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Monona Grove homecoming might be put on shelf By GENA KITTNER
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/318553
MONONA — For at least a decade, students have celebrated homecoming at Monona Grove High School by engaging in vandalism and conflicts between the junior and senior classes.
Now, the administration is considering a radical solution: Ditch homecoming and everything that goes along with it — including not designating a homecoming
game — for up to four years and replacing it with a formal dance later in the fall.
What do you think? Strikes me yet another example of the collective punishment that school administrators like to dish out to kids that would never be tolerated if imposed on adults.
It is also an extension of a policy that has already failed. MGHS (and many high schools through the years) have sought to curb the misbehavior of a few by punishing everyone - well, students anyway. The approach failed, so now the administration proposes to....do more of the same.
Extend the logic up the ladder. If one school administrator misbehaves, then all the administrators at all schools in the district should be penalized. The notion is, of course, ludicrous. So why isn't it equally ludicrous to apply collective punishment to 16-, 17-, and 18-year olds? Should all juniors have their drivers licenses suspended because a few (and probably more than a few) get speeding tickets?
If students are engaging in vandalism and other legal violations, then those that are caught can be punished by the courts of appropriate jurisdiction. If misbehavior occurs at school, then punish the guilty. Punishing all for the acts of a few teaches a horrible lesson about the arbitrary use of power that has no place in a democratic society.
Totally disagree, Doug. First, what the WSJ article didn't talk about were the problems that also occur in school during that week. Trust me, a lot of teen minds are even less focused than usual on school during that week and more on planning their next round of antics. Second, Paul Brost is a gifted principal and we charge him with maintaining the learning environment in that school. I know he and his staff have spent countless hours over several years trying to turn this around. If he says he's to this point, I believe him. I do not want our high school administration and staff spending their time on this issue any longer. And for goodness sakes, I sure as heck don't want the school board spending more than about 45 seconds on this. We have far bigger fish we need them to be frying. Further, did you read what most of the kids were saying in the article? Even they recognize something needs to change.
ReplyDeleteIf we want to blame someone for this problem, it's parents who refuse to monitor their kids during homecoming week. What do you think your kid is up to at 10 pm on a school night during homecoming if they aren't at home? This year, a parent even helped the seniors organize an "alternate" Tshirt that would have said ".09 Pushing the Limit" Get it? They are the class of '09 and legal limit for driving drunk is .10? Real funny, huh? It's especially fabulous that a parent was helping with this.
As for group punishments, I agree that sometimes these are inappropriately used, but this isn't one of those times. This is a problem with the culture in that high school and you cannot change culture without involving everyone.
One last thing, it always blows my mind that this is the trivial stuff that peole get their panties in a knot about. I think it is outrageous that my son graduated from MG, not taking AP courses, but taking college prep courses, and he never had to write a real research paper. It sure as heck haunted him more after high school than whether or not he had the developmentally-important experience of toilet papering his friend's house. Focus, Doug, focus. They are some really important issues to talk about in our school district. Like racism. But homecoming? Sorry. It's just noise we need to filter out.
MF,
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing you just spent more time getting cranked up and writing that comment than I did posting in the first place.
My post is not so much about homecoming as the mindset of school administrators that allows them to think the collective punishment is OK when applied to high school students.
You are basically saying "hey, trust the guy and don't ask questions." I'm guessing that attitude would not pass your muster if applied to city officials. Even gifted people make mistakes.
And do you really think the kids won't try to do homecoming on their own?
I am aware of the other problems and when they have used collective punishment in the past, it has failed.
If they want to worry about what kids are doing when they are not at school, perhaps a better focus would be to require kids who get a smoking or underage drinking ticket to attend a smoking or alcohol education class.
Doug, are you mocking me for getting my panties in a knot about people who get their panties in a knot? ouchee. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm not saying "trust the guy no matter what." I have far less respect for authority than that! I am saying that I know a lot of time and effort has been poured into this over multiple years by someone who is very good at what he does. If he says he's got nothin' left, I'm inclined to support him. If someone in the community can come up with a solution that hasn't already been tried, then more power to 'em.
Maybe I'm like the frog in the pot of water that is being warmed on the stove and I don't notice it being any worse. I've had one or more kids in MGHS since 1999, I think, and it seems like the behavior ebbs and flows.
ReplyDeleteDoug:
ReplyDeleteAs a member of the MG School Board, I support Paul Brost's recommendations. I support it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it provides an opportunity to improve the learning environment of our high school, which ought to be the day-to-day focus of our administrators there, and ultimately those of us elected to serve the district.
In your blog post, you mentioned the vandalism incurred during homecoming week. That's a concern, but not my primary one. I care mostly about the learning environment of our schools, and the learning environment at our high school takes a nosedive during homecoming week. That's not just the view of Paul, but the view of his fellow administrators, as well as a number of faculty who I've spoken to in the past several years about this issue. In fact, one teacher, a 22-year veteran of the district, told the board that homecoming antics had gotten noticeably worse during his tenure at the high school, and learning had suffered as a consequence. Talk to some of our newer teaching staff -- particularly those who have come from other districts -- and they use words like "appalling" and "astonished" at the rancor that goes on among students, and between grades, during that week. Students falling asleep in class (no doubt because they had been up the night before until 2-3 a.m.), students deliberately skipping school (sometimes with the knowing support of their parents) because they had been up the night before, students constantly pushing the boundaries of appropriate behavior (Paul says the most frequent question asked by students during homecoming week is: How much can I get away with and not be suspended from school and/or extra-curricular activities?) -- all of it a direct result of a district-initiated program called "Homecoming." Our administrative team does very little that week on what they should be doing -- providing educational leadership -- and instead spends virtually all of its time being quasi-fire-fighters, dealing with the repercussions, threats, and fall-out from student antics during the week.
Besides, what "punishment" is the district honestly doling out here? The football game will still be played. A fall dance -- the one Homecoming activity that students treat with respect -- will still be held. The homecoming parade? Have you seen it lately? No floats, because students (and their parents) know that if they host a float at their homes, it will get egged and TP'd (one host family had their trailer donated for the float dumped in a nearby lake). The pep rally? Have you been to one lately? It's devolved into a class-against-class game of one-upmanship, with students proudly counting off how many underclassmen homes they've TP'd or egged (vandalized, if anyone's honest about it.)
The odd thing about all this -- and it's a perennial issue for those of us involved in the district -- is that by and large we have very good students. Talk to Paul, and he'll say that often -- "we have good kids." Our truancy rates aren't abnormally high, (relative to other districts), we have a solid graduation rate, and I don't believe we have lots of students suspended from school, or after-school activiities such as sports, because of behavioral issues. But for some reason, the week that's labeled "homecoming" is viewed by many students -- not all of them, but a lot more than a few or a handful -- as a license to misbehave, or break the normal rules of conduct, or engage in conduct they normally otherwise wouldn't. And it doesn't just seep into the classroom; it's a full-blown tsunami, and the students who aren't interested in after-hours homecoming antics, and care about having a productive learning environment at the school, often suffer because of it.
I'm not naive to think all of this is going to go away next year. This culture about homecoming has built up over a number of years, and it may very well take several years to mitigate it.
But if cancelling homecoming provides an opportunity to better the learning environment of our high school, then I'm all for it. I don't see that as punishment; I see it as trying to create and nurture a better environment for all of our students.
Well, heavens, whose knickers are knotted now?
ReplyDelete"I'm not naive to think all of this is going to go away next year. This culture about homecoming has built up over a number of years, and it may very well take several years to mitigate it."
ReplyDeleteAnd so-you delete homecoming for four years? Who are you punishing now? The whole middle school. Weird.
You must in the smoke park crowd-because of the actions of few shut it down for....hell why not a generation-while you are at it?
Mr. McDade hit the button on the head.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it is the idiotic thought process (or lack there-of) of parents who believe that these behaviours are acceptable and should be supported.
A few years ago, we hired a nanny from the high school to stay with our kids during the summer time when we had to be at work.
Some of the behaviour that this "nanny" thought was appropriate in front of our elementary aged children was indeed appalling.
Yah, we are punishing the middle schoolers.
However, I know some of these middle schoolers. If they really want a Homecoming, and they are committed to behaving and giving back to their community, as I know many of them are capable of, it will happen.
Stem the flow of idiocy. God knows our district doesn't need any more negative publicity after the racial antics last year.
Totally agree with Mr. Brost and some of your other posters. Good lord. School is about school, not all this other stuff. Mr. McDade was exactly right, and as the parent of children who deeply value their learning environment, and not all this silliness, I say Bravo to the staff and administration for standing up to kids whose parents cannot say no or whose parents think it is cool to be cool with the kids. Get back to the very real issues you have at MGHS having to do with the actual education- like the science classes? The lack of enough challenging courses? Etc etc.....
ReplyDeletesorry-it punishes 5th graders as well-if they board cancels it for four years-
ReplyDeleteSo we punish el. students as well-
I'll say one more thing and then unbundle my undies.
ReplyDeleteI suspect many of us adults are remembering our own high schools and how much fun we had during homecoming week with the floats, skits, and so forth. And then we think our kids will be missing out on that. But the thing is, our kids have been missing out on that for years because we don't have that sort of homecoming at MG. It's not lighthearted, fun competition between the classes. Most of the kids ignore the sanctioned activities in favor of less positive behaviors. Like the floats. Remember when we used to gather at someone's garage or barn every night for a week and build a float? Not at MG. Our kids have never had that because nobody wants to have their home vandalized because the float is there. We did let our trailer be used last year, and it ended up being stolen and ditched in Lake Monona. Maybe if we let it settle down for a few years, future kids can have the sort of fun homecoming common at other schools rather than what we have at MG. Just talk to people who have kids at other schools - we are unique in this problem and on this topic, that's not a good thing.
MG's problems with homecoming are not remotely close to being unique. In fact, I'd say they are ordinary.
ReplyDeleteTry googling: "high school homecoming vandalism". It saeems like vandalism and class vs. class antagonism during homecoming is about as common as, well, homecoming.
And hey, no fox urine, yet (find that oen yourself).
Story on how a Florida police department addressed the problem:
https://www.policeone.com/writers/columnists/CommunityPolicingCaseStudies/articles/80640-Community-Policing-Awards-Winner-Gulf-Breeze-Florida-Police-Department/
Goldarnit, Doug, you are not letting me get my you-know-whats unbundled, and it is getting mighty uncomfortable, if you know what I mean. I was speaking of the Dane County area. Ask the Dane Co superintendents and h.s. principals, they will telly you MG is legendary in the homecoming department.
ReplyDeleteAnd since you offered the Florida article, I am glad to hear that as a Monona alder, you are willing to double the police patrols during homecoming. But, there's another snow fall today, so the city can probably raise the money for that with more tickets. And speaking of tickets, where are all the high school kids who don't have a lot permit supposed to park today?