Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Southwest High School Divided into Three Parts

Southwest High School to Divide into Three Separate Parts by Friday
by Kansas City News

Just as predicted, Kansas City's infamous "Right Size" plan has backfired.  In March 2010, The Kansas City Board of Education voted to close almost half of the city’s public schools, attempting to cut down on a $50 million deficit.  Nearly 300 Kansas City teachers lost their jobs, and several major schools were closed abruptly.  A local school, Southwest High School, has suffered immensely since this plan was put into action.  When the right-size plan went into action, Westport High School, located at 315 39th Street (in the deep ghetto) was closed and it's students were crammed in with the students at Southwest High School, located at 6512 Wornall (not so much in the ghetto, more like in the middle of Waldo).  This "blending" of students from the deep hood with students from the Waldo area caused a record-setting trend of violence.  Southwest High, becoming extremely overcrowded, crammed students into closed quarters with catastrophic results.  Police were called to the school 50 times in the first 36 days that the school was open!  Police officers were assaulted and injured, and the school was even set on fire at one point.

Miundrae Prince, Kansas City's Chief Acedemic Officer, and quite possibly former rapper, announced that Southwest High School would be divided into 3 sections to try to combat the discipline problems the school faces:

1.  Early College - not really sure what this means, but we're assuming that the school is hoping to rope all of the decent students into this section.

2.  Life and Engineering Sciences - or "manual tech" - This section probably resembles the classic vocational tech program that Kansas City schools have had for years which separated those who did not want to learn typical school subjects from the general population.  These students were often bussed away to learn how to work on cars, etc.  Or as Forest Gump's mother says "My boy isn't going to some special school to learn how to retread tires".  I remember the kids who attended the vocational program at our school, let's just say that none of them turned out to be white collar business professionals.

3.  Children as Individuals - This one makes absolutely no sense from the name alone, but district representatives (and former rappers) say that it is for students who want to study the "standards based education".  I'm guessing that this is the middle ground.

Students at Southwest High are given the choice of which program they wish to enroll in and they must decide by this Friday.  Three mothers of students were interviewed and they had mixed feelings - "Jovonda" said that she thought that it was a good idea, "Caseyona" said that she hoped that it would work, and lastly, "Lawanda" said that she did not think that it would solve anything at Southwest.  If the students are allowed to choose whatever section of the school that they want to attend, there will surely be a serious imbalance, as high school students mostly follow whatever their friends, girlfriends / boyfriends are doing.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting article, but a correction... Southwest is in the heart of Brookside (not Waldo) and you can count one ONE HAND the numbers of students "from the area" that were attending that school before or after the school closures - so I am ABSOLUTELY positive that "blending students" didn't lead to the problems.

Fed up KC taxpayer said...

Yep. I agree. Brookside has a double standard. They want their own school and district investment $ so they can prop up their property values but refuse to send their own children. Most of the "Brookside" hypocrits are going to private and Catholic schools. So for the second time they tried to keep the school open by forcibly bussing in someone else's kids from other neighborhoods. Only this time to do it, meant shutting down schools in the neighborhoods where those kids live - making stagnant neighborhoods even worse and full of vacant buildings.

Yep - run while you have a chance. I pulled my kids out a few years ago and wouldn't bring them back even if they offered to pay my mortgage and set me up for life. Coming to KC is like throwing your child's education down the toilet. Getting them out of the district was like winning the lottery.

KansasCityNews said...

Update, the above is correct, the residents of Brookside wouldn't DARE send their kids to Southwest High - it is for ghetto kids only. Anyone who actually lives in Brookside send their children to private schools.

Also, new update:

The principal of Southwest High has quit his job. This school is in trouble. They should just keep the schools in the ghetto open, and turn that building into an office building or a bank or something. Or actually it would be a good place for a private school to move in. It really doesn't make any sense for it to remain where it is.

Anonymous said...

wow that's crazy !!! but forreal that's why alot of people taking there kids out because of all issues that go through that school. They need to go to north kansas city cause that's where i go an their were barely no fights even some of northeat kids went there and they like the school especially the open campus part. but yeah not alot people skip they know they got to be there or they'll be so conqueses

KansasCityNews said...

Oh, no, you poor child at comment 4:44pm. I can tell that you mean well, and that you are probably a very good person. But it is obvious that the school system has completely failed you, you cannot spell, or write a complete sentence. I fear for the next generation. Wow.

Anonymous said...

I remember them dragging a school bus driver off the bus and beating the crap out of him one year when I went there and that was before they closed Westport high, we had metal detectors on all the doors and cameras in every corner.

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