To this day, I still remember my first encounter with Newport Intermediate: pure shock. I was in the sixth grade on my private grade school’s basketball team, and I was still very accustomed to playing other girls from other private schools. The girls I played from these teams did not curse and did not physically intimidate me, but then I played Newport. Cursing was thrown here and there. Aggressive comments were made to the referees and to my fellow teammates. To this day, I do not think I have ever heard so many sixth graders throw the f bomb in that short amount of a period.
Unfortunately, this was my first impression of the Newport education system, and, although I have met amazing and successful people who came from the Newport Independent School District, this first impression cannot be removed. To be candid, I did grow up in a very sheltered school system. Attending a private Catholic school most definitely exposed me to less diversity, but recent news has not helped shift my perspective.
For instance, Winter and Kuzdym state that the Kentucky Department of Education placed Newport public schools in the bottom 5 percent in the state this past March and finished four internal audits that reveal significant deficiencies in the district’s method of teaching: low expectations, the utilization of intimidation and fear, no instructional plans, low-scoring state assessments, lack of challenging coursework or discussion, continuous bullying (local12.com). Furthermore, in May of 2018, the principal of Newport Intermediate and three other educators helped nine third-graders cheat on their standardized tests (Winter and Kuzdym, local12.com). As a result of these recent events, it is challenging for me to view the Newport education system in a better light.
Hopefully, because of these situations, the Newport school district will improve for the better. Likewise, Winter and Kuzdym state that the Kentucky Board of Education gave the district approximately a month to implement some sort of plan for improvement, so there is some hope for improvement (local12.com). However, after having my experience with the Newport education system, it is hard to challenging to see a positive future potential.
Resources:
No comments:
Post a Comment