On October 26th, 2009, Merlene Davis's website, "What's up? with Merlene" quotes Jeanette Dibella saying this about Paul Adams, the president of the school: “I loved how he was able to make it simple in black education. It is simple and hard work. So many people blame the families, but you take the child and educate them and make them know they can succeed.”
It's a nice idea, except in Providence St. Mel, they do blame the families. Especially if the families interfere with their graduation rates. PSM boasts of a near 100% graduation rate, but what about their retention rate? Is it necessary to cut kindergarteners?
While at PSM, an intern worked with a “slower” kindergarten student one-on-one so he could catch up to the rest of the class. His handwriting wasn’t as good, he often spaced out, he didn’t grasp math topics quickly enough. His worst crime was that out of all the kindergarteners, he had the lowest score on their standardized exam, something like being in the 10th percentile.
No problem, right? We can teach him. Don't blame his family.
He was kicked out. Private schools can do that. The teacher tried to get them to allow him to repeat kindergarten, but the answer from the top was a firm no.
The teacher and the intern had to watch the parent teacher conference where the department head, Julie Jovan, broke the news to this child’s mother. The department head said, “It was your responsibility to help him after we received the results of the standardized test.” Understandably, the mother started to become defensive, but Jovan pinned the blame on her and ended the meeting.
The intern thought he was an interesting kid who wasn’t as slow as they thought. He verbally answered all the questions correctly; it was filling in the bubbles that tripped him up. He spaced out a lot, sure. But if you’d say his name a couple of times, he’d buckle down and get all his work done. He was observant, watching his teachers carefully to see when he could make a joke that would make them laugh. He cried when he received a bad score because he didn't want to disappoint his granddad. He was only five.
I guess this case is just an exception in "black education"?
Next post: How Julie Jovan called a teacher a passive Asian and called African American parents criminals (And this is no joke, people!).
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