The T-Shirt Scandal causes school kerfuffle
Terrell Jones, a student in Gwinnett County’s Grayson High School, was weeded out of a classroom by a school administrator because he wore a shirt that read: Hempstead, NY 516 a reference to the Long Island town and its telephone area code.
They were convinced he was pushing the drug culture on the locals.
I reckoned it went like this:
Principal: You know why I called you in, right?
Student: No, not really.
Principal: Oh, it’s going to be that way, is it?
Student: What, I’m sorry. What did I say?
Principal: It’s about your t-shirt, who are you trying to kid?
Student: What about it?
Principal: What about it? We have a school policy here about promoting the use of drugs. Or did we fail to mention that to you.
Student: What’s that got to do with my t-shirt?
Principal: Do you Yankees take us for idiots down here?
Student: M’am, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.
Principal: Your shirt, boy. Hempstead 516? Hemp. That means marijuana. 516 is code of marijuana. Stead means land in Anglo-Saxon or French or something. Land of dope.
Student: M’am, This is my hometown. This was a shirt the Chamber of Commerce sells.
Principal: Do you take me for a fool? And I suppose 516 is the area code.
Student: Actually it is.
Principal: You’re suspended. You really do think we’re all idiots. Just because I’m a woman do you think I’m stupid? Let’s see. We have a city in New York that means dope city and by some wild coincidence, just out-of-the blue, it is assigned the code word for dope too.
Student: I don’t know anything about 516 being the code for anything. I never heard that 516 meant that. And I am indeed from Hempstead. You can look it up on the Internet.
Principal: Ok smart mouth. That’s it. Get out!
While the above conversation is fictional the principal’s name is one of the funnier ironies to the story. Her actual name, according to my sources in Atlanta, is Sloan Roach. Personally I don’t know who’d name a kid Sloan. Can you spell yuppie? Her name comes up in a local news story. This is in reference to a fake degree scam that was going on at her school and others. Teachers would get online degrees from dubious sources then get paid more because of their “improved” background. And they bitch when kids crib notes from the net.
Gwinnett Schools officials did not say Thursday whether a complaint would be filed against the five teachers, but spokeswoman Sloan Roach said the system alerted the Professional Standards Commission when it learned of the questionable diplomas.
Roach said the local school system couldn’t do much about the degrees, since certification is controlled by the state
Perhaps she should have remained a buck-passer with this kid and his t-shirt too.
If you want to read more dopey stories from those fascinating schools in the deep south go to the watchdog blog ZeroIntelligence and read stories in amazement. My favorite is how two students have been accused of “lynching” a teacher. In fact the teacher was trying to break up a fight between two sisters and like any domestic dispute the two kids ended up turning on the teacher. So they were charged with lynching. A perversion of the language and laws.
related links:
To give you an idea of the “state of the state” of Georgia, consider the following:
(1) The Georgia governor and “educators” are poised to announce with glee that this year Georgia will not be listed once again as LAST in SAT results. South Carolina, it was leaked, will take the honors for last place instead. You have to wonder about a state that can be happy with not being dead last.
(2) Georgians– most of them unaware of it– are walking around in a STATEWIDE state of emergency of unknown origin. In May, because of the G-8 summit on Sea Island, the Georgia coast was put under a state-of-emergency. When nothing happened, that apparently sent up red flags, and the Governor of Georgia has now proclaimed the entire state to be under a state of emergency (effective August 25). If only the bureaucrats would lie and at least pretend that they had credible evidence of impending doom. But alas, no, they openly admit that “the measure is precautionary” (Lisa Ray, of state homeland security). Makes you wonder what it is that the government wants to do that it cannot legally do without a state of emergency.
(3) And thank you, John, for the story about the Liberian degree mill. Roach is the consummate metro-Atlanta bureaucrat, through and through: “Roach said the local school system couldn’t do much about the degrees, since certification is controlled by the state. ‘It is important to note that Gwinnett County Public Schools does not oversee licensing and certification of teachers.'” Amazing! Roach is making a claim that Gwinnett County public schools are incapable of investigating and punishing allegations of outright fraud on the part of their staff.
And sometime this week I think it is, Governor Perdue and educators will smile at the cameras and tell all Georgians what an outstanding job Georgia educators have done in improving Georgia education. They will emphasize that Georgia students are no longer dead last on the SAT, that actually they never were dead last, because SAT rankings are misunderstood, and that Georgia is not dead last, but only way below average. And they’ll actually smile and laugh while announcing the state of education in Georgia. They will actually smile and laugh.
I am maker of shirt if you want one thorobredtees@hotmail.com
August 30: What I said they would say (from previous post):
“They will emphasize that Georgia students are no longer dead last on the SAT, that actually they never were dead last, because SAT rankings are misunderstood, and that Georgia is not dead last, but only way below average.”
What they actually said several days later (Sept. 2):
(1) “Georgia broke out of the SAT basement Tuesday with a 3-point jump in its average score on the college entrance exam.” –Atlanta Journal [No, I am not making this quote up.]
(2) “I’m glad it’s not us anymore. It’s embarrassing to be last.” –A student from the University of Georgia. [Again, the test scores were THREE POINTS higher than last year’s.]
(3) “Cameron Fincher, regents proffessor of higher education and psychology at the University of Georgia, said the SATs were never meant to be a comparative tool. ‘The more people who take the test, the lower the state average is going to be.'” –Atlanta Journal [Again the mantra: Lousy scores aren’t really all that significant.]
(4) “Georgia’s 50th-place finish the past two years stung, fueling public perception that the state is last in education even though other measures place Georgia below the national average but not dead last.” — Atlanta Journal [Well thank God: Who minds being way below average?]
This follow-up will feel lonely and unnoticed, since its mother-post is by now buried deep within the belly of the blog. Even so, I must share it.
On September 1, the one thing I had not been able to produce was the smiling photo of the governor I had predicted. (The other predictions came true, as chronicled in my September 1st post.)
Alas, my prayers were answered when the governor flew via HELICOPTER (beyond my wildest expectations) to visit 5 most-improved schools and award them each a 30-pound (!!) silver cup. [THANK YOU GOD!!!] (Only a 30-pound turkey would have made me happier.)
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0904/41376165_govcup.html
The 30-pound silver cup is “like the Stanley Cup” for academics, state Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox said. In reality, Northview scored 1,110 on the SAT. That wasn’t in the AJC write-up (why spoil the festivities with facts?), so I looked it up on-line. To spoil the festivities further, Northview is a new school which only last year participated in the SAT because… drumroll please… it didn’t HAVE any seniors to test until then. By the school’s own estimation, their jump in SAT score is probably the result of its own new development.
In fairness, I must applaud Northview. They probably did deserve the award as much as anyone else, and, more importantly, they will probably improve even more as the school develops. In Duluth, the parents can still read and write, and where parents can read and write, students are teachable.
But when you take one more look at the 30-pound trophy– as I’m sure you will– remember that this school was not just one of five most improved in Georgia: It also ranks 7th in the state overall. Fully seventeen of the states in the country have statewide composite scores which beat our 7th best school. (Even Alabama, at 1113, qualifies! ((YIKES!!))
The critics, of course, constantly complain about any state-by-state comparisons. The truth is that they *love* to bring up the state-by-state issue, because if people stopped debating that point, they would have to concede that, heh, a statewide score of 987 spells failure by any measure at all.
[…] ” Roach Clips Kid over “T” Dvorak Uncensored: General interest … reddit_url=’http://www.baby-parenting.com/baby/babyname/Gwinnett’ reddit_title=’Baby name meaning and origin for Gwinnett’ […]
[…] ” Roach Clips Kid over “T” Dvorak Uncensored: General interest … reddit_url=’http://www.baby-parenting.com/baby/babyname/Gwinnett%E2%80%99%20reddit_title=%E2%80%99Baby%20name%20meaning%20and%20origin%20for%20Gwinnett%E2%80%99′ reddit_title=’Baby name meaning and origin for Gwinnett’ reddit_title=’Baby name meaning and origin for Gwinnett’’ […]