Lousiana charter high school kicking out pregnant teens

Parent Cafe
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<p>Well something needs to be done about these “out of control” teens. After all, you can’t just have them run amok, doing whatever they want. As for being pregnant, I don’t feel sorry for ya, cuz if you do the crime, you have to do the time and kids these days shouldn’t be getting pregnant anyways. </p>

<p>As for the spanking, they could always get sent home I imagine, that way the parents could(and should) deal with them. I’m sorry but 3 licks on the backside for cursing out your teacher or fighting just doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.</p>

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<p>^ You have no idea the circumstances of their pregnancy. That’s all I’ll say on that as I smell ■■■■■.</p>

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<p>I think it’s absolutely disgusting that one taxpayer cent actually goes for indoctrination religious charter schools. And that they aren’t held up to the same standards of integrity. </p>

<p>Are there good charter schools. Sure…but even in the worst public school doesn’t do as bad as discriminating against young women or failing to even attempt to educate children ina classroom setting. There needs to be a lot more consideration into which schools actually qualify for government funding. </p>

<p>I agree that the best option would be no vouchers. Every one takes away money from already far too limited education budgets. The way to solve the problems in public schools is not to give up on them.</p>

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<p>I respectfully disagree. I think competition is already pushing public education to start examining how and why it does what it does in a way that can only be positive ultimately.</p>

<p>Monopolies do not innovate. They suppress. And that is essentially what public k-12 has been in this country.</p>

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<p>Public sector education is not and shouldn’t be a profit driven model.</p>

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<p>In our area there is alt ed…alternative education, which is in different buildings throughout the region affiliated with the high schools. It’s been around since i was a kid. Girls that got pregnant in high school could stay until they started showing then they went to the alt ed building. Some kids migrate back into the regular high school and some alt ed kids graduate from the alt ed high school. Some alt ed kids go onto college but i suspect the graduation numbers are far lower than in the regular high schools. I think they might still do that, I’ll have to ask the kids.</p>

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<p>My thoughts on the horrible policy of forcing pregnancy tests and kicking out pregnant girls.</p>

<p>At my kids’ public school pregnant girls were considered way cool. Seriously. They were being sexually active (obviously), had a baby on the way to prove it, totally awesome.</p>

<p>It was not a real boost to educational engagement, to say the least.</p>

<p>If a charter is doing really well, has a gazillion applicants and then a kid gets pregnant and is going to affect the tone of the school in such a way . . . yup, I kind of get it. They can go back to the public or to a different Charter but that is what it’s all about . . . putting a value on the education, telling the kids it has value, it’s not a joke, it’s not an anything goes, ha-ha-ha thing. </p>

<p>So part of me understands the policy having had kids in a school system with many, many pregnant kids. If a gazillion students are trying for a spot in the school and willing to not get pregnant in high school then give the spot to one of them. It will send a message.</p>

<p>And let’s be clear here. Every girl wasn’t being tested, just those suspected of being pregnant. And whether we like it or not a pregnant student is a disruptive element. It undercuts the entire idea that the school is selective and a privilege to be attending.</p>

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<p>I work in educational sales and have been totally unimpressed with any of the charter schools that I have had to deal with. The administration generally has a specific agenda or is following a script, the resources are extremely limited, generally worse than the local public schools that they have siphoned students from. I think for certain students primarily in grades k-3 a charter school may work well with a traditional perhaps regimented rote education but beyond that, I remain unimpressed. I have a cousin who is on the second year leave replacement assignment at one of the most elite, selective high schools in NY. Prior to this assignment she was in a charter school in the Bronx for two years and in an all-girls Catholic high school on the upper east side, catering primarily to girls from poor families from the Bronx as well as non-Catholic girls whose family chose to send to that school because it was all girls, on an easy and good subway line and had traditional values. She loved the kids there along with the faculty, some lay faculty, some not but the administration was sluggish to institute any changes and had inadequate resources. After two years in a charter school she said she would rather sweep the streets or wait tables. The administration was incompetent, instruction had to be regimented with unrealistic goals that the student skill level could never master, she had to work a longer day along with a low morale faculty, and extremely limited resources and difficult and unmotivated parents as well.
Zooserman, I am assuming that the school you are talking about is Petrides and yes, anyone would want to send their kids to their gorgeous campus with motivated students, faculty, active parents. Now it is a lottery admission… but before Mayor Bloomberg, only those with connections, political and otherwise on Staten Island got in and once in, you were set through grade 12. I have another cousin whose son just finished kindergarten at Hunter College ES. Her family is from MA and I explained to her mom that it was if her son, a very bright boy indeed had just won the Golden Ticket in Willie Wonka.</p>

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<p>" I will admit my ignorance, I had no idea tax dollars were being used to fund religious schools. How is that okay? Why should the public pay for religious training? Especially when it comes at the expense of actual science education.
I am not a public school teacher, nor do I think public schools are perfect, but this whole movement strikes me as political." </p>

<p>Well Electron Blue, yes, almost everything having to do with the education of a human being is political, because the teaching of most subjects with the possible exception of math involve making choices as to the focus, wording and content of teaching materials and presentations, as well as the tone and content of teacher/child interactions.</p>

<p>Essentially, what it seems to me that you are saying, and correct me if this is inaccurate, is that if a certain subject or slant on a certain subject is agreeable to you, it is not political, but if it is not agreeable to you, then it is political. This is circular logic.</p>

<p>Of course politics and belief systems are inherent in any area of intellectual life-it is unavoidable.</p>

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<p>My college junior is home and we just had a discussion about it. Really, the bottom line is that these girls are not being denied an education they are being denied to be in that particular building. Many things we do as human beings has a consequence, positive or negative. Our particular high school (and middle school) has a sex ed curriculum. It’s mandatory but parents are allowed to opt their kids out. My attitude with the kids is that if they are old enough to have sex, they should be old enough to talk to the other person and old enough to either talk to us, talk to a nurse or a physician and in general make an informed decision. If everyone knows the rules then as distasteful as the school in the OP appears to be the outcome its not a secret. And yes there are those kids that live in a very repressed household, perhaps aren’t allowed to take sex ed and have no clue about their own reproductive health. That is very, very sad but they also aren’t being denied an education, they are being denied an education at that particular school.</p>

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<p>They’re changing the policy.</p>

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[Louisiana</a> charter school changing policy that kicked pregnant students out of class - The Washington Post](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/aclu-targets-louisiana-charter-schools-rule-keeping-pregnant-girls-out-of-class/2012/08/07/698fe012-e0f0-11e1-8d48-2b1243f34c85_story.html]Louisiana”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/aclu-targets-louisiana-charter-schools-rule-keeping-pregnant-girls-out-of-class/2012/08/07/698fe012-e0f0-11e1-8d48-2b1243f34c85_story.html)</p>

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<p>I’d feel better about the policy if the fathers were also tested and removed. A little DNA, no biggie, right?</p>

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<p>To make it equal, shouldn’t all male students “suspected” of having sex have to give a little DNA?</p>

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<p>OOps. </p>

<p>The ought to give the administrators a reading proficiency test. It would be interesting to know if the administrators had attended public, charter or private primary and secondary schools.</p>

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<p>Why MUST they undergo home schooling? Why can’t they attend another public school in the area?</p>

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<p>The elitist attitude expressed by poster(s) on this thread is absolutely breathtaking. We wonder where the class warfare is coming from. Look no further. Maybe kicking them out for being pregnant is not enough. We could throw them into the village stocks or maybe a public stoning is in order.</p>

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<p>Oh, Cartera–so extremist. Hey, it’s just another building, right? I’m sure no one will actually sew a scarlet A on anyone’s outfit, right? (certainly not of the boys…they’re not having sex, it’s awful girls getting themselves pregnant and being a bad influence.)</p>

<p>Disgusting comments here.</p>

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<p>Well Electron Blue, yes, almost everything having to do with the education of a human being is political, because the teaching of most subjects with the possible exception of math involve making choices as to the focus, wording and content of teaching materials and presentations, as well as the tone and content of teacher/child interactions.</p>

<p>OK, would it have been better if Electron Blue said “obviously” political? Have you seen some of the descriptions of the curriculum (curricula?) being taught to kids at some of these schools? OK, let me again post an excerpt from the Reuters article I posted up-thread:</p>

<p>*Far more openings are available at smaller, less prestigious religious schools, including some that are just a few years old and others that have struggled to attract tuition-paying students.</p>

<p>The school willing to accept the most voucher students – 314 – is New Living Word in Ruston, which has a top-ranked basketball team but no library. Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.</p>

<p>The Upperroom Bible Church Academy in New Orleans, a bunker-like building with no windows or playground, also has plenty of slots open. It seeks to bring in 214 voucher students, worth up to $1.8 million in state funding.</p>

<p>At Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, pastor-turned-principal Marie Carrier hopes to secure extra space to enroll 135 voucher students, though she now has room for just a few dozen. Her first- through eighth-grade students sit in cubicles for much of the day and move at their own pace through Christian workbooks, such as a beginning science text that explains “what God made” on each of the six days of creation. They are not exposed to the theory of evolution.</p>

<p>“We try to stay away from all those things that might confuse our children,” Carrier said.</p>

<p>Other schools approved for state-funded vouchers use social studies texts warning that liberals threaten global prosperity; Bible-based math books that don’t cover modern concepts such as set theory; and biology texts built around refuting evolution.
*
This is OK?</p>

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<p>As a pp stated, I have NO idea about the pregnancy…all i can say is this…9/10 it is consensual, for the ones that were raped, yeah that would suck, but most of the time it is parents who just drop the ball. People should not have to deal with a pregnant girl’s mood swings just because she couldn’t keep her hormones in check, as far as I am concerned, let them stay home because at some point, whether it be the parent or the taxpayer SOMEBODY will have to foot the bill just because that person was irresponsible, and idc what anyone says, I was asked to have sex at 16 with no condom and you know what I said? NO, why? because it’s wrong and I knew I could not afford to have a baby…it’s common sense…too bad though…common sense doesn’t seem to be too common these days.</p>

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<p>I cannot believe tax payer money can pay for a religious education. I guess nothing surprises me anymore.</p>