Closer Look: Strangers in a strange land
This is a balanced, surprisingly well written story, It manages to put a HUMAN face on a real problem. It is not fair that Lynn is targeted as a depository for these students.
BUT.....
are we? For all this talk about a tidal wave of UNACCOMPANYED MINORS, we are only talking about 70. I hope nobody at LPS are waxing their surf boards. Cause that number is a blip on the student population numbers, not that it is not significant just not quite as CRIPPLING as some would have you to believe,
RICK STARBARD, who I do like, has been out front ringing the warning bells. He's right, LPS shouldn't be burdened with the total cost of this SPECIAL population. But for now we are, so we need to put a positive spin on or accomplishments of our educators and students. Given some of the horrific stories some of these kids have, the fact that they have gotten this far foretells a potential for great things,
Using numbers that RICK has espouse before, LPS spends 10% of its budget on 1% of the student population and these students are of a SPECIAL population too. They are the kids that the DOE has determined LPS is not qualified to teach or doesn't have the appropriate program.
I hate MATH but here goes. Let's start with a $119,000,000 budget then take 10% of that and we get almost $20 million. We have roughly 15,000 students and 1% of would be say 15. Whoa.....there's got to be some mistake here. That's a lot anyway and I don't hear anyone talking about LPS's EMIGRATION problem.
OK, first of all, 1% of 15000 would be 150, not 15. Secondly, back in the fall when this number was about 26 or so, you and your twin Donna said that this was not a problem because in comparison to the big picture it was insignificant. Now, in a few short months it is 70 and counting and you still claim the same thing. This is not even close to over and will be a huge issue unless it is stopped. This is an impact in the respect that it is probably 3 or 4 additional classes that were not budgeted and that take up precious classroom space.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the MATH help. Sorry in your exuberance in matching me up with a new sibling you missed and avoided my point. First of all these individuals are here. It's not in our power to not educate them. We ought to be doing something about asking for help not just crying about a problem everybody knows we have. Second, once again thanks for the MATH help. even at 150 that's some pretty staggering numbers. I didn;t hear you complaining about the SPED dollars.
Delete