smeared with feces. The steward is almost smiling: just take the money, and do not bring your favorite car to school. Save your BMW for home, bring the Ford to work.
Later, one of the hallway monitors, told me that the administration knew perfectly well who the vandals were. There are, at the school, a number of students who do not attend classes, at all. They just float around, carried on the books, generating revenue for The Board, but consuming no expenses. Every High School has a bunch of them, I was told. The hallway monitors know them by sight ... they cause trouble (like vandalism), and The Board just has to put up with them until they reach 18. That is, The Board has to take money from the Province, has to count these ghostly students as enrolled, and has to disburse money to staff for paint and body work.
In the background, as the hallway monitor told me an anecdote about street wise teachers who brought in derelict vehicles for a free paint job courtesy of teen vandals, was the mandatory Multiculturalism is Strength mural. The flags of the world, embraced by the loving arms of some red-black-yellow-brown harlequin. Actually, not all the flags of the world: there was no Canadian flag.
I, Fenris Badwulf, wrote this.
Labels: your local high school
posted by Fenris Badwulf at 2:43 PM
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