The Madison Park Times reports that a Madrona School 7th grader created a hand-made shank and assaulted an 8th grader in the cafeteria. According to a police report (article available here and here):
The victim reported that the suspect walked up to him which what was reported to be a shank. He walked behind him and grabbed him by the head. The suspect pulled the victim’s head back and pressed the scissor against the back of his neck, then pulled the scissor down and pressed the pointed end of the scissor against his spine.
Apparently, the suspect and an accomplice were expelled from the school.
This is my neighborhood school and it has a long history of internal discipline and academic problems and hostile relations with the surrounding community. Madrona K-8 has fallen below the No Child Left Behind academic standards several years running and its parents are now allowed to transfer their children to other schools with more successful records. Regarding school violence, I personally know of a fight between a large group of unsupervised students at a neighboring park frequented by them which endangered my then very young children.
The principal, Kaaren Andrews, touted by the district a one of its wunderkind academic leaders, reacted by indirectly accusing two women who were caring for our children of insulting the students and disparaging the principal’s commitment to them (which never happened). The clear implication raised by Andrews and a district employee who spoke at a public community meeting was that the nannies harbored racist attitudes toward the children (which was preposterous since the rowdy group was racially–mixed and included Anglo children).
When I called Andrews to report that her students had been fighting and unsupervised she reacted defensively and dismissively. A call to Andrews’ supervisor at district headquarters, Ruth Metzger, went unanswered until I sent an e-mail to the district superintendent.
Regarding the most recent violent incident, the reporter notes unsurprisingly that a call to Kaaren Andrews was unanswered. You’d think that after an incident like this that any sensitive educator would wish to reassure the community about the safety of her school and the measures taken to ensure the safety of her charges. You’d think she’d have some training in crisis management and the concept of getting out ahead of a story; of telling the public the unvarnished truth about what happened and what she’s doing to ensure it won’t happen again; of reassuring the public that her top concern is the safety of her students more than even her own reputation and the school’s. Not surprisingly, we heard none of that from Andrews. She relied on a District bureaucrat to deal with the press. And what a ‘deal’ it was. Here are some of the choice passages from the article quoting a District manager:
“I have not seen any handmade shanks in one of our schools, so this was quite unusual for us, said Pegi McEvoy, manger of safety and security for the District. “It certainly was an extreme case we hadn’t seen before.”
As for the tension between [7th and 8th] grades, McEvoy said every school experiences the challenges of “kids sorting through the pecking order.”
Indeed they do, and every school population sorts through these developmental issues by pulling shanks on each other, right? Hey, I might expect this in state prison, but I don’t expect it in a Seattle middle school.
McEvoy continued with her apologetics for teenage school violence:
“This was more dramatic, absolutely…but we see it every place. It’s something we’re attuned to…and we know every school year we have to work through this. It’s part of the social structure of schools.
Consistency is not one of McEvoy’s strong suits. The shank incident was “unusual” and “certainly an extreme case,” but something “we know every year we have to work through.” Which one is it?
The District’s masterful performance continues:
“What we’re hearing from SPD (Seattle Police Department) and kids report to us, that there is an increase of gang activity in the community, but it’s not transferring into school behavior.”
Which is precisely contradicted by the incident she’s reporting. Of course, the article doesn’t make clear whether the suspect was a gang member. But the fact that his behavior mirrored gang-type actions is completely contradicted by McEvoy’s obfuscation.
And who’s really at fault if not gangs? Certainly not the School, oh no. Hold onto your hat: its’ the media.
According to McEvoy, outside media and environmental influences play a significant factor in an incident like this.
“Students learn through the TV and things that happen in the community and about how to respond to conflict…and unfortunately there have been media out there talking about making shanks, so we have kids who have copycatted that.
“We’re alway looking at media trends and alerting staff to say, ‘You may see this in the school,'” she added.
Well, now I feel so much better. But this reassures me no end:
Another aspect to prevention hinges on older students acting as positive role models…
“Any time kids older behave well, that’s a role model, and when they don’t behave well, it’s still a role model.”
And part of the prevention stems from the district’s anti-bullying curriculum…[which] focuses on anger management, understanding social cues, making friends and anti-bullying.
It worked like a charm here, didn’t it?
The problem with the Seattle Public School District is that its representatives are dysfunctional, defensive and borderline competent. They are common-sense challenged and wrapped up in petty bureaucratic infighting and turf protection. They follow when they should be leading and lead when they should be following. They don’t care about things they should care about and see their natural constituency, parents and the general public as the enemy. The District bureaucrats measure school performance solely based on test scores and they reward failing schools like Madrona K-8 by noting the improvement in their test scores (which were failing to begin with) and disparage schools with successful curriculum and test scores because their scores allegedly are not improving.
The District superintendent is a petty tyrant who ignores School District policy when it suits. She doesn’t consult with parents on decisions affecting their particular schools and acts in a totally peremptory way. I’m guessing that because the District has had a bad history of choosing leaders since the last good one, John Stanford, passed away, that the Board of Education has declined to intercede as they should. And the Board is a whole other kettle of fish responsible for a good part of the District’s problems as well.
And I say all these things not based on anecdotes but based on cold, hard personal experience. I also say this as someone with a child in a Seattle public school (one of the good ones which is receiving little support from the District).
By the way, the Madison Park Times article is not on its website (it was the lead story in the print edition). My e-mail to the reporter asking why the article isn’t online was unanswered. Could it be that the District pressured the paper not to make it accessible?
If I recall correctly, that’s actually one of the more screwed-up components in NCLB – they reward improvement (in the form of Average Yearly Increases or the like), but not holding high scores. A school going from 85% reading at the grade level to 88% would be “failing”, while a school going from 5% to 20% would be “successful”.*
*Which is not to disparage schools that pull it off. But to call them “successful schools” rather than “improving schools” is wrong.
Absolutely right. And that’s the mantra that our school hears from these people all the time. They keep saying “you’re plateauing” which means that the failing schools are rising while the good schools stay relatively stable. Not to mention that our school has increased it cohort of students on subsidized lunch programs to four times what it was a few yrs ago which has an effect on test scores if you consider what schools and educational quality these new students are coming from.
Come on. Are you really still recycling your nannies negative experience in the park. Problems do happen. Move forward. Look for the positive instead of dwelling. Your blog is simply perpetuating the negative stereotype supported by the “shank” article. Your willingness to reprint this atrocious headline and reporting communicates your own lack of depth and critical thinking.
Your blog seems to think nothing has occurred over the past two years except for the negative. Thanks for dragging down the neighborhood.
I’m sorry to say that Madrona School’s leadership is the one dragging down the neighborhood. The Madrona neighborhood has a fine reputation of which I am proud. Not so this School, which is generally mistrusted by the majority of neighborhood residents. Not all, but clearly the majority. Of 300 school age children in Madrona only 60 attend the School. The parents are voting with their feet & the vote isn’t in the School’s favor.
The definition you have posted on your website for the name of your blog is as follows: Tikun Olam is a Mishnaic term meaning “repair [or mend] the world.” How is your reporting, regurgitating, or even speculating about this school doing any of that? By putting this negative news out for all to read and fret over you are tearing down all the positive and goodworks (which there are many)happening at Madrona K8 and the neighborhood. Was one bad mistake by a seventh grader worthy of such sensationalist news by you or the Madison Park Times? Was it right for the Mad. Park Times to drop off a bundle of this paper with this headline in the Madrona K8 library? Would you want your first, second or third or, heck, seventh grader reading this about his or her own school?While you may say that I, and others, are burying our heads in the sand, or rather, encircling the troops… why aren’t you accused of the same when avoiding and ignoring the obvious good that is happening there.
If you are so incredibly dissastified with this school and this district please, roll up your sleeves and find the time and energy to do something constructive, not destructive. Please. And the playground incident? Let it go.
I can’t believe how diff. my view is of this incident & how to approach it, fr. yrs. Madrona School is not some fragile enterprise that we must nurture & protect & defend by shutting out reality in order to do so. The School should be able to stand on its own two feet & not need to have stories about its students repressed or censored as you advocate. This is the 21st century we’re living in, not the 19th. If an incident like the shank episode happens you can’t hide it or sugar coat it. You have to confront it head on. Go to the public, tell them what happened. Call a school assembly, tell the students what happened. When reporters call pick up the phone & put out yr perspective. But don’t be defensive as you & all School supporters are being. Admit that something happened that was dangerous & shouldn’t have happened. But tell everyone what you’re doing to ensure it doesn’t happen again & that students will be safe.
For everyone but Kaaren Andrews & School supporters this should be a learning experience, a teachable moment. Instead, for them it is a head in the sand moment. Get rid of the headlines. Protect students fr. reading them. Pretend there’s no problem. Maybe it’ll go away.
I send my child to another Seattle public school, one by the way view mistrustfully by the very administrators who laud Kaaren Andrews, which is doing far more “obvious good” than Madrona K-8. That is where I choose to invest my time & energy. Enough parents here in Madrona have already tried to make that School better & been driven away for trying. That’s clearly a losing proposition unless & until the leadership of the School & District changes.
As for the playground incident, I will not let go the fact that a Seattle school principal felt she needed to lie about this incident and what was told to her. That I will never forgive or forget. You can argue with me. You can disagree w. me. But when you lie to me & in a way that is so obvious & false, then you’ve crossed a red line as Andrews did.
How have I lied to you? Huh? Hmmm… you lost me there.
Ya know what? We were one of those families, as you say, ‘driven away’. My child attended MK8 for 2 years. We left in first grade because our highly capable son’s needs were not being met. But you know what else? My child’s needs weren’t met at the highly touted elementary school in the same neighborhood as the Madison Park Times? He is now in Seattle’s APP program, with about 10 other kids from his initial kindergarten class at MK8. And I will say, whole heartedly, the math he was doing in first grade at MK8 was much more rigorous than the math he was doing at that other elementary school in Madison Park. I was one of those volunteering weekly, if not sometimes daily, in the school. I helped out in other classrooms than my own child’s room. Heck, I may have even scooped icecream to this, now, seventh grader.
This school is not perfect. No school is. I have also heard, (I was not there, but, much like you were not there for your nanny incident, but I believe this to be true too…) that there was a child in one of the younger grades, at the highly touted elementary school in Madison Park, who has been running around and threatening other students with a pair of scissors. True Story! And why isn’t this on the front page of the Madison Park Times? Go ahead, please call that principal. I’d be curious to know if she replies.
What saddens me most, about your blog article, and the Madison Park times article, is that, regardless of this shank, regardless of Kaaren Andrews (and I am honestly not a supporter of her), and regardless of your nanny’s bad experience at the park, there ARE good people, good students, good teachers and lots of goodwill happening at Madrona K8. It is, whether I send my kid there or not, our neighborhood school. (I have lived in Madrona 18 of my 20 years in Seattle.) And this school population truly gets no credit for anything positive. Tell me, when was the last time you heard or said something good about the activites going on and/or the students attending there? I think if you walk in, you will find that it is not the prison atmosphere that you imagine. You can broadcast bad news and leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, or you can broadcast good news (If, say, your daughter’s soccer team was the first team in many years from their school to win a soccer tournament… is that sugar coating, as you say, or is that honest reporting?) Seriously, which do you think helps the school, blaring the bad news, or building up the strong characters that are there? I am not saying sugar coat, but come on, you really think that all children there deserve this? Don’t you think encouraging and supporting the good behaviour of some just might inspire good behaviour from all? Personally, I think it would.
I challenge you to make your actions greater than your words. I challenge you to live up to “Tikun Olam.” I challenge you to start ‘to repair [or mend] the world.’ You might be surprised when you do. It just might work.
I think you misunderstood me. Kaaren Andrews was the person I was referring to as lying, not you.
Let’s call a school a school, shall we? I don’t know much about McGilvra, the school you appear to be addressing. My wife & I visited it & the other school we ended up getting into–TOPS. We were happy with TOPS & preferred it to our tour at McGilvra.
I don’t believe that any school is perfect, not even TOPS. I believe you pick the school you think will be best for yr child & circumstances. I & many other Madrona families have decided Madrona is not a school in which we want our children enrolled. The schools’ supporters can moan all they like about the unfairness, or racism, or whatever of the neighborhood’s judgment. But in the end that’s all beside the pt. Parents just want a good school. They don’t care about much else. Madrona is not a good school in the eyes of most of the neighborhood.
As for what you say about Madrona, yes, I’m sure there are many fine students, faculty & staff at that school & they are largely not to blame for the problems the school faces. I place blame for this squarely on Andrews & the District which supports her educational ideas such as they are. Because of her active hostility to both the neighborhood & parents fr. it who send their kids to her school (which currently only has 15% of its population fr. the neighborhood), there is no possible way the neighborhood can generate the entusiasm you would like for the schools achievements.
What this school needs to do (& will never do) is an intensive outreach to the community. It needs to embrace the community. It needs to win over the community. The problem is that Kaaren Andrews views the neighborhood as hostile to her & essentially her attitude is: this is my school & we run it my way. If you don’t like it you can go back on the Mayflower to wherever you came from (this is an actual quotation fr. the asst. principal to a disgruntled parent). That’s just not going to cut it in Madrona.
I’m a little surprised given the hostility that Kaaren Andrews & the school’s supporters have shown to me that you would expect me to tout the school’s achievements. Generally, if you want someone to say nice things you try to be nice to them or at least not jump down their throats as people have done to me.
You blame me for the bad taste in everyone’s mouth but once again you’re blaming the messenger. I only report what has actually happened in the school. You blame the media for the school’s problems when the media are only reporting actual news. You may prefer that they not report it but that’s not the way things work in or society.
The diff. bet. the rumored incident you recount at McGilvra & the one I recounted at Madrona was that I was told within 10 mins of the incident happening. I queried my nanny closely about precisely what happened. I then call Kaaren Andrews immediately & she confirmed what had happened. I knew precisely what happened & my knowledge could hardly be called 2nd hand. I had eyewitness accounts. I think the incident you recount falls more into the 2nd hand category. I’m not denying the incident happened. It might very well have. But I gather that you’re less sure of the particulars of that incident than I am of the particulars of what happened to my children at Madrona.
Pls. don’t imply that I’m not working for Tikun Olam. My energy is spent on doing that at TOPS, a school whose students, faculty & staff I believe in. If I could say that about Madrona my children would be there & I’d be engaged with building up that school. But neither I nor the parents who’ve rejected Madrona believe in beating our heads against a wall.
Thank you for posting this thoughtful essay and having the guts to tell the truth about what’s going on!! Bravo!!