For the most part, staffers who allegedly assaulted students have faced no criminal charges or internal discipline; some have even been promoted.
…illustrates the risk that for-profit schools, which are favored by the Trump administration and new Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, may put earnings ahead of student welfare.
“That place was like a prison,” he said.
These are just a few quotes that describe Camelot Education, an alternative school for “disruptive students” and “students with bad grades”. While I’ve been mentioning another alternative school lately in the Smyrna series, the Christina School District is looking to replace Parkway Academy (which goes by the corporate name of Pathways of Delaware) with this Camelot Education. Slate.com did two very good articles about Camelot which you can find here and here. They didn’t have much good stuff to say about them.
Reports of staff abuse and prison-like conditions in some of their schools. But all Christina has to do is have a potential vendor fit into their matrix to get a “prefered score”. For a district like Christina, the LAST thing they do to do is send students to these hellholes. I have to wonder, given the Smyrna series I’ve been working on, just how much money is going to these alternative schools? Is the solution worse than the original problem? Are our districts doing EVERYTHING they can before this point? Are they using best practice and proven policies, as well as school-based interventions? Or are they just throwing these kids to the wolves so someone else can “handle” them?
I said it a few weeks ago. This blog was going to shift course and go back to basics. You can just add this kind of crap to the list. I can pretty much guarantee the Smyrna series will not be the last I write about harsh discipline in our schools. And looking into alternative schools is at the top of that list! If any parent or student, past or present, has tales to tell about Delaware’s alternative schools, please get in touch with me. It is time to rip the Band-Aid open!
To read the entire presentation the Christina administration will present to their board next Tuesday night, read below. If I were any Christina Board of Education member, I would do your research very carefully before you vote on this contract. Student’s safety is more than just a damn matrix! This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve stopped a contract from going through up there.
The Season Of Myths 